Eurofed
Banned
This is a spinoff thread of my last Middle Age TL scenario. Since it emerged from discussion that it caused changes of world-changing relevance to Islam, I thought that the issue deserved its own topic.
TL resume: the PoD in 1190-1197 concerns the survival of Frederick I Barbarossa to a successful completion of the Third Crusade and of his son Henry VI to a ripe old age. Over the 13th century, this causes the HRE plus Kingdom of Sicily to gradually become an hereditary centralized monarchy. That in turn pushes 13th-15th centuries Europe to be consolidated in a few large centralized monarchies: The Angevin Empire, spanning the British Isles and western France; Iberia, which includes Occitania, Corsica, and Sardinia; the HRE, which spans eastern France, Low Countries, Germany, Italy, western Poland and western Hungary, and holds the rest of Poland and Hungary as vassals ongoing assimilation; the revitalized ERE, which holds the Balkans and Anatolia and keeps Serbia and Moldavia-Wallachia as vassals; a Kalmar-like union. The Papacy is shrunken down to an ineffectual ceremonial shadow and the Catholic Church becomes much more decentralized, with national episcopates running the show in a subordinate position to the local monarchs. This in turn causes an healing of the Latin-Greek schism. The Golden Horde collapses much faster, with Muscowy expanding in northern and eastern Russia, north Caucasus, western Siberia, and most of Kazakhstan. Lithuania-equivalent expands in the Baltic lands, White Russia, Ukraine, and ex-Crimea Khanate.
This has immense effects on Islam, too. The European powers launch a series of new Crusades on a Muslim world weakened by the Mongol rampage, that are fully successful. Iberia conquers North Africa, the HRE conquers Egypt and Nubia, the ERE conquers Anatolia, Armenia, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. All of these lands are gradually but inexorably forcibly re-Christianized, in a manner much similar to OTL Reconquista, using surviving Christian populations in the Middle East as a power base. Islamic refugees escaping assimilation and repression of the inevitable revolts escape to the Sahel, the coast of East Africa, Arabia, and Persia.
Once the work of consolidation and assimilation on previous conquests is done, in the late 15th century, the HRE-ERE alliance, eager to gain complete control of theire respective trade routes to the Indian Ocean, renew their assault and invade western and eastern Arabia. Mecca and Medina are razed to the ground. Hejaz, Yemen, and Eastern Arabia are occupied. An Ecumenic Council gathers in Jerusalem to celebrate Christendom's great victory (somewhat premature, since Persia still stands, but true enough) on the "Mohammedan heresy" (Middle Age Europe had this funny idea that the Prophet was a Christian heresiarch, talk about cultural Eurocentrism).
What happens to Islam from that ? How does the religion weathers such massive blows ? All its heartlands but Persia are gone, the hajj is gone, besides Persia it has only left a shaky foothold on India and Indonesia, which may or may not hold, and a sizable bunch of refugees in the depths of subsaharian Africa. What changes would it drive ?
The main surviving stronghold of Islam is now Shiite Persia. Does this make Shiism the mainstream denomination, and what does it mean ? OTOH, there was an influx of Sunni refugees in Persia, although they may or may not change denomination.
Islamic hold on the Indian subcontinent is indirectly but certainly made much more shaky, with the loss of its geopolitical background, and increased European penetration in India and the Mughal empire is certainly butterflied away. Does it mean that the partial Islamization of India is going to be reversed ? Or paradoxically increased? Anyway, an end to the Hindhu-Islamic divide either way would significantly increase the ability of India to resist European conquest.
Likewise, is Islamization of Indonesia going to stand, or be arrested or reversed ?
A lot of Muslim refugees went to Sahel and East Africa. Can this allow an increased Islamization of Africa ?
What cultural changes would be wrought ? A jihad counterattack, although some abortive attempts are inevitable, is simply not possible, given the balance of forces. So after the kamikaze jihadists are spent, different responses are needed. What they would be ? Greater influence of Sufism ? And what about the now-impossible hajj ? Do substitute pigrimages to the tombs of saints become the norm ?
And last but not least, what all of this means to a Christian Europe that has wiped out the cultural divide created by Islamic expansion, and has all but triumphed on its centuries-old rival ?
TL resume: the PoD in 1190-1197 concerns the survival of Frederick I Barbarossa to a successful completion of the Third Crusade and of his son Henry VI to a ripe old age. Over the 13th century, this causes the HRE plus Kingdom of Sicily to gradually become an hereditary centralized monarchy. That in turn pushes 13th-15th centuries Europe to be consolidated in a few large centralized monarchies: The Angevin Empire, spanning the British Isles and western France; Iberia, which includes Occitania, Corsica, and Sardinia; the HRE, which spans eastern France, Low Countries, Germany, Italy, western Poland and western Hungary, and holds the rest of Poland and Hungary as vassals ongoing assimilation; the revitalized ERE, which holds the Balkans and Anatolia and keeps Serbia and Moldavia-Wallachia as vassals; a Kalmar-like union. The Papacy is shrunken down to an ineffectual ceremonial shadow and the Catholic Church becomes much more decentralized, with national episcopates running the show in a subordinate position to the local monarchs. This in turn causes an healing of the Latin-Greek schism. The Golden Horde collapses much faster, with Muscowy expanding in northern and eastern Russia, north Caucasus, western Siberia, and most of Kazakhstan. Lithuania-equivalent expands in the Baltic lands, White Russia, Ukraine, and ex-Crimea Khanate.
This has immense effects on Islam, too. The European powers launch a series of new Crusades on a Muslim world weakened by the Mongol rampage, that are fully successful. Iberia conquers North Africa, the HRE conquers Egypt and Nubia, the ERE conquers Anatolia, Armenia, the Levant, and Mesopotamia. All of these lands are gradually but inexorably forcibly re-Christianized, in a manner much similar to OTL Reconquista, using surviving Christian populations in the Middle East as a power base. Islamic refugees escaping assimilation and repression of the inevitable revolts escape to the Sahel, the coast of East Africa, Arabia, and Persia.
Once the work of consolidation and assimilation on previous conquests is done, in the late 15th century, the HRE-ERE alliance, eager to gain complete control of theire respective trade routes to the Indian Ocean, renew their assault and invade western and eastern Arabia. Mecca and Medina are razed to the ground. Hejaz, Yemen, and Eastern Arabia are occupied. An Ecumenic Council gathers in Jerusalem to celebrate Christendom's great victory (somewhat premature, since Persia still stands, but true enough) on the "Mohammedan heresy" (Middle Age Europe had this funny idea that the Prophet was a Christian heresiarch, talk about cultural Eurocentrism).
What happens to Islam from that ? How does the religion weathers such massive blows ? All its heartlands but Persia are gone, the hajj is gone, besides Persia it has only left a shaky foothold on India and Indonesia, which may or may not hold, and a sizable bunch of refugees in the depths of subsaharian Africa. What changes would it drive ?
The main surviving stronghold of Islam is now Shiite Persia. Does this make Shiism the mainstream denomination, and what does it mean ? OTOH, there was an influx of Sunni refugees in Persia, although they may or may not change denomination.
Islamic hold on the Indian subcontinent is indirectly but certainly made much more shaky, with the loss of its geopolitical background, and increased European penetration in India and the Mughal empire is certainly butterflied away. Does it mean that the partial Islamization of India is going to be reversed ? Or paradoxically increased? Anyway, an end to the Hindhu-Islamic divide either way would significantly increase the ability of India to resist European conquest.
Likewise, is Islamization of Indonesia going to stand, or be arrested or reversed ?
A lot of Muslim refugees went to Sahel and East Africa. Can this allow an increased Islamization of Africa ?
What cultural changes would be wrought ? A jihad counterattack, although some abortive attempts are inevitable, is simply not possible, given the balance of forces. So after the kamikaze jihadists are spent, different responses are needed. What they would be ? Greater influence of Sufism ? And what about the now-impossible hajj ? Do substitute pigrimages to the tombs of saints become the norm ?
And last but not least, what all of this means to a Christian Europe that has wiped out the cultural divide created by Islamic expansion, and has all but triumphed on its centuries-old rival ?
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