WI: Sassanids defeat the Arabs.

[Muwatalli']

WI the Sassanid Empire was able to defeated the Rashidun Caliphate?

Would an initial Sassanid victory be able to permanently avoid conquest? Or would Persia (or at least Mesopotamia) still be conquered later? Would the Sassanid state be able to survive itself, or would it fall because of internal disputes?

And how would this affect the Byzantine-Arab wars? Would the Arabs still be equally succesful?

And what will the effect be on the development of Zoroastrianism and Islam?

 

[SvoHljott]

Just going to put this here:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=207579

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=184857

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=296494

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=15850

It's more important to think about how the Persians beat the Arabs than what comes afterwards. If the Persians defeat the Arabs then the Persians never get conquered by the Arabs and they never become Muslim. If the Sassanids specifically defeat the Arabs then they've basically just revived support for their dynasty, and might last longer. Their dynasty was on the verge of collapse though, so it's possible another royal dynasty will take control.

Persia remains Zoroastrian and Islam is confined to Arabia and anything it manages to take from the Byzantine Empire. It never spreads east.

 

[Malta]

Well, really the Turks could go anywhere really. Mani, Nestorian, Zoroastrian, Buddhist, Revived Tengri...

 

[Workable Goblin]

Persia remains Zoroastrian and Islam is confined to Arabia and anything it manages to take from the Byzantine Empire. It never spreads east.

It still has naval lines of communication with Southeast Asia (how it spread there in reality) and southern India, though. It might not become as big as it did, but it's still pretty likely to spread to the east at least somewhat, bypassing the Persians.

 

[SvoHljott]

It still has naval lines of communication with Southeast Asia (how it spread there in reality) and southern India, though. It might not become as big as it did, but it's still pretty likely to spread to the east at least somewhat, bypassing the Persians.

If it doesn't conquer Persia I can't really see the same level of contact with India. Of course some but I can't really see it kicking off like in OTL.

Plus there's a large chance Persia will strike Arabia with full force - don't forget they ruled or had vassals in Yemen and Oman, they're going to want to protect those or want them back.

 

[Workable Goblin]

If it doesn't conquer Persia I can't really see the same level of contact with India. Of course some but I can't really see it kicking off like in OTL.

Plus there's a large chance Persia will strike Arabia with full force - don't forget they ruled or had vassals in Yemen and Oman, they're going to want to protect those or want them back.

Persia was pretty bushwhacked after the Roman-Sassanid Wars; after that and probably barely fighting off the Arabs to begin with, they're not going to be in any shape to invade Oman and Yemen and try to set up client kings there, not for a good long while to recover. Plus if this is the Rashidun caliphate, those clients don't actually exist anymore--they don't have any local allies, or at least not of the same scale as pre-Islam.

Anyways, I imagined Islam as having about the same presence in southern India as Christianity did at this point--a rather narrow and small-scale faith. Not the wide scale conversions of the north, which would be quite impossible without boots on the ground, as it were, which in turn isn't going to happen unless the Persians have fallen, indeed. But it could achieve a small degree of penetration into the south and quite probably a large degree of penetration into Southeast Asia given Muslim dominance over one terminus of the nautical routes across the Indian Ocean, just as it did IOTL.

 

[CELTICEMPIRE]

IIRC, the Sassanid Empire was practically a rotting corpse at the time.

 

[Draco]

IIRC, the Sassanid Empire was practically a rotting corpse at the time.

It's wasn't quite a corpse yet you could say it was on life support because while it was certainly in a bad place after losing a nearly 30 year war, suffering constant dynastic instability, and a plague it could have recovered from that its just that timing wasn't on its side. Even after all that if Rostam had managed not get himself killed he may well have been able to win at al-Qādisiyyah which would have thrown a wrench in the conquest and given both the Persians and the Greeks some breathing room. Beyond that there were so many things that could plausibly have gone differently that would have derailed the Caliphate's attempts to expand.

 

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

IIRC, the Sassanid Empire was practically a rotting corpse at the time.

It's a Zoroastrian-related topic, so of course I must show up to post!

At least this time I can read the name of the dynasty correctly (stupid Samanids looking like SaFaVids. . .)

From what I remember, CELTICEMPIRE is pretty much correct. The wars with Heraclius sapped much of Persia's strength, and civil wars erupted right after Khosrau II died. They had only just begun to restore order by the time of Yazdegerd III.

 

[Workable Goblin]

IIRC, the Sassanid Empire was practically a rotting corpse at the time.

That's not really correct; it would be more accurate to say that they were like the Soviet Union right after World War II. They had just bled themselves white and poured out oceans of treasure prosecuting a generation-long war with the Romans that they lost. They weren't in any shape for overseas adventures, but I haven't heard that their governing structures had completely fallen to bits or that there was any particular level of unrest or anything of that sort. But I'll freely admit that I'm not an expert on the end of the Sassanids.

 

[Uruk]

So what if they get Chinese support earlier like Peroz III supposedly got?

 

[Herman Gigglethorpe]

So what if they get Chinese support earlier like Peroz III supposedly got?

The "Chinese support" you mentioned was really more like a token alliance: In practice Peroz was more useful to the Chinese as a Tang general than a foreign ally. There WAS a botched attempt to smuggle him back into Persia once, but obviously that isn't going to do much without major military support. You would have to have the Sassanids convince the Chinese emperor that the Arabs were a major threat to their interests, but keep in mind that Arab expansion went from "regional power" to "massive empire" VERY QUICKLY. The Chinese might think Yazdegerd III could handle it on his own. . .

Apparently the major sources for Peroz's life are the Old Book of Tang and the New Book of Tang, if anyone wants something more thorough than our posts.

 

[Herzen's love-child]

If it doesn't conquer Persia I can't really see the same level of contact with India. Of course some but I can't really see it kicking off like in OTL.

Plus there's a large chance Persia will strike Arabia with full force - don't forget they ruled or had vassals in Yemen and Oman, they're going to want to protect those or want them back.

Sassanid rule in S. Arabia was pretty tenuous by the time of the OTL Arab conquest. It wasn't even direct rule, anyway, but through vassalage or native rulers they had puppetized.

The South Arabians did have their own shipping and trade with India, so Persia not being conquered is not going to end trade with India.