A Draw at Poitiers (732)...

POD:
732 AD; Battle of Poitiers is a stalemate
757 AD; Caliph Marwan of Cordoba dies, Abd Al'Rahman assumes power (with concomitant return to the consensus Caliphal choosing process)

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732 AD; 110 AH

On the sixth day, food running low as the Muslim cavalry outforaged his men, Charles attacked the enemy camp. The battle lasted all day, and though the Franks held a slight advantage, they were unable to take the Muslim camp. Finally, at sunset the Franks withdrew, leaving the Muslims to tend to their more numerous dead, and sent messengers asking for a parley.

Charles spoke no Latin, nor did Abd Al'Rahman; but the Muslim host contained several Visigoth monks, and a nearby monastery furnished more translators. So on the seventh day, an awkward parley commenced; Charles spoke to Peter spoke to Alagern spoke to Abd Al'Rahman. Under the circumstances, little in the way of specifics could be conveyed. Both sides recognized that the other was "first in combat among the unbelievers," and had earned the right to depart from the field with their lives. Abd Al'Rahman agreed to cease raiding into Charles's territory, which was fixed with an extremely unclear boundary some miles to the south. Charles agreed to allow the Muslims to depart with their booty but not captured slaves. Both agreed to make war on the other for no cause whatsoever for ten years.

Those ten became another ten, and then still another. The Berber revolt and 'Abbasid Revolution gave Abd Al'Rahman enough to do in the way of state-building--in the name of Caliph Marwan, he conquered north Africa up to Carthage, defeating the 'Abbasid armies outside Tunis. Charles earned the name Martel, the Hammer, in campaigns against other northern European leaders, conquering northern Gaul and handing to his son Pepin a strong foothold on the Rhine.

Marwan, as incompetent in Cordoba as he was in Damascus, increasingly lent power to Abd Al'Rahman, especially when the latter was too old to campaign actively against the 'Abbasid enemy. When he died in 757/135, the old general simply assumed the Caliphate, though of neccesity kept the 'Pious Nobility' 'ulama in power as sort of a Council of Guardians. In 765, Pepin invited the old Caliph and the most influential of his Council of Guardians to Avignon, on the border of Muslim Septimania, to debate the virtues of Islam with selected Cardinals of Rome. The Debate of Avignon, as the meeting came to be known, covered a wide range of topics, from the literal and metaphorical meanings of Jesus's descent from God to the status of Jews to the differences between Byzantine and Roman Christianity on the one hand and 'Umayyad, 'Abbasid, and Shi'a Islam on the other. The Muslims won on points, being learned not only in their own but in Christian religious texts.

Although raids across the border had never truly ceased, and the Mediterranean was a several-way battleground, most people were used to the idea that Languedoc, Gascony, and Toulouse up to the Rhone were Muslim. The Frankish state had its center of gravity at Aachen, with one wing encompassing northern Gaul and the other northern and western Germania, from the Rhine headwaters to Bohemia. Frankland also lent naval aid to the Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms of England against the Norsemen who menaced the Franks' long north coast. Charlemagne, conqueror of Old Saxony and consolidator of the Empire, briefly defeated the Danes by invading Jutland, and married a daughter to Ecgbryht of Wessex, whose conquest of the rest of southern England, plus Mercia, was aided by Frankish troops.

In the Eastern Mediterranean, the 'Abbasid Caliphate ceded Carthage and Tunis to the effective control of 'Umayyad Al-Andalus, concentrating on subduing the Shi'a, who were backed by Andalusian gold, and on defending their borders. By 800, the Byzantines were pressing back, Turkic raiders were threatening Khorasan, and the anti-'Umayyad jihads had rebounded, as Abd Al-Rahman and his successors (probably due to the weaker Caliphate, being based on consensus confidence rather than blood descent) were much more tolerant of the Shi'a, and for a time the Imamate of Barcelona was a power in the Shi'ite world.

Very very interesting scenario. A strong Muslim presence in Iberia and southern France. Just out of curiosity, how is the Occitane language treated in this scenario?

Occitane language? I'm not familiar with that. Who spoke it?

Provencal or Occitane, it's the same thing. Some call it a dialect of French, some a separate langauge (like Catalan in Spain). It was called Langue d'Oc in French, hence the name for the region it is spoken in, Languedoc. Starting with the standardization process of the French Revolution, it was suppressed in favor of Parisian French. Basically, I'm curious how this Muslim presence affects local languages and cultures.

Provence, in TTL, falls under the sway of the Lombards, but is conquered by the Franks in the 900s (setting off nasty repercussions). The Muslim rule extends only to the Rhone, but cultural exchange does happen, and southeast France develops an even more idiosyncratic dialect, with an influx of Arabic in addition to the existing influences. So it won't neccesarily sound like OTL Occitane, but it'll be there.

pretty good start. I look forward for more.

Interesting. What will the religious situation in OTL southern France (which is now in Muslim hands or strongly Muslim-influenced) be?

I imagine there won't be a Reconquista in this TL...if the Muslims control southern France as well as most of Spain, the northern Christian kingdoms in Spain will be encircled.

800s/180s: Fatimid clients of Al-Andalus conquer Sicily. Byzantine hold on southern Italy is weakened by loss of naval supremacy. Over the next century, Papal-controlled Italy expands to include the former Byzantine lands (going for a stronger, more Imperial Pope here)

Constrained by lack of resources, and by familial affairs relating to the English crown, Charlemagne failed to penetrate into the Lombard- and Avar- ruled lands below the Danube. His empire, then, was smaller at his death.

June 25, 841. Outnumbered, but in a strong position at Fontenay, Lothair led his forces gallantly into battle, driving his brother Louis's troops into a rout. But Charles the Bald, waiting to see how the contest between his elder brothers ended, attacked Lothair's flank, routing him in turn and pursuing him through the town. Given time to regroup, Louis's forces returned to the fray. In this final struggle, as Lothair sought to make good his retreat to Aachen, a crossbow bolt penetrated the back of his neck. The eldest grandson of Charlemagne was dead.

There was little love lost between Charles and Louis, but neither could step into the boots of their illustrious grandfather, and both were exhausted after the battle. The Treaty of Fontenoy (841) divided the Frankish Empire in two, along the river Rhine. Charles recieved former Gaul and Helvetia and the border with Al-Andalus; Louis took the German lands, Saxony and Moravia to the Oder. Louis also claimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor, but his weak successors allowed the title to lapse.

Charles was cut off from the Mediterranean by the powerful Lombards, who ruled from the Rhone to the Magyar lands and from the Alps to the limits of the Po watershed. Accordingly, he turned north, strengthening his alliance with the Wessex dynasty of England by marrying his daughter to Aethelwulf (historical!) and sending Frankish ships into the North Sea to harass the Vikings. Not to be outdone, and hoping to bring the Norse under his sway, Louis again invaded Denmark. This conquest (857) delayed Norse depredations only for twenty years; with the deaths of Charles and Louis, the uneasy Fontenoy alliance broke down, and each of their successors sought to dominate the other. Danish raiders harried the English and Frankish coasts mercilessly after 877, with Germanian support. Alfred of England, after the death of Louis the Stammerer (Charles' son) and his sons, seized the Frankish crown, briefly uniting England and Frankland. Frankland's power supported him through the dark times of the struggle with the Danes, and by his death in 899 (at which point the kingdoms again separated, his elder son Edward recieving England, his younger Harold Frankland).

In 911, Hrolfe the Walker, after conquering Jutland from Germania, set off to raid the coast of Frankland. Frankland's coast had been long raided, and Harold defended it well, but after Paris was besieged Harold granted Hrolfe (Rollo) the lands that in our history are Normandy, Maine, and Brittany to the Loire, if he could take them, and if he and his followers became Christian and submitted to his authority. Hrolfe did so, and the Norman Franks became an important part of the Crown of Frankland, supplying ships and men for the wars in the East and undertaking their own foreign policy. In the early 1000s, Normans acting under their own name seized Sicily from its feuding Andalusian/Fatimid rulers.

910s/290s: Fatimids conquer Egypt, kicking off persecutions of Shi’a elsewhere in the 'Abbasid domains. This culminates in 945 with the capture of Baghdad by shi’ite Buyids.

950s: Frankland enters the Lombard-Andalusian war on the Andalusian side, forcing the Lombarsd to give up most of Provence (much of which goes to Frankland, but the Andalusians acquire most of the coastland). In response, the Pope reconsecrates the King of Germania Holy Roman Emperor; Lombardy and Germania are united by dynastic marriage. (This sets off a chain of events, outlined below, that leads to the religious crisis in Kiev and the First Crusade).

950s-1000s: The Fatimids, ensconced in Egypt, begin to break the strings tying them to the Andalusians, who respond by suppressing the Imamate of Barcelona.

966: Poland becomes Catholic, at least nominally, as Rome seeks securer lands to expand in. This, however, threatens the Byzantine prosyletizers who were active among the Slavs and Magyars, and sets off a Rome/Constantinople rivalry over Hungary.

960s-1000s: The 'Abbasid Civil War collapses the state, as Buyids (POD: less crypto- and more -Shi'a than in OTL) and Ghaznavids clash over Baghdad and Fatimids extend their power into the Holy Land. Byzantium is thus free to interfere in Hungary and Kiev, and to plan a crusade to recapture Syria and Palestine.

980s: Threatened by Roman political power, Geza of Hungary agrees to be baptized in the Byzantine rite, but the improvident Emperor Basil instantly begins pressuring him to join the crusade he is planning against Syria and Palestine.

Thus were the happenings in Europe as young Prince Vladimir of Kiev decided that something needed to be done about the Shi'a refugees crossing the Caucasus into his lands, and about the Christian missionaries entering from the west...

Very very interesting. I can't wait to read what happens next.

If I put together the various European and Islamic records of what happened, I get the impression that OTL there were several battles at various places between Poitiers and Tours.

Alternate History: the 2nd big POD (Muslim Kiev)

PODs in Russia:

800s: Khazars accept Shi'a Islam (and in the 900s-1000s help produce the Buyids)
922: Volga Bulgars accept Shi'a Islam as well (I couldn't find which branch they accepted in this world, so that may not be a POD)

(Note: Al-Hallaj, in the 800s, was killed partially for his alleged exploits in converting transoxanian turks to Shi'ism. He was not the only one, and Shi'a missionaries did exist in transcaucasia).



988/366: Constantinople was everything the Christians had promised, Prince Vladimir had to admit. The largest walls and best harbor he had ever seen, and the most beautiful of buildings. "I did not know whether I was in heaven or on earth," he had written back to Kiev after seeing the church called Hagia Sophia. His Khazars told him that Baghdad was bigger and better, and he would travel there next, but for the moment he merely enjoyed himself in the capital of East Rome. The religions were all the same, anyhow--the Christians venerated the son of God, who had been killed by the Old Romans for opposing its tyrrany; The Shi'a venerated the nephew and grandnephews of the Prophet of God, who were all killed by the Umayyads for opposing their tyrrany. The Christians worshipped icons--the Shi'a forbade drawing the Prophet's face. Other Christians to the west forbade that as well, and Sunni Muslims to the south, who pretended to oppoae the Umayyads but really were just them again in disguise, pretended to not use pictures but used them in secret. Then there were the Jews, who Vladimir didn't understand at all. Well, that wasn't strictly true--they believed in one God, which despite the Christians and the Muslims weas clearly true. They believed that that one God had chosen them to bring His word to the world and protect them, which had an audacity that appealed to Vladimir. But was not Jesus, or maybe Muhammad, or both, the fulfillment of God's promise? And were the Jews not subservient, Dhimmi or worse, everywhere they lived now? No, the Jews did not have it right. All that mattered was whether the peaceful martyr Jesus or the warrior martyrs Ali and Hosain had the spark of God. No, for the Muslims believed in Jesus as well. Vladimir shook his head. It was all so confusing.

Aside from the religious aspect, there was the political. The other Christians were expanding from Poland into his land, and Emperor Basil wanted him to go kill the Sunnis. His Khazars told him that killing the Sunnis would be good as well, but they wanted him to kill different Sunnis somewhere else. The Christians promised him help against the Pechenegs, but wanted him to do most of the work. He was caught in the middle.

He wished he could have a good drink, but all there was in Constantinople was weak southern wine. The Christians told him that all Muslims gave up alcohol forever. That wasn't true, though--the Khazars didn't drink much, but sometimes had a sort of beer, and Ja'far, the wierd mystical Arab who had set up a madrasa outside Kiev, would drink or eat anything. There were men in Baghdad, his Khazars had said, who would tell him the truth about all that. Baghdad was the center of everything.
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Vladimir was not so foolish as to let the Emperor know that he was proceeding on to Baghdad. He had chartered a ship, pretending to sail for Patzinak lands on the way home, but instead made for Trebizond, where arrangements had been made to convey him and his party through Buyid lands to Baghdad, avoiding the areas of strife against the Sunnis. That would be tricky indeed, since the Sunni Caliph was in Baghdad, and even the Shi'a Buyids dared not touch him.

As the ship left the Golden Horn, Vladimir looked back once more on the heavenly city. Beautiful it was, and the people fervent believers and the services remarkable. Yet his heart still held reservations. Geza, the Magyar chief who had recently taken the faith, had told him of his struggles to maintain independence against the priests and agents of the Emperor, who sought to turn his people's loyalties to Constantinople. Geza feared for his own lands, which the Germanians and Poles hungered for, but the priests had driven up enthusiasm for the crusade against the Muslims (he seemed not to distinguish between the Christian-like Shi'a and the Sunni). The Shi'a, on the other hand, had their Imams, but no one had the power to compel anyone else. A few Khazars had gone to help the Buyids against the Ghaznavids, but the Khazar Khan was not forced to help the Buyid Sultan.
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Baghdad was constructed in concentric arcs around the Khalifal palace, and was much larger than Constantinople. It rose out of the farmland between the two great rivers, near enough to another city, ancient and ruined, to compare the two. Baghdad was immense, more people than he could count, with what seemed like a mosque every few blocks. Buyid horsemen rode the streets, sometimes dismounting to break up quarrels between bands of men. Vladimir could not tell the sides apart, but he knew they were Sunni and Shi'a, or sometimes two different kinds of Shi'a.

They had entered the city at the beginning of midday prayers, and as they rode the sounds of the muezzins calling the people to the mosques filled the air. Vladimir indicated that he wished to view the prayers, and one of his party's Buyid guides found him a neighborhood masjid, as he called it. Removing his weapons, Vladimir stepped inside, finding himself in the back of a room filled with men prostrating themselves as a priest sang "Rahman al-Rahim...Maliki youme din...yeke na'abudu wa yeke nestarin...sirat tathina an amta wa al-lehim gheri maghdubi al-lehim wille daaleen..."*

Vladimir found himself caught up in the ritual and the beauty of the incomprehensible words. The priest continued speaking in arabic, and Vladimir found himself joining those at prayer. When the service seemed to end, he rose and, through interpreters, apologized for the intrusion and made his way onward to the meeting with the Sultan.
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The Sultan drank, for one thing. Pitiful stuff, compared to what they had back home, but it was somewhat comforting to learn that the Roman Emperor was wrong. The Sultan also spoke bluntly, when they were left in private. "Anything is allowed," he said. "Anything. You can find an 'alim to justify nearly anything you want, as long as it's not directly mentioned in the merciful Qur'an. No wine, or spirits made from fruit, but..." he shrugged and raised his glass. "That swill you transcaucasians drink, no offense, is made from grain. Four wives, as long as you treat them fairly. The people listen to the Imams, but some of the Shi'a don't believe there are any more Imams, and others can be convinced you are one. The Sunni...well, the Caliph just loves luxury and we let him rot in his palace. It's the 'ulama that have all the power with them."

"The Romans are planning a crusade? Let them come. Damascus is a Sunni stronghold, anyhow. Jerusalem also. It's a holy city, yes, but nothing like Mecca and Medina. If the Sunnis complain when we let them fall, well if they hadn't martyred Ali and Hassan and Hosain and persecuted us, and even now attack us, the 'umma would have taken Constantinople by now. Let them come. When the Imam returns, as they say, we'll find out who really deserves to rule."

Vladimir was surprised, to say the least. The Shi'a he knew were pious and awaited their Imam's return, obeying the Law as they understood it. Yet the Sultan of another Shi'a people, his counterpart, though with a greater kingdom, was as cynical and faithless as any subchief. A distinction, he noted, similar to that between the Christians in Kiev and crusading Emperor Basil.
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In the end, it was a near thing, and he only came to a decision while crossing the Khazar lands near his home again. "Drink is the glory of the Rus!" he had told the Shi'a 'alim traveling with him. "We shall never give it up!"

"Pray sober," the learned man responded. "Never come face to face with God with your mind clouded. And the Noble Qur'an specifically forbids wine. But otherwise, do as you wish."

"No crusades for the Rus," Vladimir said to his assembled chiefs at Kiev, a few of whom were already Christian or Muslim. "No marching off to faraway lands for the glory of another. We will stay in Kiev and be Rus, drinking in moderation, tolerating all people of the Book, and fighting jihad against those who deny the truth of Abraham or who threaten the community of believers. There is no God but God, and Muhammad is his Prophet!"

*A somewhat dubious transliteration of Surat Al-Fatiha. My apologies to any muslims I may offend with this--keep in mind, it's written from the perspective of a Rus chief whose theology, sense of ritual, and understanding of what's going on is very fuzzy.

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990s: The conversion of Kiev to Islam was seen as a direct betrayal by Emperor Basil. The crusade to the holy land was redirected north and east, much to the gratification of the Magyars, who could expand their own lands at the expense of the Kievans. But circumstances failed to cooperate. The Patzinaks resisted the progress of the Byzantine army fiercely, while the Poles, seeking glory for the Roman church, waited until the Kievans had defeated the Magyars before invading, and even then mainly staying in Lithuania.

1010s: Much of the Kievan state had been Christian, and that element congregated around Ivan of Novgorod, who had been baptized before the conversion of 988. After nearly thirty years of alliance-building, he raised the banners of rebellion at the same time as the Poles and Germanians had an army ready to march to his aid, and the Kievans had alienated the Patzinaks by a severe campaign down the Dneiper. Kiev was surrounded, and the city itself besieged for a time, but Novgorod was too small and poor to maintain the campaign, and the Patzinaks soon forgot the Kievan depredations in the face of Byzantine, Bulgarian, and Magyar attempts to absorb their lands. The only lasting result of the Rus Crusade was the christianization of Lithuania. The competition between Rome and Constantinople continued even here, as the Teutonic Knights, a Germanian order, subdued much of the country, while the common folk sought refuge in the Eastern rites of Novogorod and Hungary. In 1025, Basil himself fell against the Patzinaks on the river Prut, and his successor Constantine gave up the fight, instead reopening communication with Rome in the hopes of unifying Christianity against both Kiev and the Holy Land.

The Roman Church was equally worried about Muslims, in this case the Andalusians, with whom the Franks were much too cozy. Nevertheless, the Pope recognized that Al-Andalus wasn't going anywhere, so he instead began pressuring the Franks to join the crusade movement. For forty years, Christian Europe idly prepared for crusade on one front or other.

interesting...a Muslim Russia....

I also like the tone that you use in describing the character's actions. Tell me, how much of Russia is now under Christian hands?

Novgorod and Muscovy have Christian princes; the people of Novgorod are mainly Christian, Muscovy is divided more evenly, but with a Christian minority (the Muslim minority will be swiftly expelled and flee to Kiev, which will ruin Moscow for a while but preserve its Christianity).

The crusades in Russia will solidify this line, as Poland-Lithuania becomes a greater power in the region. The Mongol conquest will momentarily give advantage to the Christians, but the end result will be that Kiev falls to the Ottoman Empire in the 1400s.