Changes

If the battle resulted differently, where the Muslim armies could have been routed, then one possibility would be that Islam and the Islamic Empire would have found it harder to expand outside of Arabia. If the Sasanians were able to hold to their power then it would have been difficult for another major rival power to emerge in the Middle East. In effect, the Sasanians had to be defeated for the Islamic Empire to expand and for Islam to spread. In religion, this would have likely meant that Zoroastrianism, rather than an obscure religion today, could have remained relatively prominent and may have even expanded to other regions, perhaps even rivaling Christianity in places. Many of the tenants, good versus evil, resurrection of the dead, and judgment day were present in this religion, which could have made it attractive for some populations. The Arab language would have been far more obscure as well, while Persian and Greek, spoken by the Byzantines, could have become more common languages across the Middle East. Cities such as Baghdad would have likely not been founded, while the city of Ctesiphon, which was likely the largest city in the 7th century CE during the battle for Qadisiyyah, would have remained as the cosmopolitan center of the Sasanian Empire. It is hard to know if Jacobite Christianity, and Eastern Christianity in general, including the various Orthodox faiths, would have thrived in the Middle East if the outcome of Qadisiyyah would have been different, as the conflict between the Byzantines and Sasanians would have likely remained.