Effects of an unconceived Islam on...

[EvolvedSaurian]

Persia? How would the Sassanid state and Zoroastranism evolve without the conquest?

India? Again, no Muslim conquests, but perhaps the Mongols and/or Turks would be redirected through the Khyber Pass, with stronger Persia and Eastern Rome? No Parsis, for one thing.

Egypt? Christian, but a different form of Christianity from that endorsed by Constantinopolis. How would that play out in the short- and long-terms?

North Africa? Roman, Vandal or Berber (Or what the proper term would be, don't want to start that discussion again)? If one of the first two, what language would be spoken there?

Spain?

Ethiopia?

West Africa?

East Africa?

East Indies?

Arabia itself? I could see it becoming a bloodbath, with traditional feuds taking on a whole new level when combined with religious tensions. Zoroastrians, various Christian sects, traditional polytheism and Jews in the Yemen... Not fun to contemplate.

Any other areas that I forgot, or another aspect of an Islam-less world?

Also, assume for the purposes of this discussion that Muhammed never existed at all.

 

[Flocculencio]

The East Indies are going to be much more firmly within the Indian cultural zone (they are in OTL but it's much less of a direct connection since Islam overlies the actual Indian cultural practices) with Hindu and Buddhist maritime states still predominating

 

[dreadnought jenkins]

The East Indies are going to be much more firmly within the Indian cultural zone (they are in OTL but it's much less of a direct connection since Islam overlies the actual Indian cultural practices) with Hindu and Buddhist maritime states still predominating

Would European mathematics suffer a setback without the introduction of Arabic numerals and the zero that I believe the Arabs stole from India?

 

[Tobit]

I was thinking about it. The effects would be huge. Thats about all I can say.

 

[Archdevil]

Would European mathematics suffer a setback without the introduction of Arabic numerals and the zero that I believe the Arabs stole from India?

Can't they get them from Persia instead?

 

[carlton_bach]

Would European mathematics suffer a setback without the introduction of Arabic numerals and the zero that I believe the Arabs stole from India?

THere's no reason to think they could not be imported along the same route through other intermediaries.

The bigger question is, won't the west alotgether suffer. It well may, though that will depend on how developments in the Roman Empire play out. The Romans had their bad moments with regard to scholarship and science, and there is no guarantee that they would snap out of it to create the samer kind of saecular literacy and book culture the Arab world did. In the medium term, that might end up having a big impact. Of course, it may as well not - there is no particular reason the Romans can't have their versions of madrassas. The scientific material would be more limited without the flow from India and Persia, but not massively so. But we'd still have a different system of higher education throughout the Mediterranean.

 

[EvolvedSaurian]

The East Indies are going to be much more firmly within the Indian cultural zone (they are in OTL but it's much less of a direct connection since Islam overlies the actual Indian cultural practices) with Hindu and Buddhist maritime states still predominating

I was wondering about the possibilities of a native religion arising, influenced by, but distinct from, Indian religions.

Would European mathematics suffer a setback without the introduction of Arabic numerals and the zero that I believe the Arabs stole from India?

Can't they get them from Persia instead?

THere's no reason to think they could not be imported along the same route through other intermediaries.

Indeed, either overland through Persia or transmitted by south Indian traders to Egypt, Indian numerals are gonna get to the West.

The bigger question is, won't the west alotgether suffer. It well may, though that will depend on how developments in the Roman Empire play out. The Romans had their bad moments with regard to scholarship and science, and there is no guarantee that they would snap out of it to create the samer kind of saecular literacy and book culture the Arab world did. In the medium term, that might end up having a big impact. Of course, it may as well not - there is no particular reason the Romans can't have their versions of madrassas. The scientific material would be more limited without the flow from India and Persia, but not massively so. But we'd still have a different system of higher education throughout the Mediterranean.

That's quite an interesting point that I'd pretty much forgotten about... Hm... Although, I'm wondering how much of the Arab cultural boom was a result of being exposed to Roman and Persian ideas and culture. I'm thinking quite a lot, so it follows that something similiar may happen without Muslims or Muslim expansion.

I was thinking about it. The effects would be huge. Thats about all I can say.

Anything more specific?

Also, the POD I have in mind is around the early 400s, not really sure how plausible it is, but it's an idea that's been banging around my head for a while.

 

[Malta]

Hmmmm not neccesarily a Christianwank or a Romanwank. There still could be a Arab Empire. The Parathians, Nabataeans, Turks, Huns, Mongols, and other such similar nomadic groups without a religious figure to move them along sure managed it.

 

[Leo Caesius]

That's quite an interesting point that I'd pretty much forgotten about... Hm... Although, I'm wondering how much of the Arab cultural boom was a result of being exposed to Roman and Persian ideas and culture. I'm thinking quite a lot, so it follows that something similiar may happen without Muslims or Muslim expansion.

Even though I'm a bit of an Iranophile myself, but people have a tendency to overemphasize the role of the Persians, particularly in the sciences. They really wouldn't achieve that role until well into the Islamic era, so projecting it back into late antiquity is a bit of an anachronism.

This was a trope already in Islamic times... people would often attribute knowledge and wisdom to "Persian" books that in all reality probably never existed. It was a way of bestowing a respectable antiquity upon a subject.

 

[Flocculencio]

I was wondering about the possibilities of a native religion arising, influenced by, but distinct from, Indian religions.

That's pretty much what happened IOTL. Buddhism and Hinduism just influenced and overlaid the native religious practices and traditions*- basically the aristocracy would have been more formally Hindu/Buddhist while the peasants just tagged the Indian practices onto their own. Islam then came along and added another layer. It's much more prominent in Indonesia, such as Kejawen in Java, but even in more thoroughly Islamicised Malaysia there are plenty of Hindu and pre-Hindu folk beliefs and practices.

*A good example is Balinese Hinduism which has a rather different cosmology than mainline Hindu variants in India

 

[Lugal]

North Africa? Roman, Vandal or Berber (Or what the proper term would be, don't want to start that discussion again)? If one of the first two, what language would be spoken there?

I would guess that Berber would be spoken in the countryside and a Romance language, or dialects of it, may survive in the cities and along the coast.

 

[carlton_bach]

That's quite an interesting point that I'd pretty much forgotten about... Hm... Although, I'm wondering how much of the Arab cultural boom was a result of being exposed to Roman and Persian ideas and culture. I'm thinking quite a lot, so it follows that something similiar may happen without Muslims or Muslim expansion.

Couild, but not autromatically would. The cultural boom was a very interesting phenomenon that depended on some factors you wouldn't have in place. One was unitary language. By the time Islam had coalesced into a formalised religion, it put great ewmphasis on literacy in Arabic. That created a class of literate, educated people who could communicate with each other theroughout the Muslim world. It also created demand for education as a commodity - cultural capital, in Bourdieu's terms. THe educated classes thus developed an interest in the knowledge stores (not so much the literary heritage) of older civilisations they had conquered. That meant that people would a) specifically go looking for things like this, since it gained you prestige and money, b) that people took an active interest in the heritage of different cultures because they didn't have a stake in privileging one over the other and c) that once discovered and translated, a text could have an immense impact because the next language barrier was either Italy or the Punjab.

Neither Sassanid Persia nor Rome would necessarily be in a position to replicate this effect, and the smaller players probably wouldn't be able to make it last (sure, you could get an Armenian or Ghassanid cultural fliowering, but in the great scheme of things, who would notice?)

 

[Skokie]

Persia would keep chugging along under Zoroastrianism. Assyrian Christians would be considered potential fifth columnists, despite the fact that they're schismatic heretics in the eyes of the Byzantines. Jews would probably find a safe haven since "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," especially as the Byzantines enact anti-Semitic laws (such as Justinian's law that Jews cannot possess Bibles). Similar thing with Hellenistic philosopher refugees. That would set the stage for a similar cultural flowering as in OTL. Would be nice if we could see some Buddhist leakage.

India would still have a large Buddhist presence.

Egypt doesn't change much. Intra-Christian intrigues. Moribund Hellenistic presence.

Arabs, deprived of Islam, choose sides with someone. Not sure who. Would be funny if they chose to become fervent Melkite Christians.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

This is addressed rather well in A World Without Mohammed. A TL that's apparently now defunct.

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Perhaps we'll get a Persiawank, or if butterflies haven't been too active, a Mongol wank.