Posted: May 12, 2015 1:52 pm
Clive Durdle wrote:One thing to consider about this, is the enduring power of the IDEA of the Roman Empire.
It is much older than those upstarts in Rome and Constantinople!
Marathon? Alexander?
Cyrus? Darius?
Maybe my OP is wider than I realised - Islam is also the religion of Persia, but has a fascinating sect, the Sunnis, who are more of an amalgam of xianity and zoroaster.
s/Sunni/Shia.
But the extent to which Shi'ism is an amalgam of Zoroastrism and Christianity and Islam has been somewhat exaggerated by Sunni scholars (and by early western orientalists) - early Shi'ism did not originate in Persia. Consider, for instance, that the first Shi'a state was in NORTHWEST AFRICA! It's only really in the last 500 years or so that Twelver Shi'a has become more of an Iranian thing than an Arabic thing, and only in that same timespan that Iran has become more Shi'a than Sunni.