How conservative a Buddhist Afghanistan would be compared to a Islamic Afghanistan? Well i think that conservative Buddhism would be different from conservative Islam. Also how does one measure conservatism? What is conservatism? Is conservatism relative or is it something concrete?IOTL, Afghanistan is a very conservative place, with the Taliban a major force and very regressive social roles for women. If Islam never got as far as Afghanistan, and butterflies are largely contained elsewhere, how conservative is the place likely to be?
But it is not certain that they habe the Same wars war events If the culture developes completely different to beginnt with. The question would also bei, how the country would be named and if it is fragmented or at least der jure centrally governed. Mayne even hellenized Bhuddism to some degree ? Besides Bhuddism proto Hinduism also would exist in Afghanistan I assume. OTL the Nuristani had their own believe System until conquered by the Emirate in 1896. Could see Bhuddist monastries and even Lamaism. Afghanistan would probably have diplomatic relations with Tibet as well. Would be mindblowingt see a Bhuddist theocracy in Afghanistan. Could imagine that many ordinary people are devoted to Bhuddism and its traditions. Question is If different ethnicities are all majority Bhuddist at the Same time. Also outside influence from bin Bhuddist culture are Not out of question. But I also think, that foreign empires still tey to invade. Would be interesting how a Mongol Empire far in Bhuddist Afghanistan and what influence they might bring in.The problem is Islam was conservative in 1977 Afghanistan in a much different way it is now.
Buddhist Afghanistan after a 30 year long civil war would be vastly different from just a moderately stable Buddhist country
Would be amazing to see a Tibet like Afghanistan with monastries on mountain tops and Bhuddist shrines on roadsides.IOTL, Afghanistan is a very conservative place, with the Taliban a major force and very regressive social roles for women. If Islam never got as far as Afghanistan, and butterflies are largely contained elsewhere, how conservative is the place likely to be?
Let's go for a butterfly genocide whereby Afghanistan stays mostly Buddhist and most of everything else goes as close to OTL as conceivably possible. That would make for an extremely implausibly convergent TL but let's try.
This Buddhist *Afghanistan is still going to be bordering Persian and Central Asian Muslim powers. It would still be housing pastoral and agrarian "tribespeople" who would, under the right circumstances, make a rather good recruiting ground for armies. Would still be coveted by neighbours because of trade routes, strategic security and the like. Would still be hard to hold because of mopuntainous terrain. So, it would still be in many regards a border march, especially if you add a religious difference to the mix. Afghan Buddhism has a very high chance to evolve into a fairly militant form.
Let's go for a Mongol Empire similar to IOTL. Let's even say for the sake of convergence, that local Mongols convert to Islam (there is GOING to be a Muslim minority) and that they create a very close Mughal analog in India later one, although of course the core of their army won't be formed of Afghans, who remain Buddhist and are ruled as a protected "underclass" under a largely Muslim, Turco-Mongol-Persianate military-administrative elite. Well, they still will have to rely on Buddhist elites ("tribal" chiefs and/or abbots) for some tasks. This sets the stage for an Indian subcontinent that converges with OTL as it possibly can (still, it will be very different in details; less Muslims, perhaps less integrated ones, a very different Sikh-panth if any, a different development of Hindu thought, a longer Buddhist presence). Religious difference is likely to produce an Afghanistan with an earlier and stronger "national" identity, and one that it less Persianate (this impacts Persian culture heavily, but let's just pretend it does not).
Let's go for convergence in British India, Russian Central Asia and even *Safavid Persia (that is, a Persianate post-Mongol Twelver Shia Gunpowder Empire that stretches roughly as the Safavids). The latter would have far more trouble than IOTL ruling Afghanistan. At some point around the turn of 1800, instead of the Durrani Empire and its successors, you have a Buddhist militant state embracing a nationalistic *Pashtun identity, that remains there as a sort of buffer over the course of TTL's *Great Game. *Afghans are quite unruly, fiercely independent-minded, cling to their Buddhism with a passion and have developed a national literary tradition in Pashto, written in some Indic-derived script, that probably consists in both Buddhist hymns and militaristic epic of national resistance. Tolerance is not going to be priority.
They may have local bodhisattvas venerated as "warriors for the light" or "preachers of illumination" in lieu of Muslims heroes and Sufi "saints".
This sets the stage for an Afghan twentieth century that resembles OTL (I allow for Soviet Union, independent India, and even something resembling *Pakistan, let's call it "Mughalistan ITTL). Borders ARE going to be different but let's ignore this.
I'd say that in this context, Afghanistan has SOME chance to be stabler tha IOTL (which is such a low bar that's ludicrous) though being the Great Powers' place of choice for settling their differences is hardly ever recipe for stability (but see Belgium as a counterexample). Of course OTL's Afghan Jihad is not happening. Civil wars will likely occur, but might not be as long and as devastating as IOTL without their tying to a global network. I'd say, the place is still likely to be very conservative. An extreme Buddhist sect with nationalist leanings might take power at times.
Regarding women, it may go either way. Pardeh (full seclusion) was a relatively recent import for most Afghan women IOTL, and might come from India regardless. It would not be regarded as having the same level of religious sanction, though.
Of course, there would be no Taliban.
I assumed a Muslim *Mughal analog to emerge regardless in order to make the TL as convergent as possible. So in this scenario Afghanistan ends up a Buddhist "island" in a Muslim "sea" (compare Armenia ). This is not particularly plausible given the premise, but allows for a modern geopolitical setup that resembles OTL. I suppose this would lead many Buddhist Afghan groups to develop some serious siege mentality. So they might end up seriously conservative, fairly xenophobic, and likely to tinge their variety of Buddhism of stuff that would sound pretty strange to Buddhists elsewhere - a concept comparable to the idea of holy war might emerge, for instance, though at first it would seem markedly un-Buddhist.*Keep In mind that if Afghanistan was Not Muslim, Then Pakistan or Bangladesh would also not be Muslim, Thus it leads to a United Independent India which might butterfly the war in Afghanistan
* From a purely theological and scriptural standpoint, Christianity seems at first a very unlikely candidate to develop the "holy war" notion. Nevertheless, they did, arguably more so than any other major faith.
No, it didn't. "Holy war" is a concept in every single religion and Christianity has no particular monopoly over it. If you're thinking colonial conquests, these weren't "holy wars". The campaigns by Spain and Portugal, which are the colonial conquests I've seen described as the most "religious", had Renaissance humanism as their ideology and not just Catholicism, weren't called "crusades" as far as I know, weren't any more religious than wars against other European states, and didn't even make use of a single armed force from the Papal States, even during the period of the Spaniard Alexander VI. The Spanish and Portuguese themselves constantly repeated that it was about to obtain gold and expand the riches of Spain and Portugal, with conversion to Catholicism being secondary.
You should read Walter Mignolo's "The Darker Side of the Renaissance" and David Lupher's "Romans in a New World" where you can clearly see that Renaissance thinking permeated Spanish society as a whole. Moreover, we have to remember how the first Conquistadors came with Columbus, an Italian humanist.most Conquistadores couldn't care less for Renaissance humanism
However, Christians clearly developed it (one could say, they did so over and over again at various times) and it ended up to be a fairly central element of the history of several Christian communities.
You should read Walter Mignolo's "The Darker Side of the Renaissance" and David Lupher's "Romans in a New World" where you can clearly see that Renaissance thinking permeated Spanish society as a whole. Moreover, we have to remember how the first Conquistadors came with Columbus, an Italian humanist.
I fail to see in which way what you state falsifies what I said, that Christianity developed a doctrine of holy war. Again, I never said that other cultures or religions didn't.Except this is completely false. We see the cults to gods of war being extremely prominent in several cultures and religions, including Hinduism and Buddhism (see Kartikeya and Guanyu), we see clerical sanctions of violence in every single society permeating several if not all wars, we even see war as the ultimate religious goal as you can see with the Valhalla of the Vikings. "Holy war" is not a concept uniquely and particularly central to Christianity. It's central in every culture on Earth since both religion and warfare are universal to humanity.
Thanks for the reading advice. I am aware of the importance of Renaissance thinking in Renaissance Spain, but it was still (mostly) a "Catholic" thing. But, anyway, Columbus, a "humanist"?
I fail to see in which way what you state falsifies what I said, that Christianity developed a doctrine of holy war. Again, I never said that other cultures or religions didn't.
Fair enough.Genovese who was well-read in Greco-Roman classics (as you can see by his knowledge of Ptolemy and Eratosthenes). If you strictly define Italian humanist as someone who emerges from an Italian university having studied the Greco-Roman classics, then he wasn't, but in the broader sense he definitely was.
I don't deny that Christianity developed a doctrine of holy war. I'm denying that Christianity is the only religion or at least one of the few that made it such an uniquely central doctrine whereas other religions or cultures didn't.
IOTL, Afghanistan is a very conservative place, with the Taliban a major force and very regressive social roles for women. If Islam never got as far as Afghanistan, and butterflies are largely contained elsewhere, how conservative is the place likely to be?