Would no Islam allow Rome to be rebuilt?

Seeing as how Islam forced the Eastern Empire to fight wars in the East, would the nonexistence of Islam allow Byzantium to retake the Mediterranean and Western Europe?
 
What about the Arians (I think they were called - the schismatic Christian dudes) ?

The absence of Islam presumably creates a space for other enemies to emerge into

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
I think that without islam, could still appear a power capable of uniting Western Europe and be a rival or balance against Bizantium. I´m thinking in a Charlemagne or in the Visighotic Kingdom
 
It's fairly to very unlikely. The chances are decent for the Romans to keep control of Italy, maybe even Africa, but these places are nothing like what they used to be, and fending off hostile Berbers and Germanic or possibly later Slavic invaders will be a costly undertaking. I don't think they had a realistic chance of taking back Spain, Gaul or Britain, Moesia, Raetia, Illyricum, Pannonia or the Rhine frontier. The newly entrenched barbarian overlords there were too tough a nut to crack now.

Also, it's too easy to forget that the Persians had been in contol of Syria and Egypt a mere generation before Muhammad. They won't just go away.
 
I think that without islam, could still appear a power capable of uniting Western Europe and be a rival or balance against Bizantium. I´m thinking in a Charlemagne or in the Visighotic Kingdom
The Visigoths were weak. Remember, in Justinian's time a small expeditionary force seized and held southern Spain, which remained under Byzantine control until not long before the Caliphate arrived. A Byzantium with the Levant, Egypt, and without the threat of the Caliphate could be well poised to reestablish Roman rule in the west. Persia was curbstomped by Heraklios, if Islam doesn't rise and Heraklios doesn't lose his mind and is succeeded by similarly competent heirs, the eastern front could be easily controlled.
 
Thats a big if for the Eastern Empire.
OTL, Constans II, Heraklios' grandson, established the theme system, and despite hereditary insanity, the dynasty proved strong until Justinian II. The Eastern Empire's rulers didn't have quite such strings of incompetence at this point as they did later on. Phokas was the first successful usurper since Diokletian; all the others in the intervening three and a half centuries had taken the purple with a legal connection to their predecessor, so at this point, usurpation, instability, and outright incompetence have yet to become institutionalised in Byzantium.
 
It's fairly to very unlikely. The chances are decent for the Romans to keep control of Italy, maybe even Africa, but these places are nothing like what they used to be, and fending off hostile Berbers and Germanic or possibly later Slavic invaders will be a costly undertaking. I don't think they had a realistic chance of taking back Spain, Gaul or Britain, Moesia, Raetia, Illyricum, Pannonia or the Rhine frontier. The newly entrenched barbarian overlords there were too tough a nut to crack now.

Also, it's too easy to forget that the Persians had been in contol of Syria and Egypt a mere generation before Muhammad. They won't just go away.

Well , it depends on the POD. Assuming that there is a butterfly net around Arabia ,it is safe to say that Heraclius would still defeat the Sassanids in the same manner and degree. Two options would emerge:

1: Within a generation or two , another great Shah rises to power and repeats the process all over again.

2: Arab Explosion. Persia dissolves into Anarchy , Mespotamia is conquered, Byzantines forced to accept Arabs into the Levant , though they might still hold it .

3: Persia collapses. Turkic invaders and local lords slug it out. Romans with frontiers on Zargos and Tigris. Provided that they get a string of competent Emperors, they should be able to hold on to Italy and perhaps in the next few centries resubjagate Hispania. If some Hegemon maintains control over modern Germany and France , ala Charlemange, and that dynasty holds, Byzantine expansion northwards would probably be checked.
 
The Visigoths were weak. Remember, in Justinian's time a small expeditionary force seized and held southern Spain, which remained under Byzantine control until not long before the Caliphate arrived. A Byzantium with the Levant, Egypt, and without the threat of the Caliphate could be well poised to reestablish Roman rule in the west. Persia was curbstomped by Heraklios, if Islam doesn't rise and Heraklios doesn't lose his mind and is succeeded by similarly competent heirs, the eastern front could be easily controlled.

indeed, the Visigothic kingdom was sufficiently powerful to retake southern Spain but not to reunite Western Europe. The franks could do it, but I´m still not convinced about where could Western Europe arrive without islam influence especially what concernes to the Visigothic kingdom, and the franks. The franks would be a serious rival.
 
I hate doing this point by point posting anymore, but I'm wanting to address each of these individually...

Well , it depends on the POD. Assuming that there is a butterfly net around Arabia ,it is safe to say that Heraclius would still defeat the Sassanids in the same manner and degree. Two options would emerge:

1: Within a generation or two , another great Shah rises to power and repeats the process all over again.

This is, I think, a very plausible thing to happen. If not a new Sassanid shah, perhaps a dynastic change or invasion off the steppe, leading to a new Parthian-like Iranian Empire. Another round of decentralization could leave Iran weakened (but not to the point of easily losing) in the face of a resurgent Eastern Roman Empiire, leading to at least a bit more peace, or at least security, in the Levant and eastern Anatolia.

2: Arab Explosion. Persia dissolves into Anarchy , Mespotamia is conquered, Byzantines forced to accept Arabs into the Levant , though they might still hold it .

It really bears mentioning that the Arabs were already in the Levant. The Muslim conquests over-ran a Syria and Palestine that were largely already Arabicized, Arabic-speaking, and Christian, or at least Jewish. One of the reasons the Muslims were so successful is because of the proto-Arab nationalism that was a part of the very early (pre-Abbasid) Islamic method of government. If migration out of Arabia continues to be by individual tribes and people, this process will continue and Mesopotamia will likely end up Arabic speaking, too, anyway.

3: Persia collapses. Turkic invaders and local lords slug it out. Romans with frontiers on Zargos and Tigris. Provided that they get a string of competent Emperors, they should be able to hold on to Italy and perhaps in the next few centries resubjagate Hispania. If some Hegemon maintains control over modern Germany and France , ala Charlemange, and that dynasty holds, Byzantine expansion northwards would probably be checked.

I think resubjugating Italy might be higher on the priority list: Remember, by the time of Heraklios, the only parts of Italy still held were what would one day become the Pentopolis, parts of Southern Italy outside the Duchy of Benevento, and areas of Nothern Italy like Genoa. The rest is held by Lombards. North Africa is still held relatively tightly (Heraklios starts out as an Exarch there!), so the re-taking of the rest of Italy is only a matter of time, but it still must be done before any dreams of re-taking the Iberian penninsula, let alone Francia/Gaul. Once that is done, then they can start pushing west from Carthage, take the rest of North Africa, then push back into Hispania.
 
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