How much longer would the byzantine & sassanid empires have lasted without the arab conquests?

Syria and Egypt might decide to ally with the Sassanids in order to get independence from the Byzantines.
 
There are no "Syria" or "Egypt" polities at that time.

@Eivind might have been suggesting that the Coptic and Syriac Christian peoples that lived in modern-day Egypt and Syria (who obv didn't care much for Roman rule) would turn the Sassanids for support/patronage much like the Christian Lakhmid Arabs did earlier.

Even if that is indeed what they meant, though, it's pretty unlikely. It'd be a miracle if the Sassanids saved themselves from collapse, let alone keeping the Byzantines from crushing rebellious minorities.
 
I think the Romans actually have a very good shot at surviving with no Arab Conquests happening when they did. They had a chunk of territory that was wealthy, vast and relatively easy to defend. The Roman navy was unmatched in the Mediterranean and no Western European states were at the time strong or centralized enough to really pose an existential threat. Heraclius had already done some pretty extensive work on reintegrating the eastern provinces before the Arabs showed up in our timeline, so I don't think it's likely these provinces would fall to rebels.

No Arab Conquests would also mean Iconoclasm is butterflied entirely, putting the Empire in a much better standing in regards to the Roman Patriarch. Once the Lombards start applying pressure in the 8th Century, the Empire might have recovered to the point where they might be able to resist the loss of Ravenna and Rome. Not to mention that all that important early Christian art isn't destroyed.

The Sassanids on the other hand are pretty screwed, they were already falling apart before the Arabs showed up, and Heraclius devised a divide and conquer strategy on them to keep them weak. The Sassanids would either be replaced by a new Persian dynasty, like they had replaced the Parthians, Persia might balkanize for a long period of time or it would be conquered by steppe nomads from the north. The fate of Persia would be a lot less certain than the Romans due to their unstable position.

What I am really interested in here is oddly enough what happens to China? The Tang Dynasty had expanded further west in the 7th Century than any other Chinese Dynasty, making clients of tribes all the way to the Caspian Sea. This mass expansion was put to a halt by the Umayyads, what happens here with a weak Persia? Will we see a Pax Sinica across the Asian Steppes? Will Rome and China finally make formal contact?
 
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How much longer would the byzantines & sassanids have lasted without the arab conquests? could the byzantines have rebuilt the roman empire? Is it likely the turks & mongols would still take them down?

The Seljuks probably overrun Persia in the 11C, and push on into Anatolia much as OTL.

The Byzantine coonquests in Italy were being rapidly lost even before the Arab invasions, so there's no reason to think they could have reconquered the West.
 
Fact is that they moved out from the Roman Empire because they did not agree with the Dogma/Doctrine. And were tolerated by the Sassanids because they were different from Roman Catholic Orthodoxy.
If today mumbo-jumbo and mental loop-jumping about the nature of Christ - absolutely incomprehensible to anybody who is sane and not a theologian - is no longer important, than jolly good for everybody!
But that mumbo-jumbo mattered there and then.

This doesn't matter either. My point was to demonstrate that unity was possible, seeing as it has now been achieved by some.

It's still a fair point that the Christians of Iraq would probably not want to join the Romans. If they get a choice is of course, another question entirely, but Romans don't have a great track record for holding Mesopotamia.

Oh certainly, generally people don't like foreigners telling them what to do.

One thing, I could see however as an eventual result is the rise of Coptic and Syriac Nationalism.
 
I think it is likely that Egypt and Syria would become independent sooner or later even without an Arab conquest. Christological disagreements would make it difficult to keep the empire united. The disagreements might seem ridiculous to modern people, but they were very important to people at that time.

Neither the Syrians nor Egyptians have much of a track record of successful rebellions against occupying powers either, although their religious differences would certainly make them prone to align themselves with any somewhat friendly invader.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
I think the Romans actually have a very good shot at surviving with no Arab Conquests happening when they did. They had a chunk of territory that was wealthy, vast and relatively easy to defend. The Roman navy was unmatched in the Mediterranean and no Western European states were at the time strong or centralized enough to really pose an existential threat. Heraclius had already done some pretty extensive work on reintegrating the eastern provinces before the Arabs showed up in our timeline, so I don't think it's likely these provinces would fall to rebels.

No Arab Conquests would also mean Iconoclasm is butterflied entirely, putting the Empire in a much better standing in regards to the Roman Patriarch. Once the Lombards start applying pressure in the 8th Century, the Empire might have recovered to the point where they might be able to resist the loss of Ravenna and Rome. Not to mention that all that important early Christian art isn't destroyed.

The Sassanids on the other hand are pretty screwed, they were already falling apart before the Arabs showed up, and Heraclius devised a divide and conquer strategy on them to keep them weak. The Sassanids would either be replaced by a new Persian dynasty, like they had replaced the Parthians, Persia might balkanize for a long period of time or it would be conquered by steppe nomads from the north. The fate of Persia would be a lot less certain than the Romans due to their unstable position.

What I am really interested in here is oddly enough what happens to China? The Tang Dynasty had expanded further west in the 7th Century than any other Chinese Dynasty, making clients of tribes all the way to the Caspian Sea. This mass expansion was put to a halt by the Umayyads, what happens here with a weak Persia? Will we see a Pax Sinica across the Asian Steppes? Will Rome and China finally make formal contact?
I don't know if I could see the tang getting past the Caspian Sea-much beyond declarations of vassalage.

And wasn't there a massive revolt-the An Lushan that directed their attention elsewhere?

I could see Turkic tribes that flee encroaching Chinese dominance in Central Asia invading Iran. Thus further destabilizing the situation there.

Also what about India? It was divided as I understand it between three larger states and some smaller ones.

What would happen with them?
 
No Arab Conquests would also mean Iconoclasm is butterflied entirely, putting the Empire in a much better standing in regards to the Roman Patriarch. Once the Lombards start applying pressure in the 8th Century, the Empire might have recovered to the point where they might be able to resist the loss of Ravenna and Rome. Not to mention that all that important early Christian art isn't destroyed.
While no Iconoclasm is probably a good thing for the Romans, they will certainly face issues with the Emperor trying to maintain monothelitism. It took until Constantine IV for the monarchy to finally abandon the doctrine, if the Empire maintains control over Syria and Egypt, the doctrine likely remains and only serves to alienate the North Africans (sans Egypt), Greeks, and the Italians especially the Pope.

What I am really interested in here is oddly enough what happens to China? The Tang Dynasty had expanded further west in the 7th Century than any other Chinese Dynasty, making clients of tribes all the way to the Caspian Sea. This mass expansion was put to a halt by the Umayyads, what happens here with a weak Persia? Will we see a Pax Sinica across the Asian Steppes? Will Rome and China finally make formal contact?
the An Lushan Rebellion had more to do with halting the expansion of the Tang Dynasty into Central Asia. Now that could be butterflied by the PoD, but any similar rebellion would likely mean the same thing for the Tang.
 
I gotta agree here, the Sassanids are well and truly fucked.
I wonder if the next dynasty might be arabs, but not muslims. Maybe a Persainazied Shahansha?
 
IMO if the Sassanid Empire were to continue they would have to convert to some form of Christianity at one point or another. Arguably, it almost happened OTL. What kind of Christianity I do not know, there's a lot of options. However, their breadbasket in Anatolia is just going to keep getting more and more fidgety and will rebel if a Zoroastrian emperor tries to enforce religious conformity.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
A smart strategic thing regarding Italy I think for the Byzantines would be to hold a garrison in Sicily and southern Italy.

If and when the Lombards collapse the Byzantines can pick the pieces.

Also the Byzantines can focus on restoring the Danube Balkan border-assimilate or crush the Slavic invasions/migrations and move on to dealing with internal issues.

The Byzantines could also keep some forts in eastern Iberia and maintain control of the Balearic isles-reconquering southern Gaul and Iberia aren't really on the cards at least until the situation is more optimal and so the Byzantines can at least keep a toe hold in that region.

The Byzantines could also seek to control the Veneti region-it would butterfly away Venice and allow them to react quickly to Lombard incursions.

Once the Lombards unravel seize Italy back.

Also if the Christian minority in Iraq revolts-support them and allow them to join the empire-after all the emperor gets a lot of credit for assisting persecuted Christians.

The empire can maintain bases and forts near the Zagros mountains while the Sassanids tear themselves apart.

Kiev will probably still form and so will Bulgaria-and the Byzantines will have to deal with threats to the north-crush Bulgaria and hopefully Kiev converts to orthodoxy in OTL.

Once the internal religious issues have been dealt with an ambitious and smart Byzantine emperor can retake Italy and maybe most of Iberia and perhaps the coast of southern Gaul.

By say 1100 AD and barring any massive disasters-the Byzantine position ought to be secure.
 
Persia will not have massive population revolts - both in Rome and in Iran, those were put down rather easily during Late Antiquity, and it's hard to see a peasant rebellion of Syriac Christians snatching away the pearl in the Iranian throne willy-nilly just because the Sassanids were rather unstable.

As for the Copts, the Miaphysites and the Jews, religious revolts in Rome seemed to have an extremely short lifespan, and the Byzantines were especially brutal in repressing religious revolts at the time (see the Samaritan Revolts, which ended up not only mostly depopulating Judea but with Byzantium making an effort to destroy Himyar so that politcal Judaism would be wiped from the map). With Iran in disarray, Rome is not going to lose any territories anytime soon - especially if there's more Heraclius and less Phocas. That being said, they wouldn't conquer Mesopotamia - nobody was able to, even Trajan abandoned it.

If the Sassanids continue getting a bad break, they are either gonna be conquered by some Gökturk tribe that would Persicise and become the new dynasty, or have one of the seven Parthian clans (most likely the Aspahpets, since they seemed to have the most power after Bahram Chobin was crushed, and since the Mihranids seem not to be fully Zoroastrian) gain the favour of the mobeds and the dihqans and crush the Sassanids, then continuing the weird Empire-Parthian Clans dynamic that had gone on the entirety of the late Sassanid period.

Said Christians disagree with you on this.

The Church of the East has undergone 1400 years of being protected exclusively by their ties to other dhimmis (especially the Maronites which used to speak the same language) and thus getting closer to the Chalcedonian churches, to the point where Chaldean Christians have accepted communion with the Pope. Back in the 600s, the majority of Iraq's Christian population was certainly closer to Nestorianism than to Chalcedonianism, due to the influence some of the more progress-minded Sassanid Emperors to push the Christian authorities of Iran away from Rome.
 
The East Romans feel more pressure from all side like OTL but I don't think they'll collapse. Possibly even regain strenght as OTL With more land.

Sassanids will likely be replaced with another dynasty.
 
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