What if: Muslims vs. Romans

[Marcus Scaurus]

What if...Muhammed was born 400 years earlier (in 171 instead of 571). Let's say that he archieved the same things as in real life: he made enemies and friends, he united the Arabians. What if his successors managed to gather enough support, money and an army to fight the Romans? Let's say that the Muslims would meet the Romans in battle the first time in 250. Would the Romans win? Both sides would be stern, they wouldn't give up fighting. Would the Muslims win after decades, when the Roman empire started to weaken more and more? Or would the Romans gather an army, to crush the muslims?

EDIT: sorry, I posted it in the wrong section. Should be in VV.

[Stanislaw Poniatowski]

Romans would crush the Muslims and turn Arabia into their playground. The Romans could basically beat anyone in 171 AD.

[Damocles]

Eh.

You're asking the wrong question.

The real curiousity is if Mohammed had risen earlier, could the Jihad have defeated Persia before it had just been brutally exhausted in a war with the Byzantine Empire.

It was an astronomical coincidence that set the stage for the sweeping advance of Islam. An almost scarily perfect set of events that precluded it and made it's spread possible.

In much the same way as Alexander's diaspora made the teachings of Christianity so accessible 300 years later...

[MareNostrum]

moved to VV

[Marcus Scaurus]

Eh.

You're asking the wrong question.

The real curiousity is if Mohammed had risen earlier, could the Jihad have defeated Persia before it had just been brutally exhausted in a war with the Byzantine Empire.

It was an astronomical coincidence that set the stage for the sweeping advance of Islam. An almost scarily perfect set of events that precluded it and made it's spread possible.

In much the same way as Alexander's diaspora made the teachings of Christianity so accessible 300 years later...

So, you mean that it would be better to ask the question: "what if muhammed was born in 471 BC, would he crush the Persian empire?". It's a better question actually.

[Tiberius Gracchus]

If you consider the "Byzantine Empire" to be the "Roman Empire," (As the Byzantines and their contemporaries believed), then you have your answer already.

[Damocles]

If you consider the "Byzantine Empire" to be the "Roman Empire," (As the Byzantines and their contemporaries believed), then you have your answer already.

Well. Though I argued against it in another thread http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?t=28642, by the 7th century AD, it could still be considered a legitimate Roman successor state.

But it was also exhausted, overstretched and bankrupt of coin, manpower, and nd if we believe some Islamic sources, spiritually as well because of the devastating wars of attrition waged by Emperor Heraclius.

And it cannot be considered a real answer as to how the Muslims would've fared against an organized, centralized Empire at the height of it's power.

I believe that if the Mohammedans had arisen fifty years later or fifty years earlier, they would not have had a chance. Let alone against the might of 2nd century Rome. They had a small window of time to bring the two greatest Empires in the world to their knees, and they exploited it with ruthless brilliance.

[General David]

If the Romans weren't able to beat the Parthians and Sassanid Persians, they would surely not be able to beat the Arabs, who managed to conquer the Sassanid Empire.

[John I Tzimisces]

the byzantines didn't conquer the sassanids, but what they DID do is weaken it enough (and themselves) to succumb to the jihad.

[Petronius]

If the Romans weren't able to beat the Parthians and Sassanid Persians, they would surely not be able to beat the Arabs, who managed to conquer the Sassanid Empire.

The Romans beat both of these empires on several occasions, in fact winning more often than losing. As well, you make the mistake of assosiating the fact that the Parthians and Sassanids were not conquered with military failure - this was not so. Just because they were not conquered does not mean it was militarily impossible.

[al-caid]

Romans fought with muslims for eight centuries and lost, we can say... However, Rome was a state, while Islam is a religion, it is like whether if christians would attack China...

[SovietDoom]

If there was no Fourth Crusade, there would be no Ottoman Empire.

[Tiberius Gracchus]

Virtually every scholor of the period, including Treadgold, Ostrogorsky, Averil Cameron, and Romily Jenkins agrees that Persia ceased to exist as a state after the military campaigns of Heraclius.

[Damocles]

Virtually every scholor of the period, including Treadgold, Ostrogorsky, Averil Cameron, and Romily Jenkins agrees that Persia ceased to exist as a state after the military campaigns of Heraclius.

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

The Persian 'king of kings' Kharosu was deposed when Heraclius began to march on their capital, whereupon his successor hastily agreed to all prior borders.

Then the realm devolved into a series of petty infighting, which made it ripe to be crushed by the newly united Arabs.

It might've been the end of the Sassassnid dynasty, but Persia didn't cease to exist until the arabs came through. Admittedly, hardly a year or two after the war with the Byzantines ended.

[Slaxx Hatmen]

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

The Persian 'king of kings' Kharosu was deposed when Heraclius began to march on their capital, whereupon his successor hastily agreed to all prior borders.

Then the realm devolved into a series of petty infighting, which made it ripe to be crushed by the newly united Arabs.

It might've been the end of the Sassassnid dynasty, but Persia didn't cease to exist until the arabs came through. Admittedly, hardly a year or two after the war with the Byzantines ended.

True, it was not the Arabs that destroyed Persia, but the Persians themselves. If they had stoped there infighting after Heraclius left they MIGHT have been able to fight off the Arabs. But instead they just killed eachother in civil wars and assasinated there last Sassanid Shahanshah. So basicly the Sassanid empire was already dead when the Arabs came.(which was why it was so easy to take Iran by storm)

[MoROmeTe]

Let's say it was the Arab way of fighting vs. the Roman way of fighting. Then I believe that the Romans would be the victors in such an arrangement.

If it is the might if the Roman Empire vs. the might of the Arab Empire (till the fourth Caliph) then I think that the Arabs would be on top of the Romans.

And some observations made above, like the fact that we are pitting a religion against an empire ain't exactly right, are very true.

[ChiTuMa]

If there was no Fourth Crusade, there would be no Ottoman Empire.

Finally someone sees the light.
The western religion and the Latin empire moved in completely opposite directions. One controlled its people directly through law, and the other held on to its people by controlling their kings. It was because the kings of the west and their greed that Constantinople (and those who considered themselves "Roman") would fall to the Muslims. But going back a little earlier......

I think Mohamed did a very good job of uniting the Arabs by using religion, but the immediate effects of this action were to spill innocent blood all across the east, and eventually the west. If Mohamed has raised his armies while the Empire still existed, then he would have suffered the same fate as the later Han's Zhang Jue; a militant faith healer who tried to overthrow his country and presumably set up a new daoist state. His armies were crushed within a year, dispersed, and acted as little more than bandits and instigators for the next twenty or so. Mohamed did have two advantages that Zhang didn't, and that was that he was uniting a race of people, not just a class (Zhang's "Yellow Scarves" were dissatisfacted peasants who sought power through violence....I guess they were the Bolsheviks of their day). Also, instead of just founding a new sect, Mohamed was claiming to be THE messenger of Allah, and he had the benefit of absolutism on his side. His disadvantage was that neither he nor his successors were magnanimous conquerers. Unlike the other great conquerers, the people he subjugated reviled at his rule and his religion, which is why so many were killed (the Hindu Kush got its name from the massacre of the locals at the hands of the Muslims) and had to be impressed into service (which explains why Islam was the reason for the revival of slavery long after the rest of the world had moved past it).
So, where the Roman citizens too complacent in the 2nd century? I don't think so. I think Rome was still at its peak, and if the Arabs had managed to form an empire, it would just have been another one that Rome crushed.....or at least sent back to the desert that spawned them.

[spence]

Hold on, let me get this straight.... you want to match an army of Arabs, with little training and poor equipment against the military machine of Rome with its professional armies and equipment?
The Romans would win, even if outnumbered 20 to 1, they did at Icena, with 200000 Britons fought 2 legions of Romans, and the Romans owned them.

[Damocles]

Hold on, let me get this straight.... you want to match an army of Arabs, with little training and poor equipment against the military machine of Rome with its professional armies and equipment?
The Romans would win, even if outnumbered 20 to 1, they did at Icena, with 200000 Britons fought 2 legions of Romans, and the Romans owned them.

I seem to recall 3 legions of Romans having somewhat less fortune when set upon by a bunch of half naked Germans.

[Petronius]

Both generalizations have no real place in history.