AHC: Persia/Iran part of the Arab world.

What POD is required for the area in OTL Persia/Iran to be considered "Arab" the way that North African (say Tunisia) is.~~~~
 
What POD is required for the area in OTL Persia/Iran to be considered "Arab" the way that North African (say Tunisia) is.~~~~
For them to speak Arabic. This is a difficult one to change though, the spread of Arabic in the Middle East and North Africa was facilitated by the fact that most of the people in the regions spoke Semitic languages anyway, which gave the incoming Arabs a little bit of a linguistic foothold. However, Persian is a very different language (Indo-European rather than Afro-Asiatic). I guess more Arab settlers would do the trick, but that may just lead to a geographically split half-Arab half-Persian Iran.
 
What POD is required for the area in OTL Persia/Iran to be considered "Arab" the way that North African (say Tunisia) is.~~~~

As the other chap said, you'd need them to actually speak Arabic and become more culturally Arabic. The difference between North Africa and Persia is that in North Africa, the local ethnic groups got Arabised- in Persia, the Arabs got Persianised.
 
This would likely require changes that predate the concept of an Arab people really...

Persia has always conquered its conquerors, that is the way it works really. The Arabs who overran it found a large, pre-established culture with traditions of its own that, when conquered, bent and proved flexible, but it was never broken.

In short, effectively impossible without major changes that may well butterfly the idea of being "Arab".
 
You'd have to realise guy, it is a major culture of the world, one of those 'cultural pole' - related to India, it is an ancient nation(s)... It is not going to be absorped easily into 'sandy barbarians hordes'.
 
You'd have to realise guy, it is a major culture of the world, one of those 'cultural pole' - related to India, it is an ancient nation(s)... It is not going to be absorped easily into 'sandy barbarians hordes'.

But weren't the Egyptians and Levantines also ancient nations, with their own history, culture, language, literature, etc? I'm not sure how much an indigenous ancient tradition the Maghreb had.
 
But weren't the Egyptians and Levantines also ancient nations, with their own history, culture, language, literature, etc? I'm not sure how much an indigenous ancient tradition the Maghreb had.

Egyptians and Levantines? yes.

But Persia was STILL a power then... and it remained a cultural influence in after. Persian was a litterary language by example...
 
Persian culture is just too sophisticated to be assimilated by semi-urban dessert culture. And there's also the linguistic factor. Too bad, that there was no contemporary Great Semitic culture during the advent of Islam to test whether they could've been Arabized by muslim conquest...
 
Persian culture is just too sophisticated to be assimilated by semi-urban dessert culture. And there's also the linguistic factor. Too bad, that there was no contemporary Great Semitic culture during the advent of Islam to test whether they could've been Arabized by muslim conquest...

To be fair, the jewish diaspora survived to today, and there is the aramean languages communauties... and the endengered south arabian languages
 

Delvestius

Banned
WI, as the migrations of linguistically related people groups happened to play out, a Semitic language such as Akkadian became the language of Persia instead of the current Indo-European languages?

If we somehow had a Semitic language there instead (which doesn't necessarily butterfly the Arabs) I would imagine the probability of Arabized Persia could have been more probable.

Although as it was mentioned, linguistic similarity was less of a factor than the fact that the sophistication and prestige of the culture being assimilated was too strong to be toppled.
 
WI, as the migrations of linguistically related people groups happened to play out, a Semitic language such as Akkadian became the language of Persia instead of the current Indo-European languages?

If we somehow had a Semitic language there instead (which doesn't necessarily butterfly the Arabs) I would imagine the probability of Arabized Persia could have been more probable.

Although as it was mentioned, linguistic similarity was less of a factor than the fact that the sophistication and prestige of the culture being assimilated was too strong to be toppled.

Then it wouldn't be Persia. You wouldn't have the Greco-Persian interactions/wars, Roman Persian wars...nor would you have the Zoroastrian influence, which would vastly change the course of Judaism and, if they even come to exit, Christianity and Islam.
 
To be fair, the jewish diaspora survived to today, and there is the aramean languages communauties... and the endengered south arabian languages

After some reading it appears it took about 6 centuries for Egypt to be "arabized." Egypt is very close to the Hejaz, and was already on the route of many Bedouin tribes. Egypt also became a power base for the Arabs. Whereas Persia is protected by the heavily urbanized Mesopotamia and the Zagros mountain range. Also, Persia was able to throw off central control by the Arabs after about a century. Whereas Egypt was constantly being invaded by Arabs.
 

Almodovar

Banned
What POD is required for the area in OTL Persia/Iran to be considered "Arab" the way that North African (say Tunisia) is.~~~~



Yes, I agree, but he already was at Harun al-Rashid time
Quelle; FROM HARUN AL-RASHID UP TO THE TIMES OF SALADIN (Zoltán Hunnivári)
 
A defeated Abbasid Revolution could be helpful. In the wake of a major Abbasid defeat after the movement had gained strength and momentum, the Umayyads would heavily garrison the Iranian provinces with Arabs again, and probably establish new Arab urban centres on the models of Basra and Kufa. This would affect the balance of cultural and military power and create huge pockets of Arabization. Persian culture would be more consistently identified with subversion and heresy and wouldn't find a springboard for regrouping and recovery of prestige in Baghdad or in the Eastern capitals like Bokhara.
The Umayyad Caliphate is not likely to last very much, but the successor states are probably going to be more consistently Arab in character and self-perception.
Persian culture and language would not disappear overnight, but can become much mor marginal here than in OTL. If the subsequent Turkish groups pick the elite Arab culture, they might help it speading in the countryside instead of the already integrated arabo-persian mix they found OTL. They would not find Persian in place as a litrary language, and that would both prevent them to adopt it, and offer them less motive to turn their own Turkish language into one.
 
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