DBWI: The Persian Empire becomes Islamic

The chief problem is that initially, Islam was an Arabic religious, political, and demographic movement. It arose at a moment when traditional Arabic power structures were declining and the nature of global trade patterns were shifting. The emmergence of Islam occured simultanious with arabic demographic pluralities in Syria and the Levant.

But, and this is an important but, the Arabic world lacked a bread basket. Despite several extremely successful military campaigns, there were simply not enough Arabs to overcome the numbers and political strength simultaneously overcome both the Romans and Persia. Even so, within a generation or two, said Arab conquerors would have been completely swamped demographically Roman/Persian agrarian peasantry.

The only way I can see Islam, at least in its initial form, gaining hegemony is if Persia and Constantinople are simultaneously weakened by some apocalyptic combination of plague, war, and political strife at the apex of Islam's rise.
 
The chief problem is that initially, Islam was an Arabic religious, political, and demographic movement. It arose at a moment when traditional Arabic power structures were declining and the nature of global trade patterns were shifting. The emmergence of Islam occured simultanious with arabic demographic pluralities in Syria and the Levant.

But, and this is an important but, the Arabic world lacked a bread basket. Despite several extremely successful military campaigns, there were simply not enough Arabs to overcome the numbers and political strength simultaneously overcome both the Romans and Persia. Even so, within a generation or two, said Arab conquerors would have been completely swamped demographically Roman/Persian agrarian peasantry.

The only way I can see Islam, at least in its initial form, gaining hegemony is if Persia and Constantinople are simultaneously weakened by some apocalyptic combination of plague, war, and political strife at the apex of Islam's rise.

Well, it's not as though Constantinople is a stranger to plague, but you'd have to be awfully lucky to land one at that exact moment.

Also, this would have to be a pretty devastating war to those countries, far beyond exchange of border provinces.

All in all, it calls for a perfect storm, and whilst that has occured many times in history that doesn't mean one will always show up. I mean, we could spend all day talking about 'nearly-happened' historical events.
 
Can we get back to the topic of what Islam somehow achieving dominance in Persia would look like and stop this ridiculous bickering on socialism?

We all know the Roman Empire is half socialist - what do you think the grain dole for Constantinople's citizens was?

So anyway, I think it would probably require an exceptionally able string of leaders for Islam to spread by force. There just aren't enough Arabs for a massive army, and their military tactics weren't that special. So that leaves leadership.

Edit: Ninja overrode part of this post.

That the dogs of Constaninople are half Socialist is not the point. He is from Aleuto-Kamchatkan.
 
That the dogs of Constaninople are half Socialist is not the point. He is from Aleuto-Kamchatkan.

You know, when you have to elevate yourself by proclaiming your superiority to that wretched mess, I have to wonder what that says about your country.
 
That the dogs of Constaninople are half Socialist is not the point. He is from Aleuto-Kamchatkan.

Socialism is deeply rooted in the Inkan Empire as well, you know. We may be a small country, but our present revolutionary breakthroughs will soon show the world the path to a better condition. Remember our new rockets?
And don't forget the Socialist Mazdakite Persians that struggled so long against the Jakut Khagans tyranny.

But, back to the point, I don't think that better leadership would enough for Early Islam to overcome Persia. I mean, they HAD good leadership, and quite good tactics. What they lacked was mainly command and political unity. Arabs back then had some spectacular victories over the Romans, and were a serious threat to Persia at some pont, though never anywhere close to really overrunning it. The problem was that the tribes had no political structure allowing the pursuits of results more lasting than temporary booty in most case. And the merchant elites of Arabia were soon to see more profitable spread the religion all across the Indian Ocean and Africa by a trade and preach strategy, that actually worked.
On the other hand, Persia never managed to use division across the Arabs to extenf its control over much of it. Islam worked as a unifying force at least for collective defence, even if noww the Arab Union is busier with internal discord than anything else, with Dubai, Masqat and Aden quarreling for prominence.
 
You know, when you have to elevate yourself by proclaiming your superiority to that wretched mess, I have to wonder what that says about your country.

Well, I kind of got ticked when some godless wretch from a stinking hole of a country spreads lies but I must admit it is probably because he IS from a stinking hole of a country that he has to attack others.
 
Well, I kind of got ticked when some godless wretch from a stinking hole of a country spreads lies but I must admit it is probably because he IS from a stinking hole of a country that he has to attack others.

We'll ignore the dogs of Constantinople comment in the interests of humoring Persia's claim to being civilized, then, okay? :D
 
I think if the Persians turned to Islam it would be a Pyrrhic victory. The Muslims army would be so decimated after the fight that they'd be easy prey to the Christian's. At best they'd be too weak and have to stop advancing for a hundred or more years, and their neighbours would be ready for them. So they'd be stuck in the Middle East and Persia.
And if they got the reputation of conversion through the sword, they'd face an alliance of religions that would bar them from moving any further. They got a lot farther through peacefully trading and convincing people to follow them, then they ever did through war.
I certainly wouldn't see Mosques in every port town throughout most of the world. Trading is the only reason Islam spread so far, becoming the Sailors Religion was the best thing that ever happened to it.
 
Islam might have become dominant in Persia if a few more of the conquering Turkic and Mongolian tribes from the central Asian Steppe had embraced the religion and changed its character, or if the Muslims had truly split into Sunni and Shiite soon after Mohammed's death rather than the Shiite 'cult' being put down similar to how Christianity purged several of its early heresies before the great schism between Rome and Constantinople or its third split with Catholicism vs North/Norse* vs Orthodox.

Zoroastrianism is almost more of a bureaucratic code of the state than a separate 'religion' similar to how the Manchu and Chin have integrated Confucianism, the Tibetans, Buddhism and the Nipponese Shinto. Yes there are tenets of faith, but underlying those tenets are the concrete laws and rules of society which is why Zoroastrianism outside of Persia has so many different 'flavors'.

The only way I can think to truly put down Zoroastrianism in Persia is King Gorilla's scenario of somehow fatally weakening both Persia and the Byzantines while Islam is at its apex similar to how my Viking ancestors 'conquered' and settled Vinland aka all the Native Vinns were dead from smallpox/bubonic plague/typhoid and etc...

OOC:kissingheart:A weaker Catholic Church vs Orthodox meant that the Vikings embraced parts of Christianity ( a whole lot more of Christ being a noble, invincible, unstoppable warrior against hell) but categorically rejected the whole Roman package.
 
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I suppose that depends on your definition of overran, the Persians very much like to think of the Mongols as a brief, easily forgotten moment in which a very small elite temporarily dominated the country before becoming culturally assimilated.

But yes, considering how they did in fact assimilate into Persian society shows just how unlikely it is that a new religion not even centuries old can be so suddenly and easily imposed on Persian society.

Mongols do count, but they came from the east (as the Persians themselves did, a long long time ago). Persia was only once conquered from the West, and that was in Darius' time, when the hellenic invader had superior military weaopons, discipline and techniques, and the Emperor was incompetent. None of this conditions were there in the 7th and 8th centuries
 
But I have to say that Islam is somewhat the most advanced of them. Socialism was developed in the Islamic cities of Suwahil after all.

Which isn't surprising. In Islam there's no clerical hierarchy, every man (no matter were it were born, how he looks or who his ancestors were*) is equal under Allah. Decissions are taken by consensus, as so is the Caliph. We don't have emperors, nobles and high-priests as both of you, Roman and Persians, do. I mean, the idea of been rule by someone whose only merit is being the brother or the son of an emperor is extremely stupid: so stupid that we abandoned more than 1300 years ago (No wonder Shia's ideas didn't thrive in Arabia)

(Yes, I know some Christian heretic movements dispute this view, but how are they treated?)


OOC: Socialism doesn't need to be biased against religion ITTL

OOC2: An islam that's mostly in Arabia might have preserved the more of the democratic tradition all tribes have, and might have not adopted the ideas it took from centralized empires such as Persia or Rome in TTL (in the political and organizational sphere).

* Concepts like race or nationality as we seee them don't need to exist ITTL
 
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Which isn't surprising. In Islam there's no clerical hierarchy, every man (no matter were it were born, how he looks or who his ancestors were*) is equal under Allah. Decissions are taken by consensus, as so is the Caliph. We don't have emperors, nobles and high-priests as both of you, Roman and Persians, do. I mean, the idea of been rule by someone whose only merit is being the brother or the son of an emperor is extremely stupid: so stupid that we abandoned more than 1300 years ago (No wonder Shia's ideas didn't thrive in Arabia)

(Yes, I know some Christian heretic movements dispute this view, but how are they treated?)
To be fair the Norse Christians aren't exactly hierarchical. The priests are a little more heavy handed than what you'd find in Islam, but they're still chosen by the church goers.
One priest in some little village was found to have molested a child. The church goers stormed the church stripped him naked, and paraded him in the middle of winter down the street to the police station.
They take their bible seriously there, not the priests.
 
To be fair the Norse Christians aren't exactly hierarchical. The priests are a little more heavy handed than what you'd find in Islam, but they're still chosen by the church goers.
One priest in some little village was found to have molested a child. The church goers stormed the church stripped him naked, and paraded him in the middle of winter down the street to the police station.
They take their bible seriously there, not the priests.

Yeah, but they tend to take the Bible much more literally.
Most Muslim traditions tend to have a much larger hermeneutical leeway vis-à-vis the Qur'an, paradoxically, just because it is thought to be the word of God in the literal sense, and humans cannot be asked to understand fully and everthing of it. The Shi'i disappeared soon, but their idea of hidden layers of meaning in the text outlasted them and went into mainstream, to some extent. By the way, it was instrumental for modern linguistics and semiotics when their headstart in the first place (ok, it would not happen without Khalil al-Marqi translation of Sanskrit grammar of Panini, and Emperor Constantine XIII Philologos allowing Muslim scholars in the Universities of Salonika and Alexandria).
 
Which isn't surprising. In Islam there's no clerical hierarchy, every man (no matter were it were born, how he looks or who his ancestors were*) is equal under Allah. Decissions are taken by consensus, as so is the Caliph.

* Concepts like race or nationality as we seee them don't need to exist ITTL

Every man, yes. It was not so true historically when it comes to women, though in the Spice Islands they have been recognized as equals long ago.
 
We all know the Roman Empire is half socialist - what do you think the grain dole for Constantinople's citizens was?

Socialism is deeply rooted in the Inkan Empire as well, you know.

As a socialists myself, I don't consider any of those regimes socialists. Aleuto-Kamchatkan is indeed a socialists country, but none of those are.

As long as you have kings and nobles, as those rulling in Cuzco and Constantinople, you cannot calle yourself "socialist", no matter what economic policies you apply. Socialism means equality in both the economic and the political sphere of life, not only in one of them.

But I'm derailing the thread. Back to topic: If Islam had managed to get root in Persia, would it became the dominant force in Central Asia? Would it replace Buddhism, Nestorianism and local religions? How far would it get: just Central Asia, or also Siberia and Manchuria? And what happens when those (hypothetically) islamized Asians conquer China:confused::cool:?
 
As a socialists myself, I don't consider any of those regimes socialists. Aleuto-Kamchatkan is indeed a socialists country, but none of those are.

As long as you have kings and nobles, as those rulling in Cuzco and Constantinople, you cannot calle yourself "socialist", no matter what economic policies you apply. Socialism means equality in both the economic and the political sphere of life, not only in one of them.

But I'm derailing the thread. Back to topic: If Islam had managed to get root in Persia, would it became the dominant force in Central Asia? Would it replace Buddhism, Nestorianism and local religions? How far would it get: just Central Asia, or also Siberia and Manchuria? And what happens when those (hypothetically) islamized Asians conquer China:confused::cool:?

I suspect not on Buddhism. There are too many Buddhists for an Islamic invasion to eliminate them, and mass conversion is pretty rare - not unheard of, but I wouldn't expect it in the subcontinent* or beyond.

Maybe in Central Asia, if Islamic Persia is seen the way old Persia was over the steppes, but even there unlikely. Nomads seem pretty stubbornly resistant OTL after all. No drinking alcohol and having to pray five times a day facing a place they've never heard of? Ridiculous.


*: As the term "India" might not be appropriate here.
 
I suspect not on Buddhism. There are too many Buddhists for an Islamic invasion to eliminate them, and mass conversion is pretty rare - not unheard of, but I wouldn't expect it in the subcontinent* or beyond.

I know the different stripes of Buddhism are very different. However Islam through missionary zeal, economic self interest and royal proclamation still ended up becoming the dominate religion in Ceylon and the Malay peninsula.
 
I know the different stripes of Buddhism are very different. However Islam through missionary zeal, economic self interest and royal proclamation still ended up becoming the dominate religion in Ceylon and the Malay peninsula.

True. Just hard to imagine it dominating a larger area.

There's only so far "missionary zeal" works against people who just don't want to be converted.
 
We'll ignore the dogs of Constantinople comment in the interests of humoring Persia's claim to being civilized, then, okay? :D

OK, I really shouldn't have said that about the Romans. They are entitled to some respect. They, at least, have been around for centuries. But Aleuto-Kamchatkan is worthy of little respect, they have been around only a few decades and have been in decline ever since their revolution. But what do expect from godless barbarians?
OOC: I would assume the rivalry between Persia and Rome would continue in TTL.
 
OK, I really shouldn't have said that about the Romans. They are entitled to some respect. They, at least, have been around for centuries. But Aleuto-Kamchatkan is worthy of little respect, they have been around only a few decades and have been in decline ever since their revolution. But what do expect from godless barbarians?


Why are we even quibbling about Aleuto-Kamchatka? For being a "true" socialist state they are the exception that proves the rule. A population of under a million people and an economy built off of Oil, Timber, and fish does not an economic model make. The Inkas despite their authoritarianism are a far more interesting case study.
 
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