What would Mesopotamia look like without the Mongol conquests?

Let's say that for whatever reason the Mongols never unite or that if they do, they simply decide to leave the region alone.

  1. Would the region be more fertile today, or would desertification inevitably make it what it is in the present?
  2. Would this allow for Baghdad to return to its former glory as one of the most important cities in the world?
  3. Would Mesopotamia be the center of the Arab world, or would that title go to Egypt, as in OTL?
 
Let's say that for whatever reason the Mongols never unite or that if they do, they simply decide to leave the region alone.

  1. Would the region be more fertile today, or would desertification inevitably make it what it is in the present?
  2. Would this allow for Baghdad to return to its former glory as one of the most important cities in the world?
  3. Would Mesopotamia be the center of the Arab world, or would that title go to Egypt, as in OTL?

1. It would be more populous but I don't know if it will prevent desertification. The chances are that there might be a migration of the locals towards Anatolia or Syria. Highly ideal if the local power decides to colonize.

2. Debatable. I can't really remember that the glory days of Baghdad were still like the 9th century. It might decline or it might regain interest, depending on the ruling class.

3. There might be a competition between the two regions.
 
Would the region be more fertile today, or would desertification inevitably make it what it is in the present?
The population would be higher but the climate would still be pretty dry. I don't think historians will ever know exactly how North Africa went from the breadbasket of the Roman Empire to what it is now.
Would this allow for Baghdad to return to its former glory as one of the most important cities in the world?
It was already one of the most important cities in the world at the time. The Caliphate might have been in decline but the city was in its prime or near to it. That state of affairs could continue.
Would Mesopotamia be the center of the Arab world, or would that title go to Egypt, as in OTL?
Egypt might be important but that doesn't nessecarly mean it would become the Caliphate. There are a lot of things you could do in a world without the Mongols. One idea could be that the Caliphate over time devolves into a HRE-like institution. The Turks and maybe a resurgent Iran would choose to work with the existing system in place while controlling large empires outside of it. Sort of how other European powers treated the HRE.
 
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With time, Mesopotamias population will boom in comparison to Egypt's (I believe it was already larger), and urbanization will continue to increase as long as the place is governed by a stable state that can keep the irrigation systems mantained, and prevent it from being sacked repetedly. Desertification will happen, but it is a well observed phenomenon that the precense of plant life, including agriculture, has a significant delaying effect on it. As to its relative importance in the arab world, well, that depends on whether it actually stays under arab rule. If the Mongols also forgo the devastation of Persian civilazation, I think it is likely that Mesopotamia will fall back under the control of either an Iranian empire, or a very persianate Turkic one.
 
What his this desertification that people bring up? Did Mesopotamia actually became more arid and where is this coming from?
 

Skallagrim

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What his this desertification that people bring up? Did Mesopotamia actually became more arid and where is this coming from?

Mesopotamia had high-maintenance irrigation infrastructure, and the Mongol invasions at the very least interrupted the required maintenance efforts and possibly outright wrecked the infrastructure in crucial places. Whether climate played a major role as well, and if so to what extent, is still debated. A similar discussion exits where North Africa is concerned: it's usually recognised that existing infrastructure was damaged during various invasions (culminating in the Arab conquest), and declined ever more-- but is that the major reason why North Africa stopped being the breadbasket is was in Antiquity, or is it just a factor that happened to happen concurrently with climate change? In both cases, we don't know. Of course, the fact that Yemen ran into serious issues after the Ma'rib dam ultimately broke seems to indicate that the presence or non-presence of adequate water-managing infrastructure is in itself a major factor when it comes to the fertility of regions that are always at risk from an encroaching desert-- climate change or no climate change.

As such, I'm inclined to think that in all the above cases, any ATL prevention of OTL damage to or destruction of water-managing infrastructure would be a boon. It may not prevent all of OTL's desertification, but it would probably make a noticable difference.
 
The population would be higher but the climate would still be pretty dry. I don't think historians will every know exactly how North Africa wen't from the breadbasket of the Roman Empire to now.
You can blame the Banu Hilal for at least some of it. Arguably urbanity in North Africa started declining when the Fatimids moved their capital to Egypt, but the Banu Hilal sped up the process and did a lot of damage to settled life in the region in a very broad way. Apparently French agricultural policy contributed too, e.g. the use of water-intensive crops and prohibitions on prescribed burns. But ultimately it seems like the Sahara just goes though multi-millennium humid/dry cycles and the Romans got lucky and caught the far tail end of a humid age.

I'm not sure averting the Mongols changes much because it seems like a lot of what has affected Mesopotamia has simply been global climate trends and the typical process of soil erosion and deforestation. The removal of cedar forests from that area was a problem even 4,000+ years ago and there are none to be found today. That has consequences.
 
It's a cycle. Light colored sand in the Sahara reflects more light and causes less rainfall which causes the desert to expand.. rinse. repeat. (Oversimplified, but basic)

A darker covering (like tree or plant) causes more rain to fall, basically.

On the topic:

The biggest impact would be in population in Central Asia. The massacres in the area were so bad that the population didn't reach it's pre-Mongol levels for centuries and numerous civilizations were weakened or destroyed. The dynamic of the Silk Road region changes tremendously. How successful is Russia in invading the region later, for example.

Baghdad was also a center of learning and much of that knowledge was destroyed. The region could be much improved in development level with longer access to those records. Not sure if it would be a huge difference in slowing colonialism later as they weren't making a lot of new discoveries at the time because of religious proscriptions, but the city could have retained it's importance as a global center of learning for a long time based on keeping up what they had.

I think having Baghdad and Mesopotamia being close to the geographic center of the Islamic world with a larger Silk Road population would make it a major city for trade at the least. Combined with continuous irrigation, the retention of knowledge, and no military destruction giving reason to leave. Yeah, I could see it sticking around as the major city of the Islamic world even if it didn't always stay as an Arabic city.
 
It's a cycle. Light colored sand in the Sahara reflects more light and causes less rainfall which causes the desert to expand.. rinse. repeat. (Oversimplified, but basic)

A darker covering (like tree or plant) causes more rain to fall, basically.

On the topic:

The biggest impact would be in population in Central Asia. The massacres in the area were so bad that the population didn't reach it's pre-Mongol levels for centuries and numerous civilizations were weakened or destroyed. The dynamic of the Silk Road region changes tremendously. How successful is Russia in invading the region later, for example.

Baghdad was also a center of learning and much of that knowledge was destroyed. The region could be much improved in development level with longer access to those records. Not sure if it would be a huge difference in slowing colonialism later as they weren't making a lot of new discoveries at the time because of religious proscriptions, but the city could have retained it's importance as a global center of learning for a long time based on keeping up what they had.

I think having Baghdad and Mesopotamia being close to the geographic center of the Islamic world with a larger Silk Road population would make it a major city for trade at the least. Combined with continuous irrigation, the retention of knowledge, and no military destruction giving reason to leave. Yeah, I could see it sticking around as the major city of the Islamic world even if it didn't always stay as an Arabic city.

If there are no Mongols, then "Russia" is very different as well. It will have a big head start in population, especially in the fertile south, and its nucleus will likely be shifterd southwards as well, and that's assuming it still unifies per OTL. But yes, a big impact would be that Islamic scholarship will remain a thing (even if it declines). This would be just as much because of Persian scholarship in Central Asia than because of Mesopotamia, though. But mainly, the link between European scholarship (be it Greek or later Western) and Indian scholarship wont be broken, so there is potential for a continuos flow of knowledge in a West-East axis and back, which could have major implications for technological progress.
There are also major questions that can affect the wider outcome, like what happens to Byzantium without the Mongols to cripple and splinter the Rumites.
 
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