Islamic-Christian relations

Create a POD where the relation between the majority of Christians and Muslims is the same as the relation between the majority of Catholics and Protestants (agree to disagree).

Restrictions:
-Don't have the Muslims conquer the Christians and then decide to be nice or visa versa.
-There must be a few first world Muslim countries, on par with the UK, France, or Germany. This isn't much of a restriction, as improved prosperity and stability will definately help relations. Of course, there should also be several first world Christian countries.
-If at all possible, keep the Crusades. I have to keep this somewhat challenging, after all.
-Bonus points if you have an important European/American Muslim nation, and an importan Mid Eastern Christian nation.
-Stay on topic and be civil. ;)
 

Faeelin

Banned
Hmm. All you need is for the majority of the house of islam to do a turkey.

John thinks its a piece of cake; I'm not so sure, but we'll let it slide.

Albania: In Europe, as is Turkey.

The French divide lebanon so that there's a small, majority Christian state.

First world muslim nations: Turkey, Egypt also.
 
War

DominusNovus said:
Create a POD where the relation between the majority of Christians and Muslims is the same as the relation between the majority of Catholics and Protestants (agree to disagree).

Restrictions:
-Don't have the Muslims conquer the Christians and then decide to be nice or visa versa.
-There must be a few first world Muslim countries, on par with the UK, France, or Germany. This isn't much of a restriction, as improved prosperity and stability will definately help relations. Of course, there should also be several first world Christian countries.
-If at all possible, keep the Crusades. I have to keep this somewhat challenging, after all.
-Bonus points if you have an important European/American Muslim nation, and an importan Mid Eastern Christian nation.
-Stay on topic and be civil. ;)


I think we might be going down that road already. Catholics and Protestants only decided to agree to disagree when they got tired of killing each other. I seem to recall that something like 8 million people died in the 30 year war and Catholic France ended up fighting on the Protestant side. The arguement over who would go to heaven eventually seemed rather stupid when most of Europe resembled Hell. I personally believe that most of Europe's horror stories were inspired by actual events from that war.

On the other hand. I HOPE I AM WRONG.
 
Faeelin said:
Hmm. All you need is for the majority of the house of islam to do a turkey.

John thinks its a piece of cake; I'm not so sure, but we'll let it slide.

Albania: In Europe, as is Turkey.

The French divide lebanon so that there's a small, majority Christian state.

First world muslim nations: Turkey, Egypt also.

Easy. Ottoman Empire doesn't enter WWI and lasts. Mt Lebanon was already an autonomous Christian State. If that's not enough, Russia collapses, and Georgia becomes independent.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Yeah, that's basically where I was going, though I wanted a sovereign lebanon.

John, BTW, check out the Prince of Peace for a scene you'll love.
 
DominusNovus said:
Create a POD where the relation between the majority of Christians and Muslims is the same as the relation between the majority of Catholics and Protestants (agree to disagree).

Restrictions:
-Don't have the Muslims conquer the Christians and then decide to be nice or visa versa.
-There must be a few first world Muslim countries, on par with the UK, France, or Germany. This isn't much of a restriction, as improved prosperity and stability will definately help relations. Of course, there should also be several first world Christian countries.
-If at all possible, keep the Crusades. I have to keep this somewhat challenging, after all.
-Bonus points if you have an important European/American Muslim nation, and an importan Mid Eastern Christian nation.
-Stay on topic and be civil. ;)

Well in the AH fiction Norman and I are working on, the PODs are that
i) The Celtic church remains independent and goes on to dominate Northern Europe (i.e. Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia, Poland, Germany and Northern Russia) with the Latin Church (OTL Catholic church: France, Italy) divided under two Popes in Avignon and Rome and the Orthodox Church (Byzantine Empire, South Russia, Crimea) with the Muslims from the Middle East to Spain.

ii) Harold wins the battle of Hastings.

So far we're still in the Middle Ages (AD 1234). The Anglo-Saxons have colonised Vinland and have discovered the Mayans sacrificing humans to (shock, horror) a serpent God. With Christianity divided as it is theres little impetus for a crusade to the Holy Land. Instead, since Satan/Shaitan's kingdom on earth had obviously been discovered, the People of the Book in all their various forms rally together for a series of crusades in OTL Yucatan and S. America

By 2004, tentatively.

N. America and Europe are Christian.
Africa and S. America are largely Muslim (though, in S. America, of a sect unknown to OTL. Sort of Protestant Muslims)
The Byzantine culture remains in a state centered around Constantinople, extending around OTL Turkey + Greece + the balkans. With the major part of the Jihads/Crusades going West, Byzantium had the chance to survive.
(bonus points gained for important Muslim American nation(s) and does Byzantium count as an important christian Mid-Eastern Nation? They are Levantine)
First world countries would be Muslim Argentina (along with the Kingdom of the North and New Stamford, about as religious as OTL EU), The Kingdom of the North (OTL UK+Scandinavia+Iceland), New Stamford (Basically the Anglo-Scandanivian state covering the Eastern Seaboard of OTL US and Canada), the Holy Roman Duchies (OTL France, Spain and Italy), The Republic of Iran and Non-Iran (OTL Iran, Iraq and Kuwait. A republic with an Islamic base but, along with the Holy Roman Duchies, about as religious as OTL US is) and various Asian states, ostly buddhist or Hindu religiously.
 

Ian the Admin

Administrator
Donor
Basically you'd need something where the main differences between Christianity and Islam are simply religious, instead of economic + technological + geopolitical + geographic + ethic + etc. etc. etc.

Islamic nations aren't just seperated from western Christian nations by religion. The great majority of them are third world ex-colonies who have spent the past century being pawns in the geopolitical struggles of the major powers. This is a veeeeery different historical experience from most Christian countries. Protestant nations are overwhelmingly first-world. The Catholic Church is run out of the first world, and even in South America which is relatively poor, there wasn't such a strong, recent post-colonial and cold-war-pawn experience.

(Also, the Islamic nations that WESTERNERS think about most as Islamic - basically, the Middle Eastern countries - have an even closer experience due to their close history, it's as if people thought of the US whenever they thought of Christianity so they constantly mixed up Christian and US culture).
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Until fairly recently, most Muslims considered themselves to be part of the West (look, for example, at the relationship between the Muslims and the British in India). By the same token, most Westerners considered Islam to be a Christian heresy. There was a divide before, but other groups - Catholic and Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic, etc - have managed to put the divide behind them.

Nonetheless, quite a lot has happened in the last 100 years to sour this - and I refuse to lay the blame squarely on anyone's doorstep, but it would be grossly unaccurate to blame Islam, that's for sure. I could imagine many things which could have changed to maintain this perception. If the status quo had been maintained (without the 20th century's legacy of violence), devout Muslims and devout Christians might view each other as evangelical Christians in the US consider Catholics, or as Christians of all stripes consider Jews. I see no reason why an "Abrahamic" community of nations could not have evolved.
 

Faeelin

Banned
Leo Caesius said:
Until fairly recently, most Muslims considered themselves to be part of the West (look, for example, at the relationship between the Muslims and the British in India). By the same token, most Westerners considered Islam to be a Christian heresy. There was a divide before, but other groups - Catholic and Orthodox, Protestant and Catholic, etc - have managed to put the divide behind them. .

You sure about this? This isn't a view by most historians, or even contemporaries.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Faeelin said:
You sure about this? This isn't a view by most historians, or even contemporaries.

I am 110% positive about this. From the Islamic POV, Christians and Jews were always accorded a preferential status as members of the same religious tradition as the Muslims - namely, communities with a prophet and a divinely inspired revelation. All of figures whom they hold most dear - Moses, Jesus, John the Baptist, and many others, right up to the time of Muhammad, were considered to be Muslims. Additionally, they continued and built upon the intellectual traditions of the Hellenistic Near East, and never made the sharp break with late Antiquity that most historians seem to intimate.

From the Christian POV, the idea that "Mohammedans" were a Christian schism - with Mohammed as an imposter, false prophet, or heresiarch - was held right through the Middle Ages, and enjoyed a brief revival in the last century among some scholars of religion, who sought the origins of Islam in various Christian heresies like the Ebionites. For evidence of this view during the Medieval period one need look no further than Dante's Divine Comedy.

My own conclusions are derived from my understanding of the history of the Middle East, as well as extensive reading of primary sources (I do read Arabic and Persian). I'm not apologizing for Islam (that's not my place) and I'm not exactly pulling this out of my arse. I also recognize that these POVs were never held in all places at all times - an equally common view during the Middle Ages was that they were idolaters who worshipped Apollo and Tervagant - and I realize that they do not have much currency today - but they are very important nonetheless, and it is impossible to disregard them when making an objective analysis of the history Muslim-Christian relations.

I'm woefully unknowledgeable about the history of India (and I'll be the first to admit it) but it is my impression that the Brits favored the Muslims for many reasons, among which was the familiarity of their religion in comparison to Hinduism.

Heresiologists generally operate according to a common pattern: they paint for us a picture of a group, so close to their own community as to be considered threatening, and accentuate the differences (no matter how minute) until the picture is distorted, like an image in a funhouse mirror. That is why one must always be cautious when examing these sorts of accounts. That Islam continues to be treated in this way (in the great tradition of the heresiologists) is quite revealing, at least IMHO.
 
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1) Make the more prominent early Christian view of Hell the dominent one. That view of Hell is more like purgatory, where you pay for your sins before going to heaven. Born again Christians (in the older sense) skip that and go straight to heaven.

2) Have Islam spread more by persuasion rather then force.

3) Make the Crusades more about defending Byzantium from a land grab by the Turks then attacking non-Christians.

4) Have the East Roman Empire survive and have the Turks go north instead into modern day Russia.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Middle East Christian States

There's not much to work with, when trying to find majority Christian states in the Middle East.

The mutessarifate of Jebel Lubnan was rather tiny compared to the (already rather small) modern Lebanese Republic. It only went as far as Zahle in the Bekaa and stopped short of Tripoli and Sidon in the north and south, respectively. The coast was mostly Muslim, and that's where the population was growing, so if we wanted a majority Christian Lebanon, it would most likely have to be landlocked.

Other possible areas would be Tur Abdin and Urmi. The first (capital: Midyat) is located in the mountainous area east of Mardin, and is mostly Kurdish and Arab. There is a large community of Aramaic speakers there, and at one point the Christians may have even predominated (this is not the case now, however). If it were kept separate from Kurdistan, Turkey, and Syria, they might still today, and it would be a predominantly Aramaic-speaking Middle Eastern Christian nation. However, it is unlikely that it would ever be very important.

Urmia (capital: Urmia) is the region located to the west of the Iranian lake of the same name. This is the stronghold of the so-called Assyrian Christians and is possibly still mostly Christian today (I may be wrong; does anyone know?). There are apparently 115 Christian villages there. These Christians also speak Aramaic, albeit of a different dialect group than the inhabitants of Tur Abdin. This too would be small and unimportant, although potentially more feasible than Jebel Lubnan or Tur Abdin.

Perhaps we could join the two in a federal union with a Kurdish Hakkari. This union would have three states, and potentially a slim majority of Christians (Armenians, Assyrians, and Suriani).

I think the best hope for a (comparatively) important Middle Eastern Christian nation would be Armenia; if we assume that the massacres never occurred, it could potentially occupy a territory somewhat larger than the modern state but smaller than the Wilsonian Armenia. It would neighbor Urmi but be separated from Tur Abdin by the Kurds. This Armenia would be dwarfed in importance by the Turks to the West and the Persians to the East, but it would be more important than any of these other solutions.
 
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Leo Caesius

Banned
Matt Quinn said:
"Tervagant"

I know who Apollo is, but who's this? It sounds like a Tyranid critter from Warhammer 40,000

Actually, I have no clue who this he supposed to be. I was told by my Armenian prof that Tergavant was a little statue of Mars that the Saracens kept in the Kaaba, or so it was commonly believed. I think that there were supposed to be three statues in total - Tervagant, Apollo, and Mahomet, the "Trinity" of the idolatrous Saracens.

I was once told by an Indian friend of mine that the world's Muslims bow in prayer to a shivling in the Kaaba. It's a similar sort of superstition.
 
"Suriani"

What are they?

There was an Assyrian uprising put down quite brutally during the late-Ottoman or early British period (a very large # of Assyrians were killed). If this doesn't happen and birthrates go a certain way, we might be able to swing a Christian Assyria somewhere.

Armenia works out nicely too.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Matt Quinn said:
"Suriani"
What are they?
There was an Assyrian uprising put down quite brutally during the late-Ottoman or early British period (a very large # of Assyrians were killed). If this doesn't happen and birthrates go a certain way, we might be able to swing a Christian Assyria somewhere.
Armenia works out nicely too.

Suriani is the Turkish name for the inhabitants of Tur Abdin (Surianiler). Since the name Assyrian troubles me (especially outside of the region of ancient Assyria), I thought I'd just call them by their Turkish name. It means something like Syriac (Christians).

Many of the Assyrians whom you mention were shifted from place to place, and finally put down roots in the Khabur river valley in Syria. Their story is quite an amazing epic. There are still 35 villages in that region, divided according to clan.

I'm going to post a pic of my hypothetical Christian states.
 

Leo Caesius

Banned
Christian States in the Middle East

Here's my map. I've created three majority Christian states.

The first is Jebel Lubnan, within the boundaries of the old mutessarifate. Notice how small it is... but it should be pretty homogenously Christian, with small Sunni and Druze minorities.

The second is Armenia, slightly smaller than the Wilsonian boundaries. This presupposes no massacre. Even so, there are a LOT of Kurds here.

The third is the state that, for lack of a better name, I have titled Assyria. Media might be more appropriate, as some scholars believe that the Kurds are related to the ancient Medes (the jury is still out on that one). It combines the three regions that I mentioned - Urmia, Tur Abdin, and Kurdish Hakkari - with the Assyrian parts of Iraq northeast of Mosul (223 villages). There was a sizeable minority of Christians in Hakkari before the massacres, so I think we can pull off a slight Christian majority here, between the Assyrians, Suriani, and the Armenians - with a large Kurdish minority concentrated right in the middle, and a small Arab population in the South and West. In this case, a federal government might prevent it from becoming another Lebanon.

If Cyprus is able to keep its act together, it might do even better than these three other states - and in OTL, it has a majority Christian population.

assyria.jpg
 
I thought most Assyrians lived further south, closer to Baghdad. Of course, those are more modern figures...the massacres I mentioned earlier could have had an effect.
 
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