AHC: The Caliphate conquers the Eastern Roman Empire, but not Persia

The Arab Invasions take out the Eastern Roman Empire, capturing constantinople and flowing into Greece and the Balkans. However they leave the Sassanians and/or their succesors mostly unscathed.

Would the Caliphate and the Islamic Civilization adopt the culture of the Eastern Roman Empire, their architecture and customs, etc. (as they did of Persia OTL to some degree) ?
 
It's really implausible.
Not that ERE couldn't have been conquered, but that it would have been and Persia not.

Late Sassanid Persia knew the worst combination possible : still wealthy and rich, and divided into civil war or at best, edge of it. If Arab have the force to take out Constantinople, they would most certainly have for Persia : He who can do more, can do less.

Admittedly, with a Persia winning the Romano-Sassanid wars, you'll have a better chance to have a strong Mesopotamian/Iranian power but it would have consequences making your OP quite unlikely.

- Persia success means ERE out of Egypt and Syria, and Arabs having only Persia as neighbours and thefefore target.
- Islam wouldn't be easily butterflied away, but its political rise could.
 
I suppose you could have the Sassanids heed Mohammed's (apocryphal?) letter and convert to Islam (who knows, maybe another Milvian Bridge scenario) and so the Caliphate turns full-pelt towards the ERE.

Of course, more troops attacking the ERE isn't necessarily always going to be better - as the Umayyads found out in 717. More Arab soldiers may mean that their armies lose a lot of the maneuverability and flexibility that gave them an edge over their more lumbering opponents.

But assume that the ERE does collapse and the Balkans etc. fall early to the armies of Islam. Yes, they would adopt and synthesize the culture of the Greeks (just as they did in Damascus - Umayyad Mosque). Capturing Constantinople and its wealth of Byzantine literature... probably a cultural catastrophe in the short-run, mirroring the destruction of the Library of Alexandria in 641.

But in the long-run, a greater exposure to Greek culture might have strengthened the Mutazilite philosophers against the clerics and promoted greater use of ijtihad. So it could have helped prevent the intellectual stagnation of the Arab world. Another consequence could be that without Persia, the Turks probably wouldn't have entered the Arab world, so the fragmentation of the Caliphate could have taken a while longer. (Not to mention this would create gigantic butterflies in Central Asia over Chinese/Persian hegemony over the region).

And of course, with Islam's confidence unshaken by the destruction of the Romans, it's probably not a stretch to think that conquest/conversion of the Caliphate would continue. Not difficult to believe that the Cumans/Slavs/Khazars etc. etc. etc. would all convert to Islam with such an eventuality.
 
I suppose you could have the Sassanids heed Mohammed's (apocryphal?) letter and convert to Islam (who knows, maybe another Milvian Bridge scenario) and so the Caliphate turns full-pelt towards the ERE.

Could have it so that the Sassanids motion to adopt Islam, but stall before actually doing it. The Caliphate turns towards the Eastern Romans, meanwhile in Persia the Sassanids agree to muslims in the court and such, however not necessarily convert in full, and maybe christian exiles from Constantinople help in eventually turning Persia to the Church of the East (since I was under the impression Zoroastrianism was dying).


Of course, more troops attacking the ERE isn't necessarily always going to be better - as the Umayyads found out in 717. More Arab soldiers may mean that their armies lose a lot of the maneuverability and flexibility that gave them an edge over their more lumbering opponents.

But assume that the ERE does collapse and the Balkans etc. fall early to the armies of Islam. Yes, they would adopt and synthesize the culture of the Greeks (just as they did in Damascus - Umayyad Mosque). Capturing Constantinople and its wealth of Byzantine literature... probably a cultural catastrophe in the short-run, mirroring the destruction of the Library of Alexandria in 641.

But in the long-run, a greater exposure to Greek culture might have strengthened the Mutazilite philosophers against the clerics and promoted greater use of ijtihad. So it could have helped prevent the intellectual stagnation of the Arab world. Another consequence could be that without Persia, the Turks probably wouldn't have entered the Arab world, so the fragmentation of the Caliphate could have taken a while longer. (Not to mention this would create gigantic butterflies in Central Asia over Chinese/Persian hegemony over the region).

And of course, with Islam's confidence unshaken by the destruction of the Romans, it's probably not a stretch to think that conquest/conversion of the Caliphate would continue. Not difficult to believe that the Cumans/Slavs/Khazars etc. etc. etc. would all convert to Islam with such an eventuality.

Interesting. Would the conquest of Africa and Iberia be butterflied away? If the muslim armies can encircle Europe both through Germania and Iberia... I imagine islamic civilization would ultimately be centered and develop along the entire mediterranean instead of the middle east, and would perhaps claim continuation from the Roman Empire
 
Oh, Islam would definitely claim continuity from the Greeks - after all, the Koran itself claims that one day Islam would conquer Constantinople (which is why it meant so much to the Turks).

Well to destroy the Romans you would have to conquer North Africa (Carthage), and it's just a short hop to Iberia. Everything that wasn't Muslim back then was said to be part of the 'House of War' (Dar al-Harb), so outwards expansion into non-Muslim lands was both justified and encouraged.
 
The early Caliphate didn't want Persia proper, only Mesopotamia. Their main target was the ERE. The problem was that the Sassanids were in a state of civil war when the Arabs attacked. Every peace treaty that was made was constantly broken by some Sassanid wannabe who wanted to take back Mesopotamia to strengthen his claim to the throne, eventually resulting in the total conquest of the Iranian plateau.
 
Top