The region where Asia, Africa, and Europe converge-sometimes called the "landbridge" of the Old World's tricontinent-has been a critical crossroads for the emergence and interaction of major world religions. This is due to several interconnected factors:

• The landbridge region, encompassing the Eastern Mediterranean, the Levant, and parts of Anatolia and North Africa, historically connected three continents. This made it a natural hub for trade, migration, and cultural exchange2.

• Trade routes such as the Silk Road and Indian Ocean maritime networks facilitated not only the movement of goods but also the spread of religious ideas and practices. Merchants, travelers, and missionaries carried beliefs across vast distances, leading to the diffusion and transformation of religions like Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, and others12.

• The area was home to a mosaic of ancient religions, including Canaanite, Egyptian, Greco-Roman, Zoroastrian, Jewish, and later Christian and Islamic traditions15.

• Religious competition was a defining feature of the Greco-Roman world and the broader Mediterranean. New faiths often emerged in dialogue or rivalry with established traditions, adapting or reacting to local and imperial religious norms4.

• As Rome consolidated power in the West, its model of civilization and religion (centered on Greco-Roman paganism and, later, Christianity) became dominant in Europe. In response, religious movements in the landbridge region sometimes positioned themselves in contrast to Roman authority or sought to offer alternative models of community and belief4.

• The rise of Christianity itself can be seen partly as a response to the religious and political environment of the Roman Empire, offering a universalist alternative to both local polytheisms and Roman state religion14.

• Other movements, such as Judaism, Zoroastrianism, and later Islam, developed distinctive identities and sometimes explicitly defined themselves in contrast to Greco-Roman or later Christian norms.

• The region’s position at the intersection of empires and cultures made it fertile ground for new religious syntheses and for faiths that could appeal across ethnic and linguistic boundaries12.

The emergence of multiple religions near the tricontinental landbridge is closely tied to the region's role as a crossroads of cultures and a zone of intense religious competition and exchange. The diversity of cultures from different continents, combined with the pressures and opportunities of imperial power (notably Rome), created an environment where new religious ideas could flourish-sometimes in direct response to the dominant Western European (Roman) model of civilization124.Related