Posted on 03/14/2007 1:04:50 PM PDT by freedom44
What if instead of invading Greece the Persians would have invaded and conquered Arabia? At the time Arabia was real weak so it would have been an easy victory. Freeper CarrotandStick poised this question in another thread.
Lets hear your predictions history buffs. No Islam? A Zoroastrian Middle East? How would it have played out?
The Persian Empire. Notice how accessible Arabia was.
Until the sixth century BC, they were a people shrouded in mystery. Living in the area east of the Mesopotamian region, the Persians were a disparate group of Indo-European tribes, some nomadic, some settled, that were developing their own culture and religion unique from that of the great cities to their west. Sometimes history is about ideas, and nothing more clearly emphasizes this aspect of history than the sudden eruption of Persians on to the world stage, or at least the world stage as it centered around Mesopotamia. For the sudden rise of Persian power not only over Mesopotamia, but over the entire known world, has its center of gravity in a new set of ideas constellating around a new religion. For the Persians would become the largest and most powerful empire ever known in human history up until that point. By 486 BC, the Persians would control all of Mesopotamia and, in fact, all of the world from Macedon northeast of Greece to Egypt, from Palestine and the Arabian peninsula across Mesopotamia and all the way to India. The Persians throughout their history, such as we know it, lived peacefully in the region just north of the Persian Gulf (modern day Iran). For the most part, they were left unbothered by the epic power struggles broiling to the west in Mesopotamia, Palestine, and Egypt. They were Indo-European peoples who spoke a language similar to Sanskrit and who worshipped gods very similar to the gods of the Vedic period in India. Life was hard in the region they controlled; the coastline afforded no harbors and the eastern region was mountainous. Only a few interior valleys supported the peoples; in part because of the geography, the Persians never really united into a single peoples but rather served as disparate vassal states to the Medes, who, from their capital at Ecbatana, controlled the area east of the Tigris river.
Persian Empire under Darius the Great.
In this state, somewhere around 650 BC, a new religion suddenly took hold. While we know little or nothing about the Persians in this period, we know the man who invented this new religion. Called Zarathustra (Zoroaster in Greek), his new religion and new gods captivated the spiritual and social imagination of the Persians. In its roughest outlines, Zoroastrianism is a dualistic religion; in Zarathustra's cosmos, the universe was under the control of two contrary gods, Ahura-Mazda, the creating god who is full of light and good, and Ahriman, the god of dark and evil. These two evenly matched gods are in an epic struggle over creation; at the end of time, Ahura-Mazda and his forces will emerge victorious. All of creation, all gods, all religions, and all of human history and experience can be understood as part of this struggle between light and dark, good and evil. Zoroastrianism, however, is a manifestly eschatological religion; meaning and value in this world is oriented towards the end of history and the final defeat of Ahriman and all those gods, humans, and other animate forces arrayed on the dark side of creation.
It is not possible to underestimate how Zoroastrianism changed the Persian world and its sense of its own community. If the world and human history could be understood as an epic struggle between good and evil, a struggle whose ultimate trajectory is the establishment of good throughout the universe and the defeat of evil, then one's own role, as an enlightened people, in the world becomes vastly different. This political role in the world was put together by Cyrus, called The Great.
Cyrus was a first in human history, for he was the first to conceive of an idea that would forever fire the political and social imaginations of the people touched by the Persians. That idea? Conquer the world.
Up until Cyrus, no culture or individual had ever really thought this one up. Territorial conquests, like monarchical power, were justified on religious grounds, but these religious grounds never gave rise to the notion that one's religious duty was to conquer the whole of the world as you knew it.
In 559 BC, Cyrus became the chief of an obscure Persian tribe in the south of Persia. A devoted Zoroastrianism, he believed that his religious duty was to bring about the eschatological promises of Zoroastrianism through active warfare. If the universe was an epic struggle between the forces of Ahura-Mazda and the forces of evil, Cyrus his job as personally bringing about the victory of his god. As an extension of this, Cyrus would bring Zoroastrianism to all the peoples he conquered; he would not force them to become Zoroastrian, though. For Zoroastrianism recognized that all the gods worshipped by other peoples were really gods; some were underlings of Ahura-Mazda and some were servants of Ahriman. Cyrus saw as his mission the tearing down of religions for evil gods and the shoring up of religions of gods allied with Ahura-Mazda.
By 554 BC, Cyrus had conquered all of Persia and defeated the Medes for control of the region. He soon conquered Lydia in Asia Minor, Babylon in 539 BC and, by the time he died in 529 BC, he had conquered a vast territory—in fact, he probably was the greatest conqueror in human history.
The Hebrews After the Exile
Post-Exilic Religion As one aspect of the religious eclecticism of Zoroastrianism and Cyrus's intentions, the conquest of Babylon led to the immediate freeing of the Hebrews who had been exiled in Babylon by Nebuchadnezzar. Cyrus claimed to have been visited in a dream by Yahweh, the god of the Hebrews. Aligned with Ahura-Mazda, Yahweh demanded to be worshipped in the land of Judah; Cyrus freed the Hebrews with the specific intent that they reintroduce the proper worship of Yahweh in the Temple at Jerusalem. The Hebrews, however, took several Zoroastrian ideas with them; alhtough these religious ideas simmered and brewed as unorthodox ideas among common people, they would eventually resurface with a vengeance in Christianity.
Although the internal structure of the Persian imperial government was somewhat shaky, the conquests and fire for conquest continued after Cyrus's death. His son, Cambyses, conquered Egypt in 525 BC, but the Chaldeans revolted in Mesopotamia and the Medes revolted east of the Tigris. Cambyses's son, Darius I (reigned 522-486 BC; pronounced like "dry as, " only with an unvoiced s), or Darius the Great, quelled the Chaldeans and Medes and worked on firming up the state. His great innovation was to divide the huge empire into more or less independent provinces called satrapies.
Darius extended the Persian empire to its farthest reaches, extending through his conquests all the way into Macedon just northeast of Greece. When the Greek cities of Asia Minor revolted against the high tributes demanded of them by the Persian empire, the Athenians joined in and conquered and burned Sardis, the capital of Lydia, in 498 BC. The Athenians, however, lost interest in the Greek struggle against Persia and, by 495 BC, Darius had reconquered Asia Minor. Eager to prevent any future threats to the empire by Athens or any other Greek city, Darius set out to conquer the whole of Greece. And he almost made it.
They were in the French refugia.
The "roots" of Persians are indo-european Aryans. Iraqis are semitic Arabs from Arabia. You have a difficult time telling the difference that is your opinion but then there is an issue.
So, a bunch of semitic speakers got conquered by Persians.
No the Persian Empire allowed all conquered land to keep their culture, ethnicity, heritage, background. That is why the Empire was so vast and divided. Elected Satraps were sent to various regions including Babylonia. Persia managed to stay in modern day Iran and keep its foundations until post-1979 came along.
Logistics, especially for a predominantly cavalry Army would have been a nightmare for the Persians. The Byzantines faced the same problem when the Moslems started attacking them. They couldn't pursue them. The key was the camel, and the scacity of water.
Then, if Persia was anything like Rome, they would have crunched the numbers, to see if projected revenues warranted the costs. Arabia was nothing, just some minor trade routes. Not worth it.
Now if Mongke hadn't died when he did in China...
The Arabs were Yemenis then and occupied the coastal region of the Arabian penninsula. They were mostly involved in trade by ship between Ethiopia/Rome and India. There was nothing in the Arabian desert to conquer and the Yemenis were too much trouble even then.
I think you are right in that. Sadaam - and others from the area - still show that ethnic heritage.
However, Freedom44 is totally right, IMO, in the ethnic appearance of Persians. They have a set of features which goes all the way back to the profiles on ancient monuments. Big eyes and big ears - fair skin.
Iranians is multi-ethnic, not all are Persians, of course, and Kurds, Arabic Iranians, etc., look quite different.
One can usually tell an Iranian Shia clergyman, from an Arab Shia, immediately, before he opens his mouth, just by looking at him, even though the robes they wear are uniform.
However, it is not always a guide to nationality, because the Persians have been visiting southern Iraq for years, practically made it their colony, and kept scattering their genetic material around.
Hakim is from a Persian Iraqi family look at his face. He has the typical features that Freedom was talking about - fair skin, and a nose you could hang your hat on.
:
Contrast with Sadr and Nasrallah, who are ethnically Iraqi Arab. The complexion is different, also their face structure - the nose and cheeks:
Presuming political boundaries have keep the two main bodies we identify as Iraqi Arabs separate from Iranian Persians for the last ten centuries, you actually could have some difference in physical appearance caused by the so-called "founder effect" while the mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome DNA used in so many of these ethnological studies remains the same.
The most astounding recent finding has been the close relationship among the Sa'ami living in the European Arctic, Berbers living in the deserts of North Africa and Chippewa living in the center of North America.
Other than living in tents (of remarkably similar appearance and construction), these folks really haven't shared the same culture for many centuries.
The fellows at the top of the Iranian plateau have conquered and been conquered by the fellows along the Tigris and Euphrates so many times over thousands of years it simply isn't possible to believe that they have not "forged" some serious genetic ties.
Still, let's go one step further back in time concerning the Semitic language family and the Indo-European language family.
They share a common origin with the greatest differences between the two families being vocabularies.
At the present time all such differences are being eliminated as English becomes the dominant second-language for everyone. If language ever did control ethnicity, it sure will now, and everybody will become an American and have to give up hating their neighbors for being so different (and the same).
Time for some popcorn and Coca Cola Fur Shur.
On the other hand he's got the kinky North African hair, the Armenoid ears, the wispy Mongolian moustache, the Levantine nose but with a Circassion bridge, and a full Arabian beard.
Yup, these guys are really different aren't they? (Bwahahahahahaha!)
http://img.breitbart.com/images/2007/3/14/D8NSEAHO0/D8NSEAHO0.jpg
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There is rumor that the Hungarians used to worship the old Persian gods (well, so did the Roman soldiers, but still). But, going by your Persian features picture I would guess the Slavic areas might be a good example. Those features are very similar to the males in my family. Especially the forehead.
And the Empire fell centuries before the rise of Islam, so I can't see it would have mattered there as well. As it was, Arabia was heavily influenced by the religions of its neighbors, especially Christianity and Judaism.
Thanks I am going to buy it and read it.
He does not look a thing like an Iranian. I can spot that from miles away. Most everyone tells me I look Italian as is common among most Iranians. As far as the blondes blue eyes. Two of my cousins have blue eyes with light brown to blonde hair and one of my cousins is wider than a ghost with bright green eyes all of them from Iran. It is quite common especially in the north.
On the other hand, although there are Kurds who are Iranian citizens, I have yet to meet a Kurd who is a Persian.
The thread is about what would have happened concerning the Persians, not the Kurds.
BTW, the Iraqis are not "True Arabs" (a term meaning folks from/in the Arabian Peninsula who spoke Arabic.
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