Muslim Industrial Revolution

[Whanztastic]

Let's say as a rough POD the Muslims are stopped from invading the Franks but destroy the Kingdom of Asturias. They remain in Iberia, are the ones to discover the New World and have an Industrial Revolution of sorts.

My question is - Is it at least semi- plausible to have a scenario where the Muslim IndRev was petroleum fueled at first but they later need coal deposits that exist in Europe?

Basically this is a reverse of the scenario of European nations (and their American descendants) getting involved in Middle Eastern affairs due to its rich oil wealth.

So one could we have the United States of Arabia occupying the Republic of Batavia or Wales (or whatever) getting in a big ol' debacle trying to bring stability to the region and trying to secure coal wealth?

Or the iron deposits of Sweden? Any other suggestions?

[Tobit]

That POD alone won't be enough to ensure the kind of dominance that you are talking about.

The Muslim world still has to deal with Mongol invaders which will ruin much of the middle east.

Then the fact that internal strife over who gets to be caliph will be a problem.

The Mongols and internal strife are bigger threats to Muslim in the long term big scope of things.

If the Muslims aren't kicked out of Spain that will count for something, and the discovery of the new world will help alot. But I think that would mean a powerful Iberia and Morocco not necessarily a better off Muslim world.

[Whanztastic]

Well the POD isn't the important part... I am just looking for a board macrohistorical assessment.

If the Muslim world somehow could stay more powerful than Europe, could the situation in Europe I presented arise?

[Tobit]

The middle east is not the best place to have an industrial revolution even if it is petroleum based. After all the start of the industrial revolution was reforming and advancing agriculture. Without having a large population that isn't tied to agriculture the industrial revolution will be still born. I am no expert on Middle eastern agriculture but low rainfall even with advanced irrigation will be a problem.

I think the best places for a Muslim industrial revolution to occur is in India under the Mughals. The ottomans might be able to pull it off too but they will need to pacify surrounding areas such as the Ukraine, and maintain their dominance of the Balkans. A Muslim Spain that also rules Morocco and the Americas would be a great power too, but the same reasons that Christian Spain which had demographic problems would occur for a muslim spain too.

I look at the idea of a Muslim industrial revolution in the same way I look at a european industrial revolution. Each country is different, it has a different economic history and geography. Therefore Britain is more likely to pull off industrialization than Italy or Spain. The same applies to a Mughals versus a Caliph from Cairo. The Mughals simply have more natural and human resources.

Like gunpowder spread though, the Christians will pick up industrialization in time as well. Industrialization in OTL was so powerful that it affected cloth weavers from the India to Mexico. Even British industry was being dwarfed by German production in the later part of the 19th century. If the any Muslim power is the Britain that first masters mass production and industrialization, then some other country with greater resources will eventually be the analog of Germany or the US and out compete the Muslim power.

[SRT]

I made a map based on this, just kinda for fun recently. It's not the best map, or the most detailed TL. I mostly made the map to teach myself how to use GIMP, and thought up the actual TL really quickly. Also the flavor text is written really awkwardly so please excuse my ramblings. The TL was kind of written from a perspective where what I thought was cool took precedence over what was really extremely plausible. In some ways I even want to make a second version of this map that turns it completely into a steampunk/fantasy alt-19th century setting. But that's a bit in the future (I'm not making any more maps until I get a stylus!).

Anyway, enjoy the first map I ever made aka Central Asia Industrializes circa 1100 (I believe the map is supposed to be around 1500 ITTL).

[Ridwan Asher]

The best candidate for an Islamic Industrial Revolution would be the Mughals, or basically muslim-dominated northern India, as Tobit has pointed out why. Or if you wouldn't mind an Islamic Western Europe, that can do too, though remember the overwriting of a millenia of their history due to their conversion to Islam (and thus making them part of Islamic economic world) will have effects.

[Emperor Qianlong]

In my opinion, before starting the industrial revolution, one would have to make sure that scientific development in the Islamic world continues, and a fully-developed/refined version of the scientific method emerges there (major steps towards the scientific method already occured in the "golden age" of the Islamic world). If that's the case, I think an industrial revolution happening there is viable. So, IMO the best POD would be preventing the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongol Empire in 1258. Baghdad was the intellectual heart of the Islamic world, saving it would be the best case.

[Malta Shah]

Or at best prevent the large scale destruction of the Agricultural works that maintained higher agriculture in the area.

[Whanztastic]

Well this all stems from the thread asking why there aren't more AH movies (despite the obvious reasons of AH being a minor literary force, being viewed as a subset of SciFi by the population of large if they have heard of it at all).

That thread made me start thinking of possible AH movies. They would need to be accessible and not academic in nature and there would need to be an obvious reason why the chosen movie is in an AH scenario.

This led me to think of a movie that is about a Muslim occupation of a rouge European nation or European nation that is a haven for Christian fundamentalists, being an Iraq War of Afghanistan analogy

The Reconquista (debates over Tours specifically) is obviously a critical point in Muslim history (since if they held onto Iberia most of the Americas could be speaking Arabic,etc. rather than European tongues. And yes I have ignored other macrohistorical trends, such as the Mongols invading, etc. This was just a feeler if such a role switch is feasible.

[Whanztastic]

Here is a link to the movie thread for those who are interested...