No Islam - Effects in 7th & 8th Centuries

[cmakk1012]

I don't see what they'd do. They went so far as to conduct iconoclasm on their own idols, after all. As a religion, Zoroastrianism was effectively reformed - it was just bad luck that immediately after it saved itself from internal conversion, Zoroastrianism was nearly wiped out by the conquering Arabs and their successful conversion incentives.


Zoroastrian proselytizing is indeed very possible, and I think they'd go to Central Asia, where a Zoroastrian community already existed.

Oh, so no Islam definitely means strong Zoroastrianism then. Holy wars could take a very interesting turn....
And Central Asia? If they built from there, they might convert some of the steppe nomads, and if they expanded from there--Zoroastrian Russia! Also a possibility of expansion into Afghanistan and farther into the subcontinent.

 

[Russian]

I'm not even thinking a united Arab empire. Arabs had tons of tribal rivalries and conflicts. They wouldn't unite as one group unless they had Muhammad or someone more or less like him. Especially since you'd be creating a naturally competing Syria and Egypt, with separate religious traditions. Assuming they're successful at all of this.

Ye, Arabs were killing Arabs for millennia and without Muhammad like figure (which is a chance out of a million) they would continue doing the same.
If one Arab tribe would go for outward expansion the other Arab groups would not support them, they just stick a knife in a back of this expansionist Arab tribe. That's a tradition, blessed with time.

A little bit of inciting of the Arab tribal rivalries from the part of the ERE or Persia would make any Arab conquests impossible; like it was in OTL before Muhammad.

Cool stuff. They're almost like the Turks in this scenario, then, converting to a more established religion from the fringe and then conquering its homelands.

The Turks had had an established tradition of being united, an empire building.
The Arabs did not. Before Muhammad.

 

[The Undead Martyr]

Even without Muhummad its hardly inconceivable that someone would unite the tribes.

 

[Indicus]

Oh, so no Islam definitely means strong Zoroastrianism then.

A stronger Zoroastrianism, certainly, but I'm not sure if Zoroastrianism could really expand too much, considering how strongly it was tied to Persian culture. In Central Asia, Buddhism was quite well-established, so Buddhist Turks will probably make up the majority. And upon migrating, I think they'd convert to the local religions like what the Mongols did, so Turks in Russia would be Christian, Turks in India would be Vedanta Hindus, etc.

 

[PhilippeO]

The religious fate of Persia TTL has been a contentious point in threads past; there is however pretty unilateral agreement that the Sassanids will most likely collapse within our timeframe.

With strong ties between Zoroastrian clergy and Sassanid state, wouldn't Sassanid collapse cause weakening of Zoroastrian clergy ?

new state who replace Sassanid could bring its own religious inclination ( Buddhism? Nestorian? Tengri? Mazdak? Manichean?) There jo guarantee that Sassanid replacement is 'native' Persian dynasty.

 

[123456789blaaa]

Keep being Zoroastrian - the Sassanids had already reformed their religion by eliminating all the gods save for Ahura Mazda and integrated several other Abrahamic concepts, and stopped Christianity by doing so. Nestorian hadn't converted people in the Sassanid Empire much further than Mesopotamia. It took two entire centuries of foreign rule to convert Persia to an Abrahamic religion. A bunch of Mesopotamian missionaries aren't suddenly going to do so just by proselytizing.

Sorry, could you go into more detail on this? When did this happen? Where'd you hear about it?

 

[Indicus]

Sorry, could you go into more detail on this? When did this happen? Where'd you hear about it?

Sassanid iconoclasm is well-known in academia, and you can find plenty of sources on it. It actually began quite early, under the Zoroastrian cleric Kartir in the third century. He promoted Mazdaism, a rather monotheistic strain of Zoroastrianism which promoted a strict dualism between the evil of Ahriman and the good of Ahura Mazda as well as the concept of free will, over alternatives such as (fatalistic) Zurvanism, and began a movement against shrine cults of gods such as Anahita and Mithra. He even committed iconoclasm, and today, the fact that Zoroastrians only worship Ahura Mazda in an aniconic form is testament to his movement's strength. He may have been responsible for Shapur I's reversal of his tolerance of Manicheans, and this movement only grew in strength to the point that, when Islam rose, Zurvanism was the only Zoroastrian sect.

 

[Indicus]

With strong ties between Zoroastrian clergy and Sassanid state, wouldn't Sassanid collapse cause weakening of Zoroastrian clergy ?

Depends who replaces them. My thoughts are that one of the seven major Persian dynasties would replace them as they are the best-placed to do so, and continue to promote Zoroastrianism as the main religion. In any case, I doubt that any non-Arab could seriously threaten Zoroastrianism - it took two centuries of civil war after a conquest to convert Persia, and even then Zoroastrian remnants continued to exist. No one else would try so hard to convert a country after seeing such difficulties.

new state who replace Sassanid could bring its own religious inclination ( Buddhism? Nestorian? Tengri? Mazdak? Manichean?) There jo guarantee that Sassanid replacement is 'native' Persian dynasty.

The Gokturks arriving and conquering Persia would be interesting, but I doubt it. A Nestorian Persia is highly implausible, and a ruling Nestorian dynasty would likely be Aramaic-speaking and culturally Semitic, and would thus alienate the Persian-speaking and the culturally Iranic elite, and without the sheer religious drive to convert of Islam, and without the jizya tax, the Zoroastrian religion could not be significantly threatened. And Mazdak? Are you serious? His faith was about dead by this point.

 

[cmakk1012]

A stronger Zoroastrianism, certainly, but I'm not sure if Zoroastrianism could really expand too much, considering how strongly it was tied to Persian culture. In Central Asia, Buddhism was quite well-established, so Buddhist Turks will probably make up the majority. And upon migrating, I think they'd convert to the local religions like what the Mongols did, so Turks in Russia would be Christian, Turks in India would be Vedanta Hindus, etc.

Ah, but considering the wide range of Iranian language family speakers throughout Central Asia, some of which having nomadic tendencies...what if they were brought back into the Persian cultural and religious sphere, even if just for a while, and then expanded West? So Zoroastrian Uzbeks or something carving out a steppe empire, at least in the area of the historical Khazar Khaganate. By the time Turks could enter the picture the local religion to convert to could well be Zoroastrianism.

However, I see the point that the steppe Persians would probably not grow large enough to subsume OTL Russia. Doesn't mean butterflies wouldn't flap, though--in this world the Varangians might never conquer the Rus and some weird alternate could spring up instead (Finnish/Ingrian Empire would be pretty wild!)

 

[123456789blaaa]

Sassanid iconoclasm is well-known in academia, and you can find plenty of sources on it. It actually began quite early, under the Zoroastrian cleric Kartir in the third century. He promoted Mazdaism, a rather monotheistic strain of Zoroastrianism which promoted a strict dualism between the evil of Ahriman and the good of Ahura Mazda as well as the concept of free will, over alternatives such as (fatalistic) Zurvanism, and began a movement against shrine cults of gods such as Anahita and Mithra. He even committed iconoclasm, and today, the fact that Zoroastrians only worship Ahura Mazda in an aniconic form is testament to his movement's strength. He may have been responsible for Shapur I's reversal of his tolerance of Manicheans, and this movement only grew in strength to the point that, when Islam rose, Zurvanism was the only Zoroastrian sect.

Hm. I asked because I've been getting a lot of contradicting info when reading about Zoroastrianism. For example, here's a paper arguing against Sassanid iconoclasm. I'm not sure how much being under Islam for so long influenced surviving records of the religion, which were mostly written during the Islamic period. It's rather confusing....