Faeelin said:Egypt was attacked a lot by Crusaders, notably by Almaric of Jerusalem but also in the 5th crusade. Say it falls between 1150 and 1250, and the Crusaders retain control of it.
How does the Kingdom develop?
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:It develops feudally and weakly until it is utterly smashed by the Mongols a few years later, after which it reverts to the Mamelukes and is duly scooped up by the Ottomans around when it happened historically (still need time to digest Byzantine polity).
Faeelin said:Note that the mongols didn't smash the remnants of outremer, but allied with it.
I think you really hate fuedalism. You consistently think that it will be wiped out, whereas nations like spain show that it's not the case.
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:No, I don't hate feudalism, I just don't think feudal regimes ruling over muslim majorities are the best candidates for successfully defending against the Ottoman Empire at its height.
Anyway, the timing is not so good for Crusader Egypt - you have in rapid succession: Mongols, Plague, Ottomans. Would the Eastern Christians and Muslims interpret the Plague as Divine disfavor with Catholic rulers?
Faeelin said:Almost certainly. But if Egypt's fallen, their only hope of salvation lies with the Mongols, correct?
Wasn't there still a very large coptic population (large enough that any islamic majority wasn't overwhelmingly vast)?Abdul Hadi Pasha said:I suspect this will make little difference, as the vast majority was already Islamic.
DominusNovus said:Wasn't there still a very large coptic population (large enough that any islamic majority wasn't overwhelmingly vast)?
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:No, not my the 13th c. By then the Coptic population was no more than 10%.
Basileus, I have doubts that a Mongol army would be able to cross the Sinai. An army large enough to take Egypt would have to be substantial, and each Mongol warrior had 10 horses - let's say 30,000 men are required, that makes 300,000 horses. Ouch. I suspect later armies would be able to walk along the highway of horse bones.
Abdul Hadi Pasha said:So many Christians converted to Islam not due to economic incentives but because they were Monophysites, and found more common ground with Islam than with their Catholic/Orthodox oppressors. Catholic persecution will not win Islamic converts, IMHO, and the number acheivable in a generation would seem to me to be slim.
The Gobi is mostly grassland quite amenable to horses; the Mongols did not cross sand dunes to get to China. In the Sinai there is no other option. Losses would be heavy, and any Mongol army crossing would arrive in a greatly weakened state.basileus said:If they could cross the Gobi to crush China, they could also cross Sinai.
Faeelin said:Spain was hardly monophysite (although I can't speak for Sicily).
basileus said:Sicily too wasn't certainly Monophysite.
It's not a case that Spain and Sicily were reconquered and fully re-Christianized; the point is that both in Sicily and in Al-Andalus the Muslims were probably never the majority of population (but I admit I can make a bad mistake on this point, I'm not sure)
Faeelin said:They were in Spain for a while, into the 12th century.