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Before the Arab invasions, there was a state of constant hostility and sometimes outright war between Byzantium and Persia. I think that even had the Arab conquests not happened, Christian Europe would still have seen Persia as "other".

And even the West as it is treated the Greeks (and Russians!) as Oriental others. The former between 800s-1400, the latter between 1700 to now.

[] Started with Charlemagne being crowned as Holy Roman Emperor when the Eastern Empress (Mother?) Irene still lives. Even to the point of friendly relationship between the Roman Emperor on Aachen and Arab Caliph on Baghdad, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbasid–Carolingian_alliance

Or the Persian(Iranian) border may have extended all the way to Europe had Persia defeated the greeks.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Salamis 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Thermopylae

Fallen and stayed*. Andalusia too was part of the muslim caliphate and yet....

True.