Editing Middle East (section)

== Middle Eastern Religion, Gods and Mythology ==

{{topquote|What have the Romans ever done for us!?|Monty Python's Life of Brian}}

More than any other region, the Middle East is indelibly linked to the history of monotheism, even before that the region was so chock-full of idols and gods one couldn't swing his dick without hitting something sacred. Greek and Egyptian polytheistic systems coexisted alongside Persian Zoroastrianism and the Abrahamic Hebrew and the earlier Baalim which are grim motherfuckers with too many horns and no good afterlife to offer.  All of these were subjugated in the successive conquests of Alexander, and then Rome behind him.  

The Romans acted as a great plow, tilling the region and leaving all the minor tribes and faiths fertile for proselytization.  And the winner of this great disruption was Abrahamism, which stomped out most of its competitors (ie, the Gnostics such as Manichaeism).  Christianity rose in lockstep with opposition to Roman rule, and then Islam in turn followed it as a response to the void as the empire fell, and finally eastern orthodoxy as the Catholic church began to schism.  

By 1100 AD, the following could be said:

* Islam commanded the majority of the region, with the Shia branch being strongest in old Persia and the Sunni being dominant pretty much everywhere else. The Ibadi moderate spinoffs from the Khawarij zealots who attacked both sides were restricted to Oman with small pockets in the Sahara.
* Orthodox Christians (in Coptic, Assyrian and Greek flavors) were entrenched as minorities in the old Greek colonies north of Arabia, in Assyrian region (yes, the nation is still there, but is very small now) and in Egypt.
* Zoroastrianism and Judaism were entrenched as minorities all over, with some concentration in their respective homelands of Persia and Jerusalem respectively.
* Similar concentrations of other minority religions like the Gnostic Mandaeans/Sabians, Samaritans, Druze, Yazidi, Baha’i, or Yarsan but those are either in extremely remote regions or are very guarded from outsiders.
* Polytheism in the Middle East, in all of its Egyptian, Hellenistic, Babylonian, and Indo-Aryan (yes, the same root pantheon that the Germanic, Hellenistic, and pre-Brahmic/Hindu pantheons came from but that’s a whole different story) flavors, was extinct.