Good points. You’re right it wasn’t Arianism itself, but Islam grew out of the same context that saw almost all the barbarians outside Roman control embrace unique interpretations of Christianity.
For the Visigoths and Vandals it is labelled as Arianism, for the Syrians Ebionism. For all of them it is a mix of local traditions and Christianity with non-trinitarism as a common denominator.
Correct.
I can only imagine the awe that neighbours of Rome felt for Rome. Just like the barbarians surrounding China. They saw this eternal empire that dominated culturally, religiously and economically not to mention militarily.
So they wanted to differentiate themselves from it.
This is probably analogous to the Bulgarian setting up their Autocephalous church when the Bulgarian Tsar was in conflict with the Roman Basileus.
I think if we dial back to 400 AD and see the monophysite controversy, which to me seems like arguing over eating the egg big end up it small end up. The camps fell into
Monophysite: the non Greek parts of the empire, mainly the Egyptians and Armenians. This was a way to differentiate themselves from the Roman’s.
Perhaps this is Lso related to the Khazars embracing Judaism when they were stuck between a Christian Roman empire and a muslim Abbassid caliphate.
Also analogous is https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Safavid_conversion_of_Iran_to_Shia_Islam#:~:text=The%20Safavid%20conversion%20of%20Iran,spiritual%20bastion%20of%20Shia%20Islam.
The Safavid conversion of Iran to Shia Islam was a process that took place roughly over the 16th through 18th centuries and turned Iran (Persia), which previously had a Sunni majority, into the spiritual bastion of Shia Islam
The Safavids created a distinctive Iranian identity once more by embracing Twelver Shiaism.
Pardon me for yapping on, but I’m thinking of more examples where the rulers would encourage a distinct religious belief to distinguish themselves from their neighbours and rivals
1. The Irish and Polish with Catholicism, though this seems to have been first local before the elite hopped on
2. The northern German nations with Lutheranism.
3. Druze, Alawites, even Jews and Parsis.
Religion, culture m language are all intermixed. Change one and you have a nation created, or killed off. The Manchu are dead, assimilated into Han China, the Turks subsumed all the Anatolian nations, the Bulgarian Turkic rulers were subsumed into their slavic subjects just as the Viking Getmanuc Rus were subsumed into their slavic people.
Further east the Kushans, originally Tocharians became absorbed into Indian Indian Hindu culture obtaining a distinct sub caste of kshatriya.