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Notes -
Religion is categorically different from what we got in RoP.
It'd be just as weird if you replaced all your Islamic hypotheticals with Christian ones, even though they're more familiar to Americans and much more closely aligned to Tolkien's actual setting.
A better comparison would be...I dunno, Enlightenment democracy. Imagine every time anyone makes a decision in the show, it's a vote. Travelers, merchants, soldiers, it's just the default. When Aragorn meets the hobbits they demonstrate "consent of the governed" and at the end he renounces kingship for a new government.
That'd be a change that spits on Tolkien's original themes. (I'm pretty sure it's also what happened in the last episode of Game of Thrones?) It'd suck, but in a different sort of way than importing religious terminology and rituals from our world. I think this is more in line with the characterization and plotting messes from RoP.
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