Cuāuhtemōc
Banned
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.
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.
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
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.
Have the Ottomans kill the Greek Orthodox high clergy. Just like the Arabs did with the Zoroastrian clergy.
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.
And going around making martyrs out of the priesthood is going to provoke a lot of ill will, not conversions.
OTL Emirate of Crete may count.