Nevermore
September 7th, 2008, 04:08 AM
Hello all, I've just been quite curious recently as to what the world may have been like had the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) only allowed men to be caliphs. Not only would such a thing have obviously had affects on certain decisions made by future empires within that TL, to be sure, it would have created a wide divide between Muslim men and women, maybe even to the point where in some areas, they were treated as second class citizens (now, keep in mind, this is only speculation and nothing more, as it hasn't happened, we could never really know for sure).
So what say ye? What if Muhammad, rather than passing the title of leader onto his favorite wife, Aisha, had instead given it to perhaps her father, Abu Bakr, or maybe even his nephew, Ali? Would the Muslims have never been able to take over much of Europe as they did? Might...Christianity or some other, lesser religion have, somehow, become the world's dominant religion instead of Islam? :eek:
I'm interested to know everyone's thoughts on such a subject, as such a thing would have profoundly altered everything from politics to gender relations from OTL. So brainstorm away!
So what say ye? What if Muhammad, rather than passing the title of leader onto his favorite wife, Aisha, had instead given it to perhaps her father, Abu Bakr, or maybe even his nephew, Ali? Would the Muslims have never been able to take over much of Europe as they did? Might...Christianity or some other, lesser religion have, somehow, become the world's dominant religion instead of Islam? :eek:
I'm interested to know everyone's thoughts on such a subject, as such a thing would have profoundly altered everything from politics to gender relations from OTL. So brainstorm away!