by The Comrade » Wed Oct 24, 2012 12:09 pm
yeah i should have said the spread of "westernization" and christianity into the heartland of the middle east would take time, and there would be diminishing returns as the lust for converting people would have diminished with time as well. i think the cultural effects though are what would have been important.
but yeah i was thinking about another empire filling in the gaps only i don't know who. it's entirely possible a group that was lost to history would have been the dominant force in the region. but looking at what existed at the time the only thing i can think of is the timurids, maybe (although they were pretty short lived because they sucked) and the mamluks. everything else was pretty much small city-state kingdoms fighting one another. even different arab states controlling the region would have been better than the ottomans just raping their territories and then giving them up after the first world war though.