AHC: Make Persia more dominant

With a POD after 1206, make Persia, or a state covering all of Iran with an Iranian majority a dominant state in South/Central Asia by 1900.

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Dark green is the necessary borders of Iran in 1900

Light green is preferable borders of Iran in 1900

Yellow is the perfect borders, if you can achieve them

Orange is anything else you think you can get without entering ASB territory

Bonus points for the later the POD you have, and extra bonus points if you can make it during or after the Safavids.
 
I do not know a lot about Persian History. I want to see what people say on this though. It will be interesting to see if they can grow a strong and powerful Persia.
 
Well, it seems to me that the Turkic and Arab Dynasties never managed to make use of the full potential of the native Iranian populations and heavily relied on their cavalry oriented armies partially conscripted from the various tribal and ethnic groups they built their dynasty on.
 
Timur commits to Shiite Islam and his empire outlasts him?

Timur was before the Safavids converted Iran to Shi'a Islam, so it isn't necessary to have him commit to Shi'a. How would Timur's empire survive? What would have to happen? How long before a Persian family come to the throne, as opposed to the Turko-Mongols?
 
The Dark Green version is the easiest, since Iran did control all of that more or less at one point.

Parts of Light Green are doable, and in some cases were part of Iranian Dynasties over the year.

A few small parts of Yellow are doable.

Orange, excluding parts of Pakistan, is basically not gonna happen.
 
The Dark Green version is the easiest, since Iran did control all of that more or less at one point.

Parts of Light Green are doable, and in some cases were part of Iranian Dynasties over the year.

A few small parts of Yellow are doable.

Orange, excluding parts of Pakistan, is basically not gonna happen.

With a POD as early as 1206, do you not think it is possible to do at least the yellow fairly easily? I mean no one in 1206 would have expected the Turks to conquer the Balkans and the Middle East, so it shows anything is possible
 
With a POD as early as 1206, do you not think it is possible to do at least the yellow fairly easily? I mean no one in 1206 would have expected the Turks to conquer the Balkans and the Middle East, so it shows anything is possible

The Central Asian parts of the Yellow would be moderately easy if Iran was focused on it, some bits of what's now Turkey would be easy (the Ottomans and Persians swapped some small border territories several times), Greater Dagestan could be done under the right circumstances, however Arabia is a no-go (the last time an Iranic state controlled any of it was the pre-Islamic Sasanian Empire, 1,400 years ago), Anatolia was controlled by Mongols and Turks and later just Turks and Iraq was fluid, so they might gain control there for awhile, but unless Iran has a long term goal and focuses its military and diplomacy on it, it's not gonna be permanent.

Also, if you were to ask anyone with the requisite geographic knowledge if they thought a general state in the area that the Ottomans originally controlled could take those areas they'd say yes, since most states based in Western Anatolia have controlled chunks of the Balkans.
 
That's helpful thanks, since I'm more interested in achieving the Central Asian parts anyway.

Any ideas what the latest POD you could have is and have Central Asian domination of as far north as the Aral sea, and as far east as the Tarim basin?

Also I'd just add, Oman was controlled by the Seljuq Empire in the 11th Century, and the Seljuqs were Turco-Persians
 
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That's helpful thanks, since I'm more interested in achieving the Central Asian parts anyway.

Any ideas what the latest POD you could have is and have Central Asian domination of as far north as the Aral sea, and as far east as the Tarim basin?

Probably the early 17th century, though I don't think they could control the entire Tarim basin, especially given it was historically Chinese.


Also I'd just add, Oman was controlled by the Seljuq Empire in the 11th Century, and the Seljuqs were Turco-Persians

I don't really count the Mongol and Turkic states as Persianate personally.
 
Probably the early 17th century, though I don't think they could control the entire Tarim basin, especially given it was historically Chinese.




I don't really count the Mongol and Turkic states as Persianate personally.

Sorry, I did phrase that badly, I meant bordering the Tarim basin, rather than controlling it.

That's fair enough, though as an Iranian, my family all consider the Seljuqs to be Persians culturally :p, I suppose sort of in the same way the Georgians are considered British.
 
the ultimate solution to all countries' problems is industrialization :D:D:D
getting serious, Persia could possibly achieve domination in Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Azerbaijan with a modernised state by 1900. Access to the Mediterranean and territory in Iraq-eastern Arabia could be achieved during WWI. :D
 

Deleted member 67076

Butterflying the Ottomans would help immensely as that removes the major western block of Persia in OTL.

Another thing that might help is if Persia's military focused less on cavalry and emphasized infantry. I'm not sure if this would help, but historically the Persian states have been big on mounted warfare, and not so much infantry. I figure balancing that would help.

Preventing the rise of the Timurids further aids the Persians as you prevent another demographic decline and IIRC, keep larger amounts of arable land.

Yet another thing that could help is taking Afghanistan and attempting to monopolize the Central Asian land trade.
 
If the Mongol Invasion is prevented by Khwarezm having better relations with the Mongols, what size population would we be looking at by the year 1900?
 

katchen

Banned
At least 100 million IMO.
I'm not so sure about that. There is a limit to the number of people that the Iranian Plateau can support using traditional methods of agriculture, since the area is quite arid. Without the Mongol Conquest, the Abbasid Caliphate would persist in Iraq too, and Iraqis, predominantly Shia though they are, would continue to speak Arabic. And the Khwarizmi would continue to speak Turkish. Maybe Iran would encompass northern Afghanistan, but that would be about it. 50 -60 million would be my best guess as to an upper limit of population, even with new crops from the Columbian exchange unless Iran engaged in overseas colonization of South Africa or Western Australia or something.
On the other hand, Iran might well be able to grow quite large from a much later POD such as say, 1806. If Napoleon had turned south from Tislit and conquered the Ottoman Empire as far as Egypt and Bagdad by 1807 only to have to strip the Middle East bare to deal with revolt in Iberia starting in 1808, it is quite likely that the Qajar will move into Iraq --espeacially if the alternative is likely to be the Saudis and Wahabis sweeping across the old Ottoman Empire from Arabia and persecuting Shiites wherever they find them. Under those circumstances, the Qajar may well be able to go the way to Egypt
 

Deleted member 67076

I'm not so sure about that. There is a limit to the number of people that the Iranian Plateau can support using traditional methods of agriculture, since the area is quite arid. Without the Mongol Conquest, the Abbasid Caliphate would persist in Iraq too, and Iraqis, predominantly Shia though they are, would continue to speak Arabic. And the Khwarizmi would continue to speak Turkish. Maybe Iran would encompass northern Afghanistan, but that would be about it. 50 -60 million would be my best guess as to an upper limit of population, even with new crops from the Columbian exchange unless Iran engaged in overseas colonization of South Africa or Western Australia or something.
On the other hand, Iran might well be able to grow quite large from a much later POD such as say, 1806. If Napoleon had turned south from Tislit and conquered the Ottoman Empire as far as Egypt and Bagdad by 1807 only to have to strip the Middle East bare to deal with revolt in Iberia starting in 1808, it is quite likely that the Qajar will move into Iraq --espeacially if the alternative is likely to be the Saudis and Wahabis sweeping across the old Ottoman Empire from Arabia and persecuting Shiites wherever they find them. Under those circumstances, the Qajar may well be able to go the way to Egypt
You're right, although I was assuming a modern day Iran that didn't suffer the Mongol demographic decline and is has larger borders than our Iran.
 

katchen

Banned
You're right, although I was assuming a modern day Iran that didn't suffer the Mongol demographic decline and is has larger borders than our Iran.
The problem with a modern day Iran that did not suffer from the Mongol demographic decline was that such a modern day Iran's neighbours would not suffer from a demographic decline either. And it's more difficult to accumulate large populations in the pre-Modern Middle East than people realize.
Take Galilee, for example. James A. Michener of all people explored the question of the maximum population of the Galilee in his novel "The Source". His conclusion? Galilee topped off during Byzantine times at about half a million people--all of Palestine at maybe a million and a half. And this during a time of maximum prosperity.
Egypt seems to have been limited to about 8 million people when it depended on the floods of the Nile and irrigation works in places such as El Faiyyum. Nobody ever seems to have been ambitious enough to figure out how to build polders and windmills near the Mediteranean Sea or how to build a canal from the Daimetta Mouth along the Sinai Peninsula to maximize arable land for Egypt in Pharonic or Ptolemaic or Islamic times.
And Mesopotamia?
Mesopotamia was progressively done in by soil salinification in it's formerly most fertile areas such as Sumeria. Did new areas such as the Shatt al Arab get drained and reclaimed for agriculture---maybe even rice growing? Was the Shatt ever diverted to Kuwait or Khuzistan? No it was not. Even the farms east of Bagdad salinified in the 1300s and were declining before the Mongols came in, leaving the Tigris between Mosul and Samarra and the Euphrates from Hit to Ramadi as the most fertile parts of Iraq as they seem to be today.
And Iran? Also soil salinity issues, apparently.
When people can't scratch a living from the soil and can't get jobs in the city, they do limit their birthrates. Or famine and epidemics keep their populations under control even if wars don't do it for them.
This is why even with the Colombian Exchange, Southwest Asia, including Iran were in dire ecological straits until western technology came in and allowed Iran to be self-reliant instead of having to be self-sufficient. Without a Mongol conquest to reshuffle the Mideast deck, Iran would have been hard put to expand in any direction by land except perhaps across the Persian Gulf into the Arabian Peninsula to Yemen and maybe down into East Africa.
Expansion and settlement requires a power vacuum. And in a late Medieval world sans Mongol Conquest, Iran is hemmed in the way early Modern France was IOTL. To the northwest, the Byzantine Empire still exists and is still a power. Due west is the Abbasid Caliphate, which is still intact in Iraq. Due north in the Caucasus is the Empire of Georgia, which is able to defend itself and has geography on it's side, as well as Greek Trabzon, it's ally, and Byzantium, which can come to it's aid.
Expansion due north along the western shore of the Caspian Sea to the Volga might be possible, but at some point, there's everyone from Volga Bulgaria to Patzinaks and Cumans to Tatars to deal with on the steppes. And on the northeast steppes, there is Khwarazem. Then farther to the east, the Pashtun Sultanate of Ghazni. Get past Ghazni and there's Delhi, which draws on all the resources of India, which is the same if one gets past Balochistan.
Only to the due south, conquering the small sheikhdoms and emirates of Bahrain, Qatif, Abu Zabi, Dubai, Sharjah, ect. and Oman, and moving across the forbidding Nejd to take the Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina to conquer Yemen and Hadramut are there areas that are not totally daunting to conquer. The Somali desert is doable. Ethiopia may be doable once Yemen is conquered---and the Sassanids did get as far as Yemen. And there may be lands farther than that--especially if the Shah builds ships.
Yes, in this TL, ships are the key to a Greater Persia, using the natural harbours of Bushehr, Basra (once conquered), Hormuz, and the conquered harbours of Bahrain, Qatif and Dubai and Muscat amd Sohar and even Salala, Mukalla, Aden, Mokha Hodeida and Jidda and Massuwa, once resettled with Farsi speakers.
 
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