Spain stays Muslim

What would be required to keep Spain and Portugal completely Muslim? Would this lead to a Muslim New World? Or to a New World completely English? How would Chritianity fare, caught between two Muslim regions?
 
tom said:
What would be required to keep Spain and Portugal completely Muslim? Would this lead to a Muslim New World? Or to a New World completely English? How would Chritianity fare, caught between two Muslim regions?
Well, the Andalusians wouldn't be as likely to discover the NW as the Spanish and Portugese were, as they'd probably be on better terms with the Muslim nations along the trade routes. So, France or England, probably.
 
(1) Muslim Spain in its early days to keep on and eliminate all Christian outlaws in the north. The first mistake was to leave Pelayo's band alone after the battle of Covadonga.
(2) I once read a persistent Muslim Spain ATL where the POD was the battle of Las Navas de Tolosa.
(3) A persisting Muslim Spain would continue to have designs on France and Italy and be an endless source of pirates and jihads.Thank God that it didn't happen.
 
now there's an interesting thought... what if England discovered the new world and claimed all of it for themselves? Granted, they probably wouldn't have much to do with C. and S. America, but OTL US/Canada would be theirs from the beginning....
 
Why would England do nothing to central America?
That was the place to be in the beginning with all the gold and all- we just went to north America as central was already taken.
 

Faeelin

Banned
I think tolosa is too late; there's other christian powers besides castile and aragon after all.
 
Leej> I figured someone else would get there first... the English are likely to discover N. America first (Canada?), and explore parts south of it. With that, perhaps France would get to the south first... or to make it really wild, suppose that the spanish muslims use Columbus' route and find the Aztecs first. Let us suppose they move through C. and S. America as the Spaniards did, converting and intermarrying. Eventually, you'll have an English N. America facing off against muslim C. and S. America... what would the world be like after that?
 
Anthony,

Were there many holy wars and pirate raids launched from Muslim Spain? I was under the impression that most of them were launched from Northern Africa.
 
Matt Quinn said:
Anthony,

Were there many holy wars and pirate raids launched from Muslim Spain? I was under the impression that most of them were launched from Northern Africa.

During the early days, the armies of Muslim Spain regularly went raiding points north (initially in true warlike style, later as tribute-gathering operations with a military veneer). ESpewcially the Christian states in the north of Spain were frequently the target. Of course, counter-raiding was equally popular, but for the first centuries the Christians were, net, on the receiving end, unable to mount a credible military challenge to the Muslims. Some early Emirs and Caliphs collected most of their revenues through such racketeering, and this is occasionally called 'Jihad state' by less friendly commentators (a similar situation once obtained along the Byzantine-Muslim frontier, with akritai and ghazi fighting each other and looting each other's populations).

Later, Muslim Spain settled down into a more self-contained form of existence and generally did not launch many raids. the murabitun (sp) reinstated military aggression against the north, but that wasn't jihad or raiding, it was straighforward warfare over control of territory. As to piracy, that declined sharply post-900, and most European slaves brought to al-Andalus actually were sold there by Christians (Germans, mostly).

The raids of the Barbary pirates are a development of the Renaissance (there always was some privateering in the course of war, but they built their states on it). I assume it was as much based on the conditions of the time (mutual decision to stop co-existence, religious warfare, increased sea traffic, better navigation, and richer pickings in Europe) as Dieppe's and New Providence's pirate economies were. You could, however, make a case for these raids being Spanish in origin as many early 16th century inhabitantrs of the Maghrebin cities were ethnically cleansed Muslims who had originally lived in Spain, and i am convinced that had something to do with the added aggressiveness.
 
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