They are. But they still follow a mix of tribal animism-Christian with lot of tree worship and stuff. Or in other words not sufficiently Christian-ized. It was true of north east as well but not anymore.

the pattern for christianizing regions (e.g., africa) is for this to change over time, as indigenizing patterns give way to ‘world-normative’ practices. if not, i’d argue that it is a syncretistic ‘new religion’ (that happens too).

They are. But they still follow a mix of tribal animism-Christian with lot of tree worship and stuff. Or in other words not sufficiently Christian-ized. It was true of north east as well but not anymore.

To give u a stat, all the other regions which I mentioned has their state govts provide subsidy for travel to Rome , Jerusalem or some other Christian specific sop. Only region which doesn’t have it is central India where the Christian tribals concerns and demand are more on tribal lines than religious ones

the persians became mosly shia under the turkic safavids, and forcibly so. before that persians were mostly sunni. shia islam was stronger in old regions where arabs had settled, and i think among some of the turkic groups. IOW, connection of shia islam with persian identity is a feature of the last 350 years or so (dating the completed conversion to 1650 or so).

When the Arabs squeeze the “Hajj pilgrimage” balls pretty much all ethnicities fall in line.

your knowledge of most things you comment on is superficial. i think there is something to be said for the arabness of islam, but please note that it is well known that until the rise of oil money arabs qua arabs had been kind of marginal to the development of islam after the decline and fall of the abbassids. the great indo-islamic empires of the early modern period were the ottomans (turks), safavids (persianized turks), and the mughals (persianized turks in india).

the only “indigenous” Christians in any mass numbers are the tribal Christians of central India.

this doesn’t make sense to me. aren’t these christians usually converted by missionaries?

Don;t think one needs to dissect it that much to reach the conclusion. When the Arabs squeeze the “Hajj pilgrimage” balls pretty much all ethnicities fall in line.

very true. even the oft-quoted ghulat sects ultimately venerate ali and his progeny, and not some pre-islamic iranian figures. to me that is bowing to arabs in another way. a true indigenous islam would be integrating local pagan religious figures into itself.

isn’t the whole “ahle-bayt” fetish of iranians, and all shia muslims in general, basically an attempt to be more arabs than arabs themselves? (we are bigger muslims than you because we love muhammad’s family more than you do.)

in other words, this is basically the limit of indigenization of islam. islam’s core dna prevents its true indigenization. its uncompromising and unforgiving stance towards shirk ensures this.

Yeah to be fair, the only “indigenous” Christians in any mass numbers are the tribal Christians of central India. Almost all others (Goa, S-Indian and North East) are “western” facing in that sense.

On the whole Hinduism minus Indian , i am skeptical.

not enough strategic depth?

I am not sure how much strategic depth would have required. Yes there were Zoroastrian kings, but considering the land mass Arabs conquered the Zoroastrians ruled only pieces. Even the central asian Zorastrian kings had converted. That was already the border of Zorastrian-ship anyway.

Contrasting that to India , by the time we had the first long term muslim rule south of Vindhyas it was already 1300s and all.

Well u are talking about 2 separate things. In terms of infrastructure i think that even smaller polity like Vijaynagar etc did have enough resources to do mega stuff. Same is true when India had Centralized polity like Mauryas and Gupta. The absence of mega structure might mean lack of interest/use rather than resources.

The 2nd thing is despite all the innovations and stuff and almost always facing a smaller power, China has faced military reverses and has been conquered. The same innovations were actually used much more efficiently by China’s conqueror (Mongol use of gunpowder) rather than Chinese themselves.

I stand corrected. I should have said Mongols almost dealt a death blow to Islamic power structures in the Middle East.