[Pelham]

Definitely Elagabalus- the Syrian god he’s named for even has something in common with Islam:

“The cult statue was brought to Rome by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, who before his accession was the hereditary high priest at Emesa and is commonly called Elagabalus after the deity. The Syrian deity was assimilated with the Roman sun god known as Sol Invictus (”the Undefeated Sun”).

“A temple called the Elagabalium was built on the east face of the Palatine Hill, to house the holy stone of the Emesa temple, a black conical meteorite. Herodian writes of that stone:

“This stone is worshipped as though it were sent from heaven; on it there are some small projecting pieces and markings that are pointed out, which the people would like to believe are a rough picture of the sun, because this is how they see them.

[gusty]

The origins of Islam are directly related to the borderlands of the Roman and Persian Empires. The Arab tribes on the borders were aware of religious thought within the Eastern Roman Empire. They borrowed and modified quite a lot of it. The Arabs served both empires as mercenaries. Some current historians of the period are know doubting that a Muhammed even existed. That the Koran itself was only written decades after the Arabs conquered the area. Their conquest was helped by the brutal war between the Byzantine and Persians brought both empires to ruin, thus allowing the Arabs to burst out of the borderlands against both.