WI: The Persians defeat the Muslims

Except in this ATL,they would ally. There would be two hypothetical explanations that would be fabricated. That Greeks and Persians have a common descent(we know that today) or that both have a same God in their beliefs. Such an alliance would help both survive for long.
It'd be fair to say that the vast majority of conflicts have been infighting between groups in the same primary language families, ethnic descent, and religious groups, so that sort of solidarity hasn't been all too prominent for most of history. That's more an issue of proximity and competition for resources than anything else, I'd imagine, but Europeans Christians tended to fight other European Christians, whether for heresy or succession or any of the million other reasons people fight wars. Same applies for most regions of the world for the same reasons.

For more specific examples, the Japanese fought l̶i̶t̶e̶r̶a̶l̶l̶y̶ ̶3̶ ̶w̶a̶r̶s̶ ̶l̶a̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶l̶i̶k̶e̶ ̶2̶0̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶r̶s̶ ̶t̶o̶t̶a̶l̶ more like 7 major (Imjin War (7), Ryukyu Expedition (<1), 1st Sino-Japanese War (<1), Russo-Japanese War (1), Boxer Rebellion (1), 2nd Sino-Japanese War into WWII (8)) totaling less than 20 years with the non-Japanese in the past 700 years while fighting over 100 years against other Japanese in a brutal and extended civil war, the bloodiest war in US history in terms of American causalities was the US Civil War, the Italian Wars saw the Italians fighting each other, the French, the Spanish, Austrians, etc., the Slavs in the collapse of Yugoslavia are rather self-explanatory, the 30, 80, and 100 Years' Wars, etc.

Wars with groups of different ethnolinguistic groups, by comparison, are rather scarce as there tend to be fewer such neighbors nearby to declare war on and realpolitik demands pragmatism with regard to allies (the French and Turk against the Habsburgs, for example). And united efforts against even those neighbors tended to fall apart (the Ottoman advance failed to see Christiandom united; hell, part of the reason the Turks did so well was because the Christian nations of the Balkans had spent so much effort fighting each other they hadn't the power to resist Osman's onslaught and the rest of Europe continued to beat each other senseless for another couple centuries in the Italian Wars, Religious Wars (30 Years', 80 Years', French Wars of Religion), succession (Time of Troubles, the Byzantine civil war of 1341-1347 where one side allied with the Turks against their fellow Greeks, the extinction of the senior branch of the de Valois, etc.) before finally turning around to address the Ottomans in much of a meaningful manner).

The point being common descent and a similar religious background (the Abrahamic God and Zoroastrianism's Ahura Mazda aren't the same and Christianity and Zoroastrianism aren't even heresies of each other; the latter influenced Judaism, the precursor of the former, but they're not of the same religious fabric however you cut it) doesn't do squat to keep the peace between two entities, let alone see trust and cooperation between two traditional enemies; it hasn't historically and there's thousands of examples (civil wars, wars of religion against heretics, wars of conquest against neighbors, succession wars, wars of independence, wars to weaken enemies, pretty much every flavour of war) pointing to just that.

The age of sail and nationalism might've changed the ratio a bit, sure, but this is addressing the point of the Eastern Roman Empire and the Persians in the 7th century joining forces specifically for a common descent from ancestors that diverged thousands of years prior and rather distant linguistic and utterly tenuous religious connections rather than just because of the pragmatic desire to not both get overrun by a bunch of nomadic upstarts.
 
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Albert.Nik

Banned
@BellaGerant Whoa! Hold on! I don't mean that they would ally as them being both Indo-Europeans and diverged from the North Caucasus 1000s of years ago! This was discovered much later then them! But like how Greeks once had their theory of Greeks having common descent with Egyptians what we know today to be incorrect except some Neolithic Ethnicities from Anatolia who gave both some amount of mixture and hence out of necessacity at that time,they would fabricate something like that with the Persians also. Some myth that both Greeks and Persians descend from common ancestor in Anatolia called some Greek name by Greeks and Persian name by Persians could be fabricated. Religion,I think both are monotheistic and though far fetched,we can imagine some kind of relation being fabricated.
 
Have bahram chobin succeed n the revolt of 590 ad by having nobels support him , he revives the parthian power and restores oder in the iranian lands , this butterflies away the sassanind Byzantine war of 602-622 , besides at the time of Arab invasion the iranian elite would be more United and cohesive than in our time line
 
@BellaGerant Whoa! Hold on! I don't mean that they would ally as them being both Indo-Europeans and diverged from the North Caucasus 1000s of years ago! This was discovered much later then them! But like how Greeks once had their theory of Greeks having common descent with Egyptians what we know today to be incorrect except some Neolithic Ethnicities from Anatolia who gave both some amount of mixture and hence out of necessacity at that time,they would fabricate something like that with the Persians also. Some myth that both Greeks and Persians descend from common ancestor in Anatolia called some Greek name by Greeks and Persian name by Persians could be fabricated. Religion,I think both are monotheistic and though far fetched,we can imagine some kind of relation being fabricated.
That's still moot in terms of international diplomacy. So what if they had a common ancestor? The Greek city-states fought amongst each other all the time, the Socii defected to the Carthaginian side and fought against Rome in the 2nd Punic War, the Greeks and Persians that, by your reckoning, ought to have cause to unite were bitter rivals for centuries. From what I can see, shared descent held little bearing in practical matters of state and international affair, that being the rule rather than the exception in the historical record.
 
So, what if the Sassanid Persians defeat the Rashidun Caliphate and maintain there independance? Perhaps by an earlier peace with Byzantium, or by having the Persians adapt to Islamic tactics?
The main problem is that the insane degree of pointless warfare between the Byzantines and Sassanids in the late 6th/early 7th centuries AD, particularly the quarter-century Byzantine-Sassanian War following the ousting of Maurice by Phocas. The economic devastation and military damage done by that conflict meant that the Arabs had a hilariously easy time of taking over the outlying regions of the Byzantines, then hit the Sassanids right in the middle of internal turmoil. With Ctesiphon easily targeted by Arab armies, it was just a matter of holding onto the Byzantine and Mesopotamian agricultural regions and then taking out the feuding remnant east of the mountains. Those are not factors that are easy to avert and mean that any serious Arab/Sassanid conflict is gonna be a disaster for the Sassanids.

At best, you'd get a Sassanid rump state in the east that would soon evaporate into feudal squabbling. Losing the capital and the rich provinces in Mesopotamia would be a disaster for the ruling house.

Honestly, the best way IMO is to avoid giving the Arabs a casus belli by not raiding them from Mesopotamia.
 
@BellaGerant Whoa! Hold on! I don't mean that they would ally as them being both Indo-Europeans and diverged from the North Caucasus 1000s of years ago! This was discovered much later then them! But like how Greeks once had their theory of Greeks having common descent with Egyptians what we know today to be incorrect except some Neolithic Ethnicities from Anatolia who gave both some amount of mixture and hence out of necessacity at that time,they would fabricate something like that with the Persians also. Some myth that both Greeks and Persians descend from common ancestor in Anatolia called some Greek name by Greeks and Persian name by Persians could be fabricated. Religion,I think both are monotheistic and though far fetched,we can imagine some kind of relation being fabricated.


Also on the point of being monotheistic, Islam is also monotheistic so that's a bit moot also.
 
The Sassanids view of the world was divided into two parts: Iran and anIran (not Iran). Mesopotamia was considered part of Iran, even though it's population mainly consisted of Semitic speakers and mainly followed Abrahamic faiths. This was probably the case becaue Mesopotamia was part of every previous Iranian dynasty. The Arabs only wanted Mesopotamia and craved Rome more, but no Sassanid king could give it up without facing political suicide. Also, the Sassanids were in the middle of a civil war to put up any real resistance against the Arabs. In the end war is inevitable as both the Sassanids and Arabs had a religious duty to have Mesopotamia.
 

Baby Kata

Banned
The Middle East would probably be much less of a geopolitical headache today if Islam had either never been founded or if it had been contained to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman.

Most of the region's geopolitical issues tie back to Islam in some way, either sectarian issues (like in Iraq and Syria), issues between Muslims and Christians (like in Lebanon and Cyprus), or issues involving Israel (which is arguably tied to Islam, since the Koran teaches that Jews [and Christians, for that matter] should be subservient to Muslims)
 
A tripartite Middle-East divided between Eastern Romans, Persians and the Caliphate sounds interesting. Maybe add a few small fish for them to fight over or ally with, like the Armenians, the Abyssinians, subordinated Arab tribes of every side, and such.
 
The Middle East would probably be much less of a geopolitical headache today if Islam had either never been founded or if it had been contained to Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Oman.

Most of the region's geopolitical issues tie back to Islam in some way, either sectarian issues (like in Iraq and Syria), issues between Muslims and Christians (like in Lebanon and Cyprus), or issues involving Israel (which is arguably tied to Islam, since the Koran teaches that Jews [and Christians, for that matter] should be subservient to Muslims)

Yes, because there were never problems between different Christian sects before the rise of Islam . Christians treated Jews, and other religious minorities, so well.
 
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