As say before, at times this board just hates island as is full of ERE fanboys, that is why you always found this kind of answer ignoring butterflies at all
What if the Roman Empire collapsed due to the 3rd Century Crisis?
- Thread starter sampleswift
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Saying that a very specific religion wouldn't exist after 3-4 centuries of butterflies directly affecting it is fanboyism? It's basic AH logic, c'mon now.
Who that dude really was is up for debate it seems.
I think the Arabs were poised to break out and conquer other lands regardless of the exact religion they followed. Islam may have been that unifier for them, whether that religion came about before of after the initial conquests?
The Mongols didn't need any one religious dogma to base their conquests.
A POD three hundred years earlier will butterfly any world event simply through chance. If you want a specific reason:
Palmyra not being destroyed results in more trade flowing through it to whoever replaces the Romans, while if on the other hand Persia manages to conquer the Roman East this will result in no Constantinople as a receiving point for goods through Egypt and its canal, since the goods from India will either go overland, or up the Persian gulf to the ports on the rivers there that can be sent north to the Persian capital and other major cities of the region. With these in place goods would also flow to Syria through Persian networks. From there all of Arab commerce at this time, and Muhammad was supposedly a trader, is drastically reduced. Weaker Arabs and no 26 years of war between the Persians and Romans means that if the Arabs do try to conquer the ME they will be crushed by the vastly more powerful Persia that is in place.
As well it should. No way in hell is a specific person with a specific set of experiences and body of doctrine going to survive CENTURIES of butterflies that'd massively influence the sort of religious influences that'd be around in Arabia to influence people there.
Yet this board threat christianity as a fixed point on history...double standard too much?
Any disruption in trade without the parties managing to adapt for 600 years is utter tosh. Also who says the need to expand. Only talking Islam as a religion coming up. Muhammad was a trader.....that's one version, and which version is true, we don't know, but the man existed and he preached which gained a whole lot of supporters. Arabia wasn't affected by the geopolitics of the Med and was only concerned with the economics. The geopolitics of the med didn't entangle Arabia at all in the most sense. And if you're staying that 600 years of economic disruption would continue that is a very huge leap because such a thing has never happened. The Persians didn't manage to conquer and consolidate many time because of their nobles quarrels with each other resulting in civil wars. How is this butterflied away? How is Palmyra who is going to sit on one of the most lucrative trade routes gaining more tariffs not gain a more lucrative ally in Arabia which again makes trading florusih even more? Without a centralised strong empire and a weaker empire.controlling the trade route, the Arabians will be able to push for more economic add one for themselves. Yeah, this logic doesn't stand. Unless you off the man's ancestor the man is still going to be born. And considering this PoD doesn't break a single geopolitical scenario in Arabia unless your in the hinterlands the man is still going to be born and with the basic same tenets in place he is still going to preach.
Get heraclius defeat the Arabs and massacre a bunch of them like he intended to if you want to butterfly Islam. With no external threats, a religion such as Islam or like Islam is going to come forward.
Any adaptation is also a butterfly. That's kind of the point. Over 600 years the changes build up until finally no one who existed in Arabia OTL will exist. Even something as simple as one of Muhammad's ancestors being killed in a small skirmish brought on by slightly scarcer resources would do the job. Or if they do get more prosperous, then one of his ancestors is richer, and so does not marry someone at a lower standing than themself, again completely butterflying away the chain of events that led to Islam.
As for who said the need to expand. Uh...you. Or at least you heavily implied it when you said the caliphs would drool.
And yes, the exact same thing would happen to Christianity with a POD six hundred years before the birth of Christ. Honestly probably an event a decade before. Even an event DURING his theoretical life, both for Christ and Muhammad (and any other religious founder). Had their life gone down a different path they wouldn't have founded religions at all.
Uh huh, unless one of those empires are going to come down and massacre the Qurayash Clan, for simply doing it and then conquer one of the places no one at the time wanted to conquer for centuries, sure.
Not really I mean the religión in this pod has existed for about 2 centuries it's rise how ever is not certain but posible depending on how does the crisis take place the later the better for the unless a Diocletian like figure shows up
No, you don't seem to get it. Six hundred years is a LONG time. Any change is going to have massive consequences down the line. Any change is going to result in all of the people you're talking about not only not doing what they did OTL, but not even EXISTING. No one needs to massacre anyone for that. The course of events itself would take people down different paths in their lives starting soon after the POD, and by the time we reach the year 600 those slightly different paths will be completely unrecognizable, walked by people who wouldn't have existed had they stayed on the paths of OTL. The odds of one specific man, living one specific life, having one specific event, and then founding one specific religion after all those other people's lives are lived are so astronomically small to be non-existent.
In the case of chirstianty even after could butterfly the faith or made it smaller example have the apostoles day way earlier than they did have paul die before his convertion , have nero go truly mad and ordered a Diocletian level persecution one of the faiths that was based on a premise that historians say was doomed to fail could never be taken as set in stone so yeah pretty much.
Why were the Arabs poised to conquer? Or why were the Mongols for that matter? What other conquests from Arabia were as successful and why did Steppe people pull off such a success only one time? Because their successes were related to the specific situation at the time around them and internal to them, their unity, leadership and maybe circumstantial superiority weren't inherent to them, their lifestyle or geography.
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And again, the same basic tenets still remain in place:
Qurayash Clan - check
Trading route with which Mecca and Medina had nothing to do with - check
Roman successor states and Persia duking it out with each other and themselves in civil war - check.
No power wanting to invade Arabia other than some coastal cities for trade - check.
I would like to ask how does this PoD exactly change this? The Arabian tribes in the interior who had no access to the most lucrative part of the trade routes, have basically the same life cut out for them.
Sigh, but it's becoming pretty obvious that you're not understanding the point here i guess. A religion like Islam or Islam itself was largely inevitable in Arabia. The arabian polytheistic belief was so loose it isn't funny. This in itself led to several wars, and basic principles of Islam derived itself from the Jews and the Maronite Christians in Nabatea and Petra. In fact proto-Islamic religions like ones Ma'in started but failed. These proto-religions were amalgamated into Islam alongside the 'revelations' that Muhammad had. Something like Islam or Islam itself just founded by some other king which is successful this time would come to being in an area that wasn't affected by Rome for the most part.
Does it? You 2 guys are defending this idea right here which given the size of the forum is actually already not little, the mentality is similar and this is why I reject both ideas.
well to be fair the tribes of the steppe have conquered sedentary populations since ....how old are sedentary populations in asia? from the various tribes from the jin dynasty the xiongnu the turkic khaganate who had about half of the territory of the mongols , heck even if genghis dies the mongol or a mongol like empire would have formed due to mostly climate change of the time that is not effected by butterflies causing migrations , jamukha also tried to unite the tribes but would he have the success of genghis probably not but its still there or the naimans who were very prominent could have
So in other words, Islam is butterflied. Good to know.
The Arab conquests of OTL only happened as they did because the Romans and Persians had been beating the stuffing out of one another for nearly thirty years directly preceeding. That's why the Arabs won a single battle, and from there conquered all of Syria and Palestine, as well as why the Romans weren't able to defend Egypt. Because after the war with Persia there were no armies left. Meanwhile in Persia the civil wars following their defeat at the hands of the Romans had left them weak and divided, and so it was only a small number of battles to defeat them as well.
Both sides were exhausted, broke, and incredibly unstable (though Persia moreso). If either side had been able to recover even a little the Arabs likely would have been either crushed or badly beaten. In terms of religion, without the massive success of the conquests however this alt-Islam turned out would be incredibly different from what happened OTL, and completely unrecognizable apart from maybe a few surface elements to what happened OTL. Certainly none of the central figures would be the same, nor is there any reason to think it would be as successful outside of Arabia as it was OTL.
Those are not basic tenets, they are the general setting but you lack very important details or you miss the entire point that this type of histry is NOT made by grand narratives or general settings, it's made from a multitude of factors causally linked to one another, if you move just one it's going to make a mess of everything. Butterflying away doesn't mean you cannot come up with a timeline that still has Islam in it but it would be awfully coincidental if it's exactly as OTL Islam is considering 3 entire centuries of religious history in Eastern Rome is changed.
If it actually existed at the time we have no reason to believe it would inevitably become as important as IOTL.
Islam or rather proto-Islam was not born over centuries of people living near this conflict, it was born within 1-2 generations under a very specific war during the lifetime of a prophetical figure that had a specific backstory, lived in a rather specific geopolitical and social situation which wouldn't exist as such with butterflies.
Except through their vassals and through their commercial control I'd estimate around half of the Arabian population in the late 6th century lived under direct or indirect Roman-Iranian control, especially considering Yemen.
Is Islam just a generic chemical result you get out of mixing those ingredients? Because that's how you are treating it, human ideas cannot be treated as such.
And why would it be successful in a world where there was no unified Roman Christianity? Why wouldn't they, for example, convert to Judaism or Christianity? If by Islam you mean the specific religion then you need to show how are the important elements of the religion are going to be inevitable with actual arguments, not just showing that the basic ingredients are there, which they really aren't given that if Rome collapses before Christianity is there the connection between Christianity and Romanity is weaker and Christianity has less of a chance at establishing itself even in the East.
If by Islam you mean very vaguely a monotheistic religion, even Christianity or Judaism, followed by Arabs then that's a different argument entirely.
quite the contrary the arabian centers like mecca where becoming more prominent that does not mean an abrahamic monotheistic religion is was inevitable
"The arabian polytheistic belief was so loose it isn't funny. "except that arabian paganism was quite strong so much so that they survived even after muhamed untied the peninsula
in fact muhameds tribe and mecca was becoming like said more prominent who is to say they don't stick with polytheism, and lets say a muhamed like figure appears , muhamed could have easily died and his religion with it on multiple occasions who is to say alternative muhamed does not get murdered by his tribe, who is to say the jews of medina dont murder him , who is to say he does not die in battle or worse yet is more like jesus and is pacifist
"Roman successor states and Persia duking it out with each other and themselves in civil war" funny from the split of the empire in 395 to 610 ad civil wars in the byzantine empire where rare , byzantine sassanid wars during a period where short and in very long sessions in time had the arab invasions started in 400 , 450 , 500 , 530 , 600 , even 610 the outcome would have been very different , these are very specific circumstances that they had in 630s
and with a pod as wide as the crisis of the third century we can have the east fall to the sassanids there and then or borders similar to 1500 AD witht the EER , persia and the palymarians like the ottomans safavids and mameluks
But the Mongols weren't just another steppe group that's the difference, this is just saying "agricultural people conquered each other since forever" as an argument as to why a Roman like empire would always or likely successfully conquered the Mediterranean around the same time.#
The Turks and Xiongnu had a lot of territory but didn't really conquer any of the settled land so despite being successful it's a different piece of cake.
Climate change gave an impetus or advantage to the Mongols, it doesn't follow they would have necessarily won their initial wars against China or Khwarezm and if they aren't particularly successful there good parts of their war machine and momentum is lost there. I mean you pointed there that leadership mattered, who's to say than an earlier or later empire couldn't have achieved the same but they were just unlucky?
History is filled with luck; it may be that geography, climate patterns, technology etc. give the structure to history which we can use to make arguments to what's likely and what's not but in terms of inevitability or impossibility luck or happenstance is a very important factor too and by luck I mean good leadership or whether or not a bad human-focused event happens, like a succession crisis, plague at a specific location/time, battle being lost/won by a brink or exceptional event(arguably all battles are full of those kind of events) etc.