Non-Muslim Persia?

  • Thread starter Deleted member 1487
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Deleted member 1487

What if Persia managed to resist conquest and conversion to Islam? What religion(s) would it have and what would it position in the world be?
 
Before Islam, Persia was a mixture of several religions, much like the rest of the Middle East, that ranged from Zoroastrianism to many pagan groups, to even Christianity. You know those 3 Kings that visited the infant Christ? They were really priests of Zoroastrianism, Magi, and they believed Christ was their fire god made flesh.*

*Disclaimer: Probably a really bad description of regional religions. Please do not take offense
 

Rubicon

Banned
Zoroastrianism still exists in India, so it's not an impossibility, might even be likely that Z or an syncretic version between it and Islam that dominates.
 
The primary reason that Islam was able to spread so rapidly into Persia was that both the Persian Empire and the Byzantine Empire were exhausted after centuries of war.
If Persia and Byzantium had reached a truce a century earlier, there would have been no room for a new religion (Islam.)
 

jahenders

Banned
Probably Zoroastrianism. A strong Persia focused thus would tend to imply either a weakened Islamic spread or one that was focused in a different direction (more South into Africa or North into Europe).

Assuming Islam attempted to spread the same as IOTL, but was stopped at Persia, you then have its spread the East limited so Islam might be limited in India/Pakistan and on into Indonesia, etc. Depending on its post-failed-conquest relationship with Persia, Islam might have to contend with an unfriendly/neutral power nearby so might have less power to focus going West and North, so might have made less headway into Europe and might have had a bit less success in the Crusades.

So Persia not falling could potentially help keep the Byzantine Empire (at least a rump thereof) alive, might prevent some of the religious disputes that racked India later, etc.

One question might be whether, then, Zoroastrianism spreads into other areas (greater penetration in India, more presence in the Far East, etc).
 
IF Rome and Persia do not fight and weakened each other during the course of the growth and invasion of the forces from Saudi Arabia....

Both of them combined might just be able to deflect or hold them off at or in Palestine or at least in present day Southern Turkey and Eastern Iraq.....
 
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