Why is culture in the Middle East so heavily influenced/linked by Islam...

Why is culture in the Middle East so heavily influenced/linked by Islam? Whereas it is not anywhere near as closes linked in other predominantly Muslim areas?

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en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism_in_Armenia
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Gee, I dunno, maybe it has something to do with the fact that most of those countries are theocracies?

Not influenced, not linked either, Replaced.

Read Two Centuries of Silence by Zarinkoob to know what the Arabs did to the people of Iran.

Explain. Did Islam not also replace much of the culture/religion in Central Asia yet they still have a culture that is distinct from Islam itsel.

They conquered the shit out of everyone. It used to be mostly Zoroastrian.

>Zoroastrian
>anywhere but Iran

Pick one.

Salafi....

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salafi_movement

First Arabs establish the Caliphate, then Islam spreads further to become a great world religion for non-Arabs.

Iran was hit in the earlier phase.

It was mostly christian before islam. Different flavours of christianity, with chalcedonian christianity not being specially popular, but christianity after all.

>Did Islam not also replace much of the culture/religion in Central Asia
It's rather a lip service. Penetration of muslim thought on a larger scope is a recent phenomenon if it even exist.

Because Arabs have no significant history prior to Islam, Islam is litterally their national history and thus their identity while i Europe ther were strong traditions before christianity apeared and indentity is viewed as a combination of culture and religion.

Notice how non arab islamic world tends to be more liberal than arab.

Iraq, where the Sassanid capital was, was Zoroastrian too. The Sassanids tried to spread Zoroastrianism to Armenia and Caucasus, with various effects. Central Asia had many faiths, but Zoroastrianism was pretty strong in Samarqand and Bukhara. The steppe peoples that invaded Central Asia often held Mazdaic religions, but wouldn't be considered real Zoroastrians by the Sassanids, and quickly adopted the indigenous religions, including Buddhism and Hinduism.

The only theocracy in the Middle East is Iran, and even Iran is not fully theocratic.

Maybe because the muslims succeeded the most in the middle east. Islam isn't just a religion, it is a lifestyle complete with a code of laws and culture.

Saudi Arabia? Afghanistan?

Theocracy is when the state does what the clergy says. In Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan, the clegy does what the state says.

Afghanistan is de facto run by the taliban

Explain to me, an idiot, why Indonesia and Malaysia are muslim but nowhere else in SEA is?

Also islam does not seem to have anywhere the stranglehold on their culture as it does arab countries.

It's the other way around actually. Arab culture primarily influenced Islam instead Islam influencing the Arabs. In fact Islam was seen as quite progressive for Arab society.

>Djinn
>Kaaba
>etc.

Indonesia and Malaysia were pagan (Hindu) and relatively easier to convert by the time muslim traders came about while religion on the mainland was stronger and more unified Buddhist (except for Champa who were Hindus and subsequently converted). Traders that converted got preferential trade ties to the overseas Arabs and Persians and then it spread through conquest by native Islamicized kingdoms

>Explain to me, an idiot, why Indonesia and Malaysia are muslim but nowhere else in SEA is?
You realize Indonesia and Malaysia (and Brunei) make up most of SEA and its population? It was really a fuckload of kingdoms that became Muslim at various points in history and ended up federating like India, Brunei being left out somehow.
The Philippines would have been Muslim too if the Portuguese arrived a couple of centuries later or something.

>the Portuguese
The Spanish rather, although I'll pretend I was talking about Magellan.

>Afghanistan
>middle east
>implying it isn't a disjointed puppet republic
I'm going to post this map of the middle east (notice how afghanistan is not present) every time one you retards post this

there is a muslim Insurgency currently in the Phillipines and Thailand, and a counter-attack by Buddhists on Muslims in Myanmar

I was saying that Afghanistan is a country where the religious authority still run things. Obviously it is central asia.

The insurgents are basically Malays, or places with historical Kingdoms established by Malays in both cases

No you obviously weren't saying that
>the only theocracy in the middle east is iran
>hurr what about afghanistan?

What about Egypt? They have a millenia-old history yet continue clutching onto Islam.

80% of modern Egyptians are just Arabs.

SO where exactly did arabs come from?

Afghanistan is way more of a middle east country than Turkey

Objectively wrong

probably because the majority of people who live in the middle east are muslim

How come

Armenians were hugely Zoroastrian and still had a large minority of Zoroastrians even after the majority of the population became effectively Christian though this was also helped due to heightened traditional ties between Iranians and Armenians.

Iran, Armenia, large parts of the Caucasus like Dagestan, Georgia, along with Afghanistan, Tajikistan, and large swathes of Central Asia at its height.

99% of the countries in the Near East regardless are not true democracies. And while Saudi Arabia is not a theocracy officially, religion hugely determines what it government does and is influenced by.

You can't make a big religion without it absorbing the traditions of the people who you're spreading it to. Just like the Norse, people are way more willing to convert to your religion if you let them keep their traditions. Just like you can't convert most of the world by violence alone, it's mostly missionaries, social pressure, and economic pressure.

Non-Muslim Peoples who lived in separate settlements and didn't replace the language with Arabic have had minimal direct influence from Islam, I can tell you as one. But with the rise of Arabism Islam is hailed as the glory of anyone residing in an "Arab" country and this infiltrates the education system. Perhaps that is not true in other places.

>Armenians were hugely Zoroastrian
source

You know there's a fuck ton of Zoroastrian fire temples in Armenia right? They weren't just built for Zoroastrian Persians benefit.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoroastrianism_in_Armenia

Manichaeans were about as Christian as Mormons are and Muslims as well for that matter.

>majority of people in Indonesia are Muslim
>still have vibrant culture outside of Islam

He never mentioned Manichaeism.

Christians were the majority in North Mesopotamia, Egypt and Syria until the end of the Middle Ages and considering the remains and the basic known facts it is likely they were the majority in the Sassanid-Byzantine period as well.

I believe the Eastern Orthodox Church is what he was referring to by non-Chalcedonian Christianity. The Church of the East, predominant in Upper Mesopotamia, later accepted that council however.

I mean Oriental Orthodox.

He said Christians were a majority but the Manichaeans had sizeable communities in the East of Sassanid domains being a hit with the Uyghurs who also later became Islamized. The reason for this was probably due to Sassanid intolerance, at times at least, to other religions so there's reason to believe Nestorians would have been subject to similar treatment. It should be noted that Manichaeans also had significant presence in Europe even outdoing Christianity in some places like Gaul which probably influenced the Cathars and Gnostic 'heretics' of medieval Europe.
In Arabia Jews had a significant presence in the lead up to Islam and had probably fled from Roman persecutions to domains all over the East. Mandaeans have also managed to preserve theirselves in Mesapotamia.

>Did Islam not also replace much of the culture/religion in Central Asia
Replace is a strong word

"Ancient Egypt" was already long gone by the time the Arabs arrived. No one was even able to read he hieroglyphs by that point as they were hellenized more than anything.

>80% of modern Egyptians are just Arabs
Culturally yes, most of them identify as Arab with the exception of the Copts. Genetically, they have non-neglible Arab mixture but they're still around 85% the genetically the same as pre-Islamic times.

Actually it's South Asia, Cuck.

lol shoma afghan hasten?, chura dewanet mekuna ke keshwar ma da kuja hast?

The country is malleable to both central asia and middle east, especially because of culture/language and religion. Relax.

>counter-attack
Excuse me?

>Culturally yes, most of them identify as Arab with the exception of the Copts. Genetically, they have non-neglible Arab mixture but they're still around 85% the genetically the same as pre-Islamic times.
Veeky Forums will always refuse to admit this.

Everyone knows pre-Arab Egyptians were black.