Challenge: Butterfly away islam

Ptholemaios

Question is: what is the easiest and most plausible at once way to butterfly away islam? What changes in the world would make founding or at least development of this world religion impossible? I don't mean "Muhammad is dead in infancy" but rather more historical influences into this case.

If there are any muslims right there, don't feel offended, please. I'm going to post similar threads about another popular world religions soon.
 

Lysandros Aikiedes

If you want to create a new timeline, its best that you describe what it features rather than highlight what it doesn't feature. If you create a world that just happens not to have Islam in it, please describe what you intend to put in its's place.
 

Doraemon

Lysandros Aikiedes said:
If you want to create a new timeline, its best that you describe what it features rather than highlight what it doesn't feature. If you create a world that just happens not to have Islam in it, please describe what you intend to put in its's place.
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Huh? He's only asking for a simple WI

Anyway, the best way to butterfly away Islam would be that Christianity (or some other religion at that) is much more established in the Arabian Peninsula. Dunno how you can get this to work though. Maybe the Romans hang on to Babylon so Christianity get established? Well thats about the best I can do.
 

Lysandros Aikiedes

Killing off Muhammad is the easy part. The real question is: what sort of world are you going for with Islam out of the picture?

Does something different develop in Arabia?

Does the lack of a militant rival from the east cause the Christian church slow down and stagnate in Europe?

Do the Arabs adopt a form of Manicheism or Zoroastrianism?

Does Buddhism arrive in the west?

Does a newly reformed polytheist faith appear in Europe to counteract Christianity?

Best that your WI has some sort of follow up questions.
 

Ptholemaios

Well, "what follows" depends on the way we butterfly this away. If we're just killing Muhammad, we may have got many ways it could be going. If we're assuming Christianity was estabilished as main religion for the Arabs, it follows with Zoroastrianism being main rival of Christianity (probably).
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Lysandros Aikiedes said:
Killing off Muhammad is the easy part. The real question is: what sort of world are you going for with Islam out of the picture?

Does something different develop in Arabia?

Does the lack of a militant rival from the east cause the Christian church slow down and stagnate in Europe?

Do the Arabs adopt a form of Manicheism or Zoroastrianism?

Does Buddhism arrive in the west?

Does a newly reformed polytheist faith appear in Europe to counteract Christianity?

Best that your WI has some sort of follow up questions.
Click to expand...

Christianity will likely spread from Ethiopia to Arabia, but it would a lot more interesting if the Yemish Jews spread there, in that case you could see Judaismen spread down the African East Coast and in different trading colonies in India and Indonesia with Arabian settlers and mechants.
 

Ptholemaios

Now that's a very interesting point - Arabs mainly adopting Judaism. It fairly works well with early Arabic people. It might completely change the way Arabs developed, becoming much more independent traders, providing link between Christian Egypt and Syria with the Africa, opening more civilized connections very early on.
 

Snake Featherston

Banned
Ptholemaios said:
Now that's a very interesting point - Arabs mainly adopting Judaism. It fairly works well with early Arabic people. It might completely change the way Arabs developed, becoming much more independent traders, providing link between Christian Egypt and Syria with the Africa, opening more civilized connections very early on.
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Except neither the Western nor Eastern Christians were especially...tolerant of Jews. Large armies of Jews would provoke a much nastier reaction than occurred to Islam, and we all know how nasty that reaction was ITOL. I can't see that ending any better than the OTL Arabian Irruption, but I can see it ending a helluva lot worse.
 

Ptholemaios

Crusade to Arabia to wipe off Jews? That's going scary...

Maybe not any "big armies" actually but a set of trade "republics"?
 

Snake Featherston

Banned
Ptholemaios said:
Crusade to Arabia to wipe off Jews? That's going scary...

Maybe not any "big armies" actually but a set of trade "republics"?
Click to expand...

Wrong time period. Something like that (that referring to religious blocs, period, expanding through trade, not anything else) would be more plausible post-1900 in the form of a bunch of souped-up EUs and AUs and MERCOSURs and NAFTAs. We're talking the Seventh century, when the only passably decent state was Sui-era China, and that none too decent by today's standards, even taking into account the Native American societies of the time. I can't see a trading republic system succeed without armed force to back it up in that time period, and I'm willing to bet those armies would indeed sponsor a backlash to make the OTL Crusades positively decent. Islam's close enough to Christianity that it wasn't a problem. OTOH, an army of (in the mindset of the time) dangerous people who had rejected Christ....

No way that ends well.
 

Roberto

Snake Featherston said:
Wrong time period. Something like that (that referring to religious blocs, period, expanding through trade, not anything else) would be more plausible post-1900 in the form of a bunch of souped-up EUs and AUs and MERCOSURs and NAFTAs. We're talking the Seventh century, when the only passably decent state was Sui-era China, and that none too decent by today's standards, even taking into account the Native American societies of the time. I can't see a trading republic system succeed without armed force to back it up in that time period, and I'm willing to bet those armies would indeed sponsor a backlash to make the OTL Crusades positively decent. Islam's close enough to Christianity that it wasn't a problem. OTOH, an army of (in the mindset of the time) dangerous people who had rejected Christ....

No way that ends well.
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OTOH, if a reaction is provoked, very possibly the Arab Erruption will occur ITTL, just with Jews instead of Muslims. The problem is that Judaism tends not to be as adaptable to local culture as Islam is...
 

Constantius

My favourites for this are basically anything in Justinian's Reconquesta, the Rhomaios-Sassanid wars, and the events in between (like having Phokas fail to usurp the the empire from Maurice).

That's assuming you want the PoD to be something at least nearby in the timeline, allowing Muhammed to be born. Just about anything before Justinian could butterfly him away.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Roberto said:
OTOH, if a reaction is provoked, very possibly the Arab Erruption will occur ITTL, just with Jews instead of Muslims. The problem is that Judaism tends not to be as adaptable to local culture as Islam is...
Click to expand...

That isn't the problem, the problem is that even the "heretical" Christians who hate Constantinoble will fight to the death against the Jews. But the question is academic because the Arabs will first turn Jewish after the Arab Eruption, so we likely just see a few short term Arab Kingdoms in the Crescent.
 

Mr. Evangelical

Banned
We could have Muhammed convert to Coptic Christianity somehow, before he founds Islam. He helps convert Arabia to Christianity. Of course, Judaism will grow as well.
 

Michael Busch

Wasn't this sort of thing one of the premises Turtledove had in Agent of Byzantium? He had St. Mohamet be a convert to Christianity when he was a trader visiting Syria, then end up as a hymn-writer, bishop of Ispania, and patron saint of changes.
 

Ferdinand Koenig

Islam was originally perceived as heretical sect of Christianity, so its not too difficult to imagine a sort of theological anschluss, so to speak, between Orthodox Christianity (or perhaps even Roman Catholicism, although that seems less likely), sometime around the 8th or 9th centuries (pre-Crusades, in any event).
 

Flocculencio

Donor
Valdemar II said:
Christianity will likely spread from Ethiopia to Arabia, but it would a lot more interesting if the Yemish Jews spread there, in that case you could see Judaismen spread down the African East Coast and in different trading colonies in India and Indonesia with Arabian settlers and mechants.
Click to expand...

There were already Jews and (quite large) communities of Christians in India by this time. The Indian Ocean trading ports were extremely cosmopolitan.
 

Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy

Banned
Anything before Muhammad was conceived can (will IMO, but let's not get into that) butterfly him away. Butterflies don't make for a challenge.
 

Ak-84

Banned
I am a muslim and am not offended, its a normal discussion for us. Anytime in the Meccan-Medianan wars, a desicive defeat would mean the end of the business as we know it.
 
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