Islamic Greek state?

Is there a particular POD that would allow for a Muslim, ethnic Greek state to come to existence before the year 1900?
 
Perhaps some Greeks converts to Islam after Ottoman conquest like Albanians and Bosnias and it could become indepent.
 

d32123

Banned
Aren't the people of Western Anatolia Muslim ethnic Greeks? Maybe they could split off from Turkey somehow.
 
How about Persia winning (Though only barely) the last war against the Byzantines? This would lead to the Byzantines going through the same decline as the Sassanids and thus falling to the Islamic conquerers first. Maybe we could see an equivalent to the Saminids (A native dynasty who converted to Islam and later became rulers of the land) and see a revival of Greek culture. This all really guessing, this is somewhat out of my zone of knowledge.
 
Perhaps some Greeks converts to Islam after Ottoman conquest like Albanians and Bosnias and it could become indepent.

This is by far the simplest and most plausible answer. Albanians and Bosnians never lost their ethnic identity, even after they converted to Islam. For one thing, their language stayed the same - they didn't switch to Turkish or Arabic. For the Greeks, they have the additional advantage of a separate script.

Cheers,
Ganesha
 
Aren't the people of Western Anatolia Muslim ethnic Greeks? Maybe they could split off from Turkey somehow.

Ethnically Greek, maybe. Culturally, no because they speak the turkish language and is muslim. It happened over the centuries after Manzikert and after the fall of Constantinople. The Greeks were assimilated culturally, linguistically and religiously. They are more closer to Turkish than Greek.
 

d32123

Banned
Ethnically Greek, maybe. Culturally, no because they speak the turkish language and is muslim. It happened over the centuries after Manzikert and after the fall of Constantinople. The Greeks were assimilated culturally, linguistically and religiously. They are more closer to Turkish than Greek.

But it still fits the OP definition if they become independent.
 
This is by far the simplest and most plausible answer. Albanians and Bosnians never lost their ethnic identity, even after they converted to Islam. For one thing, their language stayed the same - they didn't switch to Turkish or Arabic. For the Greeks, they have the additional advantage of a separate script.

Cheers,
Ganesha

The Bosnians had very specific reasons for converting. Their former religion, the Bosnian Church, was considered to be heretical in all their neighbours opinions, which why out of all the balkan ethnicities they had the least to lose by converting. The Albanians, meanwhile, I'm not quite sure, but I believe has to do with the Bektashi Sufi order that was prosetylsing in the area.
If you get an earlier Sufi order (I believe that Greece were already independent by the time of the Bekhtashis.) In Greece, then that's probably the best and latest chance you have for a Muslim Greece.
 
How about Persia winning (Though only barely) the last war against the Byzantines? This would lead to the Byzantines going through the same decline as the Sassanids and thus falling to the Islamic conquerers first.

Shameless self-plug: This is exactly what happens in my TL.

:cool:

Although another way would be for the Arabs to win the Siege of 717–718, that would give Islam another five hundred years to supplant Orthodoxy.
 
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For Albania there has to be counted in the pressure the Ottomans enforced on them after they crushed Skenderbeg and his League of Lezhe. After 30 years of successful "hit and run" style of warfare and tying down precious Otto manpower in the hills of Albania meant for other conquests it wouldn't be too odd to enforce the conversions upon them.
 
Half one of the early half-Byzantine Osmanli princes take the throne and draw support from Greek elements in the realm. He subsequently Hellenizes the Ottomans, instead of vice-versa, but remains Islam.
 
How is this going to encourage conversions instead of hostility?

It won't, but decapitating a Christian church disrupts it quite a bit. They'd have to start reconstructing all over again, and that isn't gonna be easy.
 
It won't, but decapitating a Christian church disrupts it quite a bit. They'd have to start reconstructing all over again, and that isn't gonna be easy.

It's not as if the beliefs of the people require the Patriarch's head being attached to his shoulders, though.

And going around making martyrs out of the priesthood is going to provoke a lot of ill will, not conversions.
 
And going around making martyrs out of the priesthood is going to provoke a lot of ill will, not conversions.

Right. It might force the Ottomans to get really confrontational and bloody-handed right away. The sad thing is it actually works most times because most people would rather live. Personal beliefs will diverge without a central authority. Underground churches will fight over primacy. People will get disillusioned with their moral leadership in the rebellions.

Eventually people would convert reluctantly, but keep nationalist resentment because the Greek cultural identity is immensely strong and the Turks are not seen as worthy of emulation. Then over a couple of generations use their new rights under the Islamic legal system to subvert the Turkish domination. With enough people in key places, uprisings might force the Turks out, and you get an Islamic Greece.

So two generations of rebellions, a forced conversion, two generations to set everything up, revolution.

At least that's what would happen if the Zoroastrian/Persian model vs. Arab rule holds in the Greek/Turk situation. I'm not saying it will, just explaining the analogy.
 
OTL Emirate of Crete may count.

Well it is said that the population was depopulated and filled with Arabs/Andalusians but the high number of Byzantine renegades operating in their ranks over history does seem to discard this. Hmm well if Crete had the naval luck of England and Japan then it would be a interesting cultural mosaic.

Hmm there appears to be a fair wealth of unused PODs concerning Byzantine turncoats alone. Leo of Tripoli and others seem interesting.
 
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