WI: Buddhism instead of Islam

Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck

Banned
What if the areas of the world that are currently Muslim become Buddhist isntead?

So, all countries from Morocco to Pakistan to Kazakhstan are majority Buddhist and India has a Buddhist minority rather than Muslim one.
 

Silver01

Abs in regards of north Africa syria and the middle east in general unless you have a pod that goes before the 6th century
 

Mort the Reaper

One possible answer for the "how" is that Arabia gets Indianized like Southeast Asia. Not sure why that didn't happen OTL, considering India also had extensive trade with Arabia.
 

Silver01

Unkown00 said:
So Muhammed converted to Buddism instead of meeting with archangel Gabriel?
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even if he did who is to say its attractive to the arabians if islam triggered the pagans so much how would buddishim do? what type of buddhist would mohamed be or would he create arabian buddhisim and even if they did what stops the arabs who dont have a quran or islam to keep their culture and thefore be assimilated to the local culture of the conquered people as well as maybe some leaving the relgion on that note would the conquered people even find buddhsim atractive enough to convert i mean at least islam shared some things in the eyes of the chirstians they migth be seen as just pagans.
 

Madhukar_Shah

I'd say you probably want a pod affecting Iranian religion and state patronage to get it to become established in Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean cultural sphere. Possibly Greco Buddhist Seleucids?
 

riggerrob

The Buddha lived about 600 years before Jesus Christ and Mohammed lived about 600 years after Christ. Buddhists had plenty of time to convert Arabs to their faith.
Perhaps the question should be about Buddhist travelling gurus visiting Arabia before Jesus Christ and having a greater influence.
 

Kerney

Am I the only one who thinks Jesus is a great name for a Bodisatva? Have the European part of the empire remain Pagan and butterfly Mohammad.

Boom! Done!
 

Deleted member 154680

Complete Spread of Buddhism into the European powers (Greece or Rome) would give you a Buddhist Syria-Palestina, Mesopotamia and Egypt+North Africa. I doubt a separate spread of Buddhism into Arabia from India and an Islam like expansion is possible, since that happened due to the fact that both empires were exhausted and turned their borders into a near wasteland, in the 7th Century, and not to mention the Migration Age that had battered Rome.

Both of these are unlikely to happen at an earlier era when Buddhism could spread as Rome and Persia were at their Zenith, back then. The best option for spread is hence, through Europe, which was more conducive for a Conversion to Buddhism as they had many Pagan religions and an integration of Buddhism is easy. Zoroastrian Persia already had a structured Monotheistic religion with strong doctrines and philosophies, already, and may be impossible to convert, unless under a converted Seleucid or a Bactrian Greek annexation. So Persia could remain a patch while the lands around it, from West Africa to Kazakhstan could be Buddhist.
 

HalfRottenHerring

All Omniscient PostHuman said:
... The best option for spread is hence, through Europe, which was more conducive for a Conversion to Buddhism as they had many Pagan religions and an integration of Buddhism is easy.
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The syncretism of Buddhism and Norse faith would be weird.

I could see some connections being made between the time Odin sacrificed himself to himself by hanging from the world tree for nine days and meditation.

Though the five-ish war gods seems like a poor fit.
 

herkles

If Buddhism spread into the greater Hellenic World it would be a syncretic form of Buddhism mixed with Hellenism, Kemeticism, and other polytheisms. We have examples of the Indo-Greeks where Herakles became the protector of the Buddha.

I imagine it would be like Japan or China. Where you would see a blend of them. Buddhism is rather pluralistic in that regard.
 

Deleted member 154680

Greek Buddhism is the closest that comes to this prompt. Greeks in Afghanistan and Indus Valley did actually convert to Buddhism and a more flourishing civilization there would have ensured a contact with their Western counterparts. Which would mean Greek Buddhism spreading through Hellenic base, into Europe. And in the Ptolemaic Egypt (and then into North Africa), it would spread as a mix of Kemetism and Buddhism, which could go further into Iberia and Gaul, as that route is a more convenient one.

So any Buddhism that arrives into Europe would already be a mix with Greek and Egyptian religions. Further mix is interesting.
 

Brahman

Buddhism makes its way till Roman empire through Buddhist Greeks who wish to spread it in their homeland, and it catches up due to its blending of Polytheistic religions of Mediterranean and Buddhist ideals along with some Stoicism added in to make it popular
 

Socrates

herkles said:
If Buddhism spread into the greater Hellenic World it would be a syncretic form of Buddhism mixed with Hellenism, Kemeticism, and other polytheisms. We have examples of the Indo-Greeks where Herakles became the protector of the Buddha.

I imagine it would be like Japan or China. Where you would see a blend of them. Buddhism is rather pluralistic in that regard.
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Depends on the form of Buddhism to be honest. Mahayana Buddhism is theistic and could tie in with some of the pagan traditions. Theravada, on the other hand, is very close in philosophy to Stoicism.
 

herkles

Socrates said:
Depends on the form of Buddhism to be honest. Mahayana Buddhism is theistic and could tie in with some of the pagan traditions. Theravada, on the other hand, is very close in philosophy to Stoicism.
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Stoicism was a philosophy that complimented traditional polytheistic religions easily enough. So perhaps Therevada could cooperate with Stoic ideals and merge well there?

I am not sure which tradition Greek Buddhism fell into, but it is also important to realize that the classical world corresponded with the early Buddhist schools, there were 18 to 20 different schools depending on the source. Its entirely possibly that as Buddhism spreads west in this timeline that the schools that died out in our timeline survive and evolve such as the Pudgalavada, Dharmaguptaka, or the Ekavyāvahārika just to name some of them.
 
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