Teejay
Gone Fishin'
I am mostly agreeing with the historic hypothesis proposed by Tom Holland in his book In the Shadow of the Sword. In that the Arabs who conquerored the P and much of the Eastern Roman Empire, werent Muslims as we know today. In that the Islam familiar to us only started to take shape decades after Muhammad supposedly lived, around the reign of Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan.
The POD is instead of adopting Islam as the state religion the rulers of the Arab adopted either Monophysite or more likely Nestorian Christianity as the state religion. Similar to the process of the Germanic tribes who ruled in the former Western Roman Empire eventually becoming Catholic and adopting Roman culture. In this case the Arabs would become Persianised, although the Iranian civilization would eventually become a Christian rather than Zoroastrian Civilization.
One big effect would be that the Arabic language would be restricted to the Arabian Peninsula, Levant and Mesopotamia. Aramaic would be a liturgical language, while Egypt remains Coptic speaking, North Africa would remain Berber and Romance speaking.
The POD is instead of adopting Islam as the state religion the rulers of the Arab adopted either Monophysite or more likely Nestorian Christianity as the state religion. Similar to the process of the Germanic tribes who ruled in the former Western Roman Empire eventually becoming Catholic and adopting Roman culture. In this case the Arabs would become Persianised, although the Iranian civilization would eventually become a Christian rather than Zoroastrian Civilization.
One big effect would be that the Arabic language would be restricted to the Arabian Peninsula, Levant and Mesopotamia. Aramaic would be a liturgical language, while Egypt remains Coptic speaking, North Africa would remain Berber and Romance speaking.