Minarets of Atlantis

[Essam]

Great maps and updates.

Here's to hoping Antlanteans get a Pacific port soon and link up with Indonesia. Hopefully the Islamic states can contact and influence the Polynesians.

Thank you! I think we have a while to get yet before that, but the longer groups wait for their ideas, I think the larger the mytho-ideology that follows it. Two concepts I want to see throughout this TL are: 1) Muslim colonisation of the New World, especially being by Andalusians, will lack the "defeatist" and inward-approach of Muslims of the Old World and won't stagnate academically, scientifically, etc. 2) New World ideologies of expansion "Sea to Sea," "Manifest Destiny" coupled well with powers and elites desire for more control is probably universal.

One thing was brought elsewhere, and it intrigues me.

What will be the fate of Mesoamerican science here ? Especially Mayan ? It will depend on how the Spaniards treat their culture and knowledge in general. With extra reconquista fervor involved, I'm quite skeptical. But that depends not only in Spanish opinion, but also in the extent to which they'll be able to enforce their will upon the native intellectual and scientific traditions. Has/will spanish rule in the Americas diverge enough from OTL to deserve a later update explaining about it ?

Extra Reconquista fervor surely will see a similar end to "high science" in Mesoamerica for the first few centuries. Though don't underestimate the role of the Yucatan and the "marooned" Muslim indigenous communities throughout hard-to-access regions of the New World. They would be a perfect ally and partner on land for New World corsairs. Imagine a complex Early Modern mafia throughout New Spain and into the Muslim World. The Franco-Ottoman and Anglo-Moroccan alliances will do much to aide this. But Spain's grasp of the Low Countries, the HRE, the Inca, and so far the only power present on all continents cannot be eroded too easily.

I would expect for now, the Mexican Inquisition is a bit tougher than OTL, but otherwise progresses basically as per OTL until I mention some more ramifications. Its a bit early for these isolated Muslim indigenous groups to play a huge role on cosmopolitan centers, etc.

Question: Would New Spain still go by "Mexico" if it hadn't Tenochtitlan until 1624? I presume no, then again, maybe?

I have to say, this TL is really coming along well. Well-written, well-researched, and I doubt there are few topics that are quite as awesome as a al-Andalus in the Mississippi valley.

Thank you so much Nassir, really appreciate your reading, following and commenting

I do have a question that's (kind of) related to the map of the Moorish new world in 1700. What's the population of the Moorish areas like around that time?

The expulsions from Granada, the Jews and the Moriscos were huge by colonial migration standards. Within North Africa, the "Andalusis" took generations to integrate and often fought with locals for control. This is a common denominator in the oft-balkanized Maghred of the 16th and 17th century. While I would presume initially without many ships, only so many could make it to the New World, once they can, the majority will eventually go. for Bayouk...

For Atlantis, I will have to research some plausible ideas: plus we have the majority of Aztec elite incorporated with the Berbers making Atlanteans.

As for indigenous tribes, it has already been mentioned, but I am of the belief, coupled with what Ridwan already mentioned of hygiene and nutrition of Muslim Iberians coupled with their medicinal tradition and that of the Aztecs, we could honestly expect to see a significant decline in the death of indigenous populations in North America. Not ignore it, but perhaps limit it to loosing only 25% of their populations in areas of core Bayouk. Europeans from the south, east and north might effect that later on, but later on we can expect the core of Bayouk to be highly mestizo, or "muladi."

In sum, let me do some research and plausibility calculations and I will try to get some population figures for 2-3 periods between the first contact and 1700 inchalla.

Kahoqiah and Kasquaskia should swap places on your map. (Assuming they are supposed to be roughly where the OTL Cahokia and Kaskaskia are)

Anyway, I love this TL so much.

You should have seen how frantic my mac's screen was as I tried to balance the paint app to make the map, with the TL on AH.com, with the various Wiki's about the OTL locations of the mounds, with an OTL map of colonial North America circa 1750...I could have swore I told myself "Cahokia on top of the other." Grrr. Thank you, I will remember to update that for future maps.

Thanks for the love! Love it more, read it more, comment and critique it more!

Will the Bayouk muslims connect with Asia so soon, before the British and French come in and plant their presence in North America ? I can't see Spanish vector can grant them anything more then a very, VERY limited access to East Indies and Asia in general, but British and French ones will might give them much more leeway, even if not as independent actors. What will more strongly affect Spanish and Portuguese adventures in Asia, will be how slowed down Spanish advances in Americas had been by the overall situation.

It will be a while before Moorish polities in the New World establish direct contact with the Indies. For now a lot of it will be via Ottoman traders and Barbary corsairs. The Spanish control the Pacific, for now. But the pan-Tropic of Cancer presence of Muslim states will play a huge role the in the economy and socio-political ideology of the Moorish new World to come.

But yes, Spanish advances in Asia have been a bit slowed down, allowing for a more resurgent Ottoman Empire and Oman in the Indian Ocean. I think formal Ottoman diplomacy with Protestant Europe will last longer than its brief momentary existence in OTL, and the Catholic fear of Turco-Calvinism will be much more realistic.

Also, though, that just might make the Habsburg-Persian alliance more realistic than OTL as well

This period of history was so much more equal and global on so many ways, its a shame modern history in OTL was basically frozen from the 19th century or a bit before. I quite like the 16th as a model to form the modern world, or at least radically change its foundations.

Very cool - I assume this shows how Atlantis' last king is regarded in Bayouk after the fall?

You know I had typed up my first encyclopedic-like entry for this song and the internet stopped working. The last king of Atlantis was the grandson of Moqtezouma's pro-Spanish son ("Shamalboqa") who obviously won over the TTL's equivalent of Isabel Moctezouma and her Berber allies ("Taqishba"). The idea is that the stoicity of Atlantean society will be the push that ends the fatalist ideologies of the Moriscos and Mudejars in Bayouk as they eventually replace the latter as elites for a significant portion of Bayouk history (more on this to come.)

The last king is indeed regarded as a traitor, but the loss of Atlantis will become seen as the necessary evil to engineer the greatest expansion of Islam since the Rashidun Caliphate (ignoring the Turks and Ottomans, of course, who will not always be Bayouk's BFFLs and thus get ignored from Moorish New World historigraphy.)

Gonna take this to today?

I am not quite sure. I don't know if I'm up to all the minutiae that result from such an early POD on every corner of the globe, so in terms of a detailed TL for the whole world, not so likely. I would really like to work and write on the Moorish New World up to modern times at least. We will see, though nothing is certain. Its a work in process.

 

[Pururauka]

But Spain's grasp of the Low Countries, the HRE, the Inca, and so far the only power present on all continents cannot be eroded too easily.

Wait a sec... so the fact there's a delayed Reconquista and a different conquest of Mesoamerica has no butterflies whatsoever on the development of the Spanish Empire?

 

[Essam]

Slavery in the New World

Slave Vendor at the Port of Mahdia in the Moorish New World​

Mahdia, Emirate of Bayouk
Muharram/Yulyuz, 1044 AH (July, 1634 AD)

It had been a decade since the Atlanteans had been expelled; Abbas and Gulbahar had settled and proudly seen their children marry into various Atlantean, morisco, mudéjar and muladite families, despite opposition from many Atlanteans who often remained insular. The stoic Atlantean education and the knowledge and wealth of the refugees were welcome by the mudéjar elites who ruled the emirate from their port capital. While Abbas’s mercantile activities, which had taken him to Songhai, Barbary (and once even to Constantinople) rendered prolonged periods of absence, in his absence, as with many among the elite families of the Moorish New World, his creole Turkish-Algerian wife managed the family and the business in Bayouk through her own network of eunuchs and slaves owned by the family.

The Zayyani household in Mahdia near the mid-XVII century, like nearly 60 other households at the time, was one of the largest slaveholders in Bayouk. Gulbahar bint Yousef Shalabi, the chief wife of Abbas bin Abdelmalek Al Zayyani commanded over one hundred eunuchs, concubines and other enslaved persons. As wigh the majority of other slaveholders in Bayouk, most of the enslaved were Christians captured from enemy settlements in the New World (largely from the Spanish Maine) and pagan Africans.

Whilst the enslavement of pagan Adites – often captured by crypto-Jewish raids in Nuevo Leon against Spanish prohibitions and sold by Kadwani tribal merchants – was common throughout the frontier settlements farther up the river and amongst the lower merchant class, they were regarded by elites as a sign of unattractive frugality on the part of the owner. In Mahdia and the cities along the coast, they were a rare site. It had been the market for African slaves, who commanded a much higher price than Adites, that had been the source of her husband’s rapid rise in the mercantile community with his Songhai partners across the Atlantic.

Despite being a community of exiles, the Berber dynasts and Aztec nobles, which formed the Atlantean elite, maintained a highly structured and hierarchical social-system. Being the wife and mother of a great Berber dynasty such as the Zayyanids made Gulbahar one of the Atlantean expulsee community’s leading women. With her husband’s prolonged absences due to the creating of his commercial empire, and her father’s Corsair connections; along with her own socialising with the women of the emir's family (and particularly, the emir's sister, the wife of his chief vizier) she had managed, shortly after their arrival to Bayouk, to establish her husband as the sole supplier of odalisques, female slaves charged with domestic chores and ladies-in-waiting to the emir’s mother and female family members, to the harem of the emir of Bayouk.

Today, for the inspection and purchase of the first captives to be brought since the New Year, Gulbahar donned her finest garbs, and watched in the Venetian mirror as Elena, a Spanish slave who had been with her for nearly four years now, fastened the ornate niqab made of golden coins depicting various Aztec talisman and Turkish amulets. Her mother-in-law Ayouqtouatel had given her the original Aztec talisman as a traditional gift of gold for delivering her first son. When her father made his first reappearance after nearly a decade at sea, he found his daughter, now the mother to many children of her own and gave her some Turkic amulets to protect her from the Eye. She had these formed into an exquisite veil sometime before their expulsion from Atlantis, and now wore on only the stateliest of occasions. Her personal presence at the slave market for the first time in the New Year was one of them.

Gulbahar’s youngest daughter, Maimouna marveled at her mother’s veil, touching the one on the edge closest to her which had inscribed a supplication on her eponym, Maimouna bint Al-Harith, a wife of the Prophet.

“When you were born,” Gulbahar began, “Your father and I had thought we could not bear any more children. He named you after the Mother of the Believers who was the sister-in-law of whom your father is a namesake, Abbas, one of the Prophet’s companions.” Maimouna smiled. She had heard this story many times before, but prided herself in her sacred name.

“Your father gave me this coin hoping it would keep both you and I far from the Eye,” Gulbahar continued. “When you were a child, I prayed every night you would grow to be strong and healthy.

You shall wear it at your wedding,” she hinted.

Maimouna winced. It had been a decade since their expulsion from Atlantis, yet the memory of the vendor Soufiane remained alive every night in her dreams, and often as she daydreamed as well. Now at twenty-two years of age, she felt increasingly her mother’s hostility to her maidenhood.

“Your Presence,” said the deep voice of the old eunuch Bachir, Gulbahar’s right hand, in Arabic with his sing-songy Turkish accent reminiscent of Syrians, “the carriage is ready.”

In the Zayyani houseold at Mahdia, after the mistress herself, it was Bachir who was second in command. Captured from Kordofan and castrated as a young boy by Coptic monks in the Sinai, he had worked for a pasha in Egypt for many years before coming under the ownership of the Spanish-allied emir in Tunis before that city’s fall to the Ottomans. Attempting to flee aboard a Spanish ship with his master’s son, it had been pirated by Corsairs, Yousef Shalabi amongst them, who would go on to take the eunuch as his own and present him to his daughter and her husband upon his return to Atlantis.

It was the presence of this Ottoman eunuch that elevated even further the Al Zayyani household in Mahdia. Not even the emir himself had among his own enslaved an African eunuch from the Ottoman East. As gossip spread amongst the ladies of the emir’s harem and those of other leading families in Mahdia, Gulbahar had fallen out of grace with the mother of the emir’s firstborn son. If she was to save her husband’s contracts which she had secured, and her own standing, she would need a miracle.

Despite nearing his seventh decade, Bachir faithfully prepared the carriage’s curtains to as to conceal his mistress, opened its door, and assisted her entry followed by her youngest daughter Maimouna, and finally the enslaved Spaniard Elena. He then mounted the driver’s seat and conducted the carriage to the port, followed on horseback by two other men owned by the household who escorted the party. The small caravan went, then, en route to the port.

“Good news, inchalla, Bachir Agha…” Gulbahar inquired in Turkish of her chief confidant. While one could often find a Turkish speaker amongst the Corsairs near the port, it was a rare tongue amongst the Baywanis themselves. Amongst the Atlanteans, she knew of none who spoke the language of the Sultan himself. Gulbahar had dispatched Bachir earlier in the week to the port to inquire amongst pirate associates of her father on the origins of the captives from Barbary expected to arrive soon.

“Gulbahar hanim,” he began

“Indeed good news that ought to please Your Presence. For amongst the captives of the ship arriving today of Hussein Reis, a friend of your father’s, are said to be nearly one hundred Sicilians, almost half of them women” he proclaimed.

Good news indeed, the noblewoman thought to herself. Sicilians, who’s poorly defended island lacking central rule was often a target for Corsair raids, but who’s captives rarely found their way to Bayouk, would fetch not only a high price by the emir’s wives by any remaining would catch the eye of any well-to-do Baywani pasha looking for a wife for his son.

A miracle, she thought to herself, smiling with content.

“Make haste, Agha,” she began. “For if what you tell me is true, you will be justly rewarded.”

A miraculous day not only for Gulbahar, but for two star-crossed lovers as well. For at the slave market, a certain Atlantean merchant prepared his stall of carpets and tapestries which he hoped would catch the eye of the market's wealthy frequenters. A certain Atlantean merchant by the name of Soufiane bin Yahya Al Hafsi.

***​

Corsair and Mayan networks of privateers and resisting tribes continued to supply the Atlantean colony at Bayouk with jaguar skins, cacao beans, and other items highly prized, albeit at much greater costs. Atlantean merchants, decades earlier, had begun establishing regular trade with Morocco, Songhai, Barbary and beyond. By the middle of the 17th century, it was not uncommon to find goods from as far away as the East Indies in Mahdia’s port. Atlanteans also brought with them not only various tropical fruits and agriculture they had grown accustomed to in Atlantis, but their corsair allies as well- who would eventually set up a port east of Mahdia, at the port of Qaz[1] (so named for its abundance of silkworms) further away from the grip of Baywani authorities. In no sector of the Corsair and Bayouk economy, however, were there as high of profits to be gained as there was in slaves.

While in Europe Corsairs from Barbary mainly captured slaves from seaside villages amongst the Catholic cities in Italy, Spain and Portugal, there were occasionally raids on more friendly coasts such as England or France. Raids as far as Iceland and Ireland were not unheard of. As the English strengthened their alliance with the Saadite dynasty in Fes, and the French flirted with the emissaries of the Sublime Porte, however, Protestant powers and France were increasingly spared. While European slaves were sold in Barbary in the thousands for much lower prices due to a high supply, after sales in Barbary and Songhai, the few remaining sold for extremely high prices in Bayouk. Atlantean merchants who maintained ties to Barbary often monopolized the sale of European slaves in Bayouk, with pre-fixed agreements for certain numbers to be reserved for the Baywani market.

In the New World, the expulsion of the Atlanteans and their arrival of in Bayouk, often establishing large plantations, the demand for slaves grew. Through networks with resisting tribes in the Yucatan, crypto-Muslim Aztec maroons and the corsair port on Ihtiyat Island[2] off of the Spanish Maine, the supply of captives from New Spain offered Corsairs a new market. West of Bayouk, raids by the crypto-Jewish settlements in Nuevo Leon on pagan Adite tribes became the supply of Kadwani middlemen who found markets for Adite slaves along the river in the Baywani interior, especially in Kahoqiya which became a center of the inland slave trade.

By the late XVII century, the English port on Somers Isle[3] was a common first stop for Corsairs who’s human cargos included captives from raids from along the northern coast of the Mediterranean; as well as pagan Africans captured by the Songhai, who’s elites and merchants were keen to trade many pagans from the jungles of West Africa for a single European slave. English colonies along the Atlantic Seaboard began purchasing Africans (and sometimes Europeans, although the latter was in much higher demand in Bayouk) from the Corsairs in large numbers.

***​

In New Spain, slavery commenced initially with the enslavement of the indigenous people. Further south in the Portuguese colonies at Brazil, the Portuguese Crown supported the slave trade, while initially Isabella and Ferdinand opposed it. The papal bull Sublimus Dei of 1537 banned slavery, but was quickly overturned. During the period of piety when slavery was looked down upon for religious reasons, Spanish colonists introduced other forms of forced labour such as the encomienda system, amongst others.

Eventually, however, in attempts to pacify and convert the Indians, more administrative and religious edicts would be issued to halt the coercion of indigenous labours. And so too would the Spaniards turn to Africa. Despite the hostilities between their respective nations, Spanish merchants often purchased African slaves from Corsair controlled ports in West Africa, as did their English counterparts. While the Portuguese engaged directly in the capture and trade of Africans, the Spanish did not.

***​

Whereas in the Moorish New World existing Islamic jurisprudence rendered the offspring of Muslim men with African concubines heirs in equal standing as their siblings from free Muslim mothers, the English in Virginia would develop the legal concept partus sequitur ventrem – “that which is brought forth follows the womb,” rendering the children of free white colonists with African mistresses equally slaves.

Between the ports of Africa, Iberia, and New Spain, a group of creoles of mixed African and Iberian descent would eventually form, some slaves and others free. Many sailed with Spanish and Portuguese ships and worked in their ports. They proved useful interpreters in ports, but often even the free faced discrimination on land. Such constructed discrimination, however, disappeared on the High Seas where many “Black Crusaders” would challenge Corsairs and their convert allies. One of these, Miguel Henríquez[4], became known as the “Black Demon” throughout the Caribbean for his brutality against British, Corsair and Dutch prisoners in the XVII century as a buccaneer in the service of the Crown of Spain.



___________
[1] Biloxi
[2] Providence Island (Isla de Providencia)
[3] Bermuda
[4] Dom Miguel Heníquez

 

[Jonathan Edelstein]

So slavery isn't such a racially-based thing in Bayouk as in the OTL Americas - plenty of European slaves along with the Africans. And if the children of concubines are counted among their fathers' heirs, then their mothers might become very powerful. There seem to be many slaves in Bayouk, but I'd also assume that with slavery as a less rigid institution, there are fewer obstacles to manumission than there were in the OTL American South. I'd like to see an anti-slavery movement develop, but in the 16th and 17th centuries, few people anywhere questioned that institution, so I can understand why there is none now.

I wonder if Maimouna will find Soufiane.

 

[fox~ringo]

Love the timeline so far. I especially like the syncretism of Pueblo and Muslim cultures. I'm a bit skeptical in the case of the Hopis but I'll go with it. Keep it up!

 

[Essam]

Les Maures des Forêts, Woodland Moors​

Farms near Kahoqiya, Pashalik of Kahoqiya
Emirate of Bayouk
Rajab/Shutanbir, 1089 A.H. (September, 1678 A.D.)

In colonial Kahoqiya, after the mawlid echerif, Birth of the Noble Prophet, the Eid Al’abiyati, or the ‘Abiyati – the festival of the harvest, the second most important feast of the year, was so named for the harvest festival of their Sephardic kinsmen in Andalusia. The early Morisco settlers in the region in the mid-XVI century took well to the harvest celebrations of the indigenous Inoka Clans[1], which greatly reminded them of their precious harvests in Granada prior to the Reconquista. The introduction of Moorish agricultural practices had seen an explosion in farming in the region.

For nearly half a century, Moorish settlers this far north lived and intermarried with the Inoka Clans and other Adite tribes in the region, often semi-nomadically, or in mound settlements where they existed. It would not be until the turn of the XVII century, when central authority in Mahdia expanded upwards, that a military governor, styled pasha (reflecting the administrative and military reorganization along Ottoman lines in Morocco) would be appointed to rule on behalf of the emir in Mahdia, eventually turning the region into the breadbasket of Bayouk.

While the local population consisted primarily of Adites from the Inoka clans and various Balaqman who ventured further north (although the latter almost exclusively lived in the cities and towns as opposed to farms), the pasha and civil authority from the XVII century, as elsewhere in Bayouk, remained in the hands of the descendants of the mudéjars, who prided themselves in their ancestors retaining of Islam in light of the Reconquest. For the agricultural inhabitants of the farms expanding past the casbah at Kahoqiya itself, the rule of the pashalik was little felt. Unlike the larger towns and casbahs further south, the inhabitants of the region of Kahoqiya often lived far apart from one another, with mudéjar or Balaqman forming an almost exclusivity in the few significant urban settlements.

One of these Kahawaq, as the inhabitants of the capital in Mahdia referred to the people of the north in general, was Omar Alguacil. Like many of the farming families of Kahoqiya, the Alguacil were Muladites, of mixed Morisco and Inoka descent. He grew for sustenance beans, maize and squash, the staples of the region, together on small mounds approximately 30 centimeters in height, and 50 centimeters in width. When the maize grew to be about 15 centimeters tall, he would plant the beans and squash around it. The Moriscos learned this technique from the Adites, who said the three benefitted from each other: The maize providing a structure for the beans to climb; the beans rendering the soil healthy for the other plants; and the squash spreading along the terrain, blocking sunlight and preventing weeds.

While the Moorish introduction of domesticated animals such as lambs, goats and cattle weakened the indigenous reliance on beans, the raising and slaughtering of animals was tasked to the Bedouin Adite tribes who lived further beyond the farms that surrounded the casbahs and towns of Kahoqiya. Meat was a daily food for the Bedouins, but not for the farmers, whose source of meat was often venison of deer found roaming on their farms. For the majority of the year, Omar, like the majority of the farmers, relied on beans and squash and venison for his couscous. In the casbahs and towns of Kahoqiya the meat of choice was ostrich, often farmed for their meat and fathers near the city, whose merchants income largely rested on their feathers as well as the pelts of beavers – which sold for a high price to French settlers further north and east.

Once a year, however, the three communities came together – for the ‘Abiyati. Bedouin tribesmen with their sacrificial lambs, goats, deer, beef and land-buffalos[2]; farmers with their beans, maize, rice, squash, and wheat; rural hunters carrying carcasses of deer, ducks, swans[3], Roman roosters[4], and wapiti[5]; farmers with ostriches; urban and rural river fishermen alike with their assorted smoked fish; and women gatherers bearing assorted fried fruits, nuts, roots and tubers and the local specialty of sugar produced from the syrup of the qeeqab[6] trees (who’s collection was itself the subject of another large feast on the first full moon of spring, known either as the Tafsut, for its coincidence with the spring “Gate of the Year” in the Berber calendar or the Eid Al-Halawa- the “Sweet Festival,” after the Adite appellation of the festival as “Sweet Moon” in their languages.)

This year, however, the ‘Abiyati was different. While the farmers and townspeople generally were able to purchase meats rare throughout the rest of the year (save for the other meat festival on the Eid Al Kabir commemorating the Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son Ishmael as the ultimate submission of a Muslim,) this year the pasha had commanded 2/3 of the meats for the harvest festival be preserved in order to be sent to the men involved in the jihad against the crusaders in New Mexico. Omar and the other farmers begrudgingly obliged.

To show their thanks to the locals of Kahoqiya, and offer their participation in the ‘Abiyati harvest festival, the legation of warriors and emissaries from Kadwa had prepared in their traditional large earthenware pots, their traditional stew which the Moors called bastela kadwaniya, Kadwani pastilla[7]: made from maize and acorn flour that had been ground into a meal, cooked in animal fat (often land-buffalos or deer), and stewed with beans, squash, maple syrup and smoked fish. Variations of the dish existed across the Balaqman tribes as well, however the ceremony and ritual of the Kadwani version was most notable.

In any case, Omar appreciated the gesture as he saw carts and wagons loaded with barrels of meats to be sent to the local women who would preserve the meats to be sent to the troops, and prepare the hides for the tanneries.



___________
[1] Illinois Confederation
[2] Bison, as the Arabic word for buffalo, jamoos, refers to water-buffalo
[3] Geese, as in Arabic no distinction is made
[4] Turkeys: another direct translation from Arabic for some exoticity as Ridwan says
[5] Elk, moose
[6] Maple (it grows in the Rif and parts of Kabylie and other green areas of North Africa as well)
[7] Sagamité, a dish indigenous to the region which I've taken the liberty of equating as a rustic pastilla of sorts because, I think AH needs more alternate foods

 

[fox~ringo]

[7] Sagamité, a dish indigenous to the region which I've taken the liberty of equating as a rustic pastilla of sorts because, I think AH needs more alternate foods

Yes it does! Awesome!

 

[Herzen's love-child]

Wonderful world-building. Now with added nutritive value.....

 

[Essam]

History of Bayouk

​

The Emirate of Bayouk (also known as the Courts of Bayouk or the First Emirate of Bayouk) was an emirate that existed briefly in 1524, and then continuously from 1527 until the courts came under the direct control of the Saadi sultans of Morocco and their appointed viceregal emirs in 1625 following the Collapse of Atlantis. The emirate traces its origins back to the early 16th century with the arrival of approximately 3,000 wealthy Mudéjar who anticipated the 1526 Edicts of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain) that strictly enforced laws against heresy, targeting the formerly protected Muslim subjects of the Spanish king. Under the patronage of the Moroccan sultan, and after failing to sail to Atlantis, the colonists settled further north.

The Courts
In 1527, the Mudéjar settled the first permanent Moorish colony in the New World outside of Atlantis on the delta of the Further Nile near an Adite settlement called Shoubiqiyya. Friendly reception with the local Adite tribes in the settlement's first decade saw its enlargement into what would become the port city of Mahdia. Progressively, a thriving community expanded around the delta. Contact with Atlantis was finally established, and slowly Moroccan and Corsair ships brought more settlers and supplies.

Learned scholars and sheikhs from Granada were recognized as the frontier settlement's religious and temporal leaders. While fealty to the Wattasid sultan in Morocco was acknowledged, it would not be until the Saadi dynasty had supplanted the Wattasids and firmly established itself in Marrakesh, that its sultans would begin to look across the Atlantic at its abandoned kinsmen.

For nearly a century of its existence, Bayouk would be ruled by various qadis[1] who elected annually from amongst themselves one emir, whose role was largely primus inter pares amongst the Islamic judges. The arrival of the Moriscos in following decades would eventually see these judiciaries develop into semi-hereditary posts between leading Mudéjar families, sealing that group’s role as Bayouk’s ruling elites.

The Arrival of the Moriscos
The failure of the Morisco Rebellion of 1572 in Spain saw the arrival in Bayouk over nearly 80,000 Moriscos between 1572 and 1577. Cultural differences between the Mudéjar, who viewed themselves as truer Muslims for the persecution they faced holding steadfast to their beliefs; and the Morisco refugees, led the newcomers to often settle further upriver, eventually reaching as far north as Kahoqiya. Despite differences, however, both Mudéjar and Morisco settlers saw the colony as a "New Granada." The Nassrid mantra, Wa la ghaliba illa lilah, "There is no conqueror but God" appeared on its banners, coinage and court-rulings.

The influx of Moriscos and the slow arrival of Atlanteans after the 1576 Treaty of Santo Domingo saw the raise in importance of Bayouk over Atlantis as the center of Moorish power in the New World. The Anglo-Moroccan alliance begun under Abdelmalek of Morocco and Elizabeth of England saw the emirate's establishment as a center for the supply of timber to Morocco and England in exchange for arms, gunsmiths and shipwrights.

Second Emirate of Bayouk
In 1625, in order to secure Moorish settlements after the Collapse of Atlantis, the Saadi sultan of Morocco Zidan Al Nasir bin Ahmed Al Mansur dispatched a fleet under the command of his father’s most trusted general, the Castilian eunuch Judar Pasha[2], to land in the port of Mahdia and assert royal authority. While Moroccan officials and their Ottoman janissaries faced initial opposition from the qadis and their Courts, they were eventually co-opted, as the Pasha promised to retain the qadis as local governors of their respective zones, and promised to select his viziers solely from this judicial class.

For the following century Moroccan viceroys would rule Bayouk as emirs in what is known as the Second Emirate of Bayouk with the aide of the Mudéjar judicial class. From Mahdia, the emirate's control extended along the coast and north further up the river. From the emir's palace in Mahdia, military pashas were appointed to frontier regions such as New Mexico, or Jizan after 1680, as well as in areas under the control of subjugated Muslim Adite tribes; emissaries to the Muslim Kadwani in the west also reported directly to the emir. Meanwhile the qadis maintained their traditional rule over the cities and provinces along the river.

This arrangement not only isolated the Morisco majority, but also would not settle well with the highly-hierarchical and wealthy Atlantean refugees. Throughout the 17th century and into the 18th, tensions between the ruling Mudéjar judicial class and the wealthy Atlantean merchant class – often understood as the continuation of the Arabo-Berber conflict of Andalusia in the New World – would continue to grow.

_________
[1] Qadis: Islamic judges who, in the past, often held executive and legislative powers over their small communities as well
[2] Judar Pasha

 

[The Celt]

What effect does the arrival of the Horse have on the tribes on the edge of Bayouk?

Is the camel brought to the New World to combat the arid conditions of the Jewish Marches?

 

[Al-numbers]

I can't say much now since I'm currently travelling, but I have to say that this is simply an amazing timeline.

Consider me subscribed.

P.S: where did you get that picture of the slave trader and the Caucasian boy?

 

[Essam]

So slavery isn't such a racially-based thing in Bayouk as in the OTL Americas - plenty of European slaves along with the Africans. And if the children of concubines are counted among their fathers' heirs, then their mothers might become very powerful. There seem to be many slaves in Bayouk, but I'd also assume that with slavery as a less rigid institution, there are fewer obstacles to manumission than there were in the OTL American South.

At least in Bayouk it is not, akin to how the institution of slavery manifested in Islamic societies across the Mediterranean and into the East. Concerning the raise of concubines, this is the era of the Valide Sultan and the Sultanate of the Women in the Ottoman world. Ottomanization of Morocco will surely have some effect on Bayouk as well.

This may also lead to a Europeanization of sorts of the elites: just as the Ottoman royal family was by far more ethnically Balkan and Slavic in origin through their mothers, one can expect a similar situation to arise amongst the Mudéjar and Atlanteans who will be more and more mothered by European slaves, while the majority of the population mixes with the indigenous.

This is a unique trait of Arabo-Islamic civilizations: outside minorities often come to rule as a non-biased "outside of the system" ruler and intermarry and rule with a foreign slave source. Keep an eye on the Atlanteans in Bayouk

I will try to continuously address the situation of slavery in the English, Moorish and Spanish New Worlds as they all take different approaches akin to their OTL societies.

I wonder if Maimouna will find Soufiane.

RE: Soufiane and Maimouna

Love the timeline so far. I especially like the syncretism of Pueblo and Muslim cultures. I'm a bit skeptical in the case of the Hopis but I'll go with it. Keep it up!

While a significant number of Pueblo are genuinely "Evite" Muslims, they are by no means a majority amongst the Pueblo and Hopi. Their preference however for the lax, indirect rule of the Moors helped. As did the "conversion" to becoming crypto-Muslim help secure them from slave raids.

All in all these groups are largely Hopi/Pueblo mythicists with some Islamic syncretization. The oddity of the minority "real" Muslims being "Evites" will result in the whole population being regarded as adherents to this particular school. For the next few centuries, while Al-Barquq will likely grow into a significant city of importance, no one will really mind as their are an outpost of the Moorish New World. It will make for a more interesting future as well.

Yes it does! Awesome!

Wonderful world-building. Now with added nutritive value.....

Thank you! To come: Coffee, cacao, tea, and tobacco...

What effect does the arrival of the Horse have on the tribes on the edge of Bayouk?

I assume the domestication of the horse by Muslim and non-Muslim tribes of the Far West and the Plains would occur as it did in our time, although their earlier introduction along with the lone, wondering Sufi Marabouts will likely lead to more indigenous polities, Muslim and non-Muslim. While this isn't a bulwark against European and Moorish expansion, it will make for much more interesting cultures and diffusions.

Is the camel brought to the New World to combat the arid conditions of the Jewish Marches?

I have thought about it, and while at least not for now (as the Moorish New World is just that Moorish, Granadan, Andalusian, etc.-influenced) we might see their introduction later. I was hoping to stay clear of the clichés of this sort of timeline, but there is something so fitting about ostriches on the Great Plains, and yes, camels in the Southwest

I can't say much now since I'm currently travelling, but I have to say that this is simply an amazing timeline.

Consider me subscribed.

P.S: where did you get that picture of the slave trader and the Caucasian boy?

Thank you for reading even while traveling! Feel free to leave more thoughts once you've safely arrived of at your destination and gotten thoroughly bored enough to wander back to AH.com

An exhaustive search of images pertaining to Barbary piracy and the "White Slave Trade." Granted a lot of these sources were Far Right American and European pseudo-academics, they had some decent enough images fitting with the Orientalist theme of TTL's illustrations

 

[Essam]

Chronology

An exhaustive and perhaps overly-detailed chronology of the TL far. Many of these events are as happened as per OTL, others are slightly modified or exaggerated due to the circumstances, and others are purely divergent. The most serious divergences thus far are:

• The death of Aicha the Chaste, the Mother of Boabdil
  
• The Fall of Granada (by this time the city itself only) in 1499
  
• Earlier raise of the Saadi dynasty (and earlier ascension of Abdelmalek)
  
• Portuguese-Ethiopian defeat by the Ottomans, Somalis and Acehnese in the Horn of Africa
  
• Moorish discovery of the Aztecs before Spain and the Emirate of Atlantis
  
• The settlement of Bayouk
  
• No Battle of Ksar Elkbeir
  
• No Battle of Lepanto
  
• No Louisiane française
  
• Strengthened Protestant-Muslim ties
  
• No invasion of Songhai
  

Et voilà, the first draft at a timeline of what's been written so far and some other events happening outside:

Blue = Significant events divergent from OTL (mostly happening outside of the New World, as I imagine the Moorish New World events are fairly obviously divergent)

**Some events happen a few years earlier than IOTL, mostly relating to the Saadi dynasty's rise to power, but I have not distinguished them

1486: Aicha bint Mohammed bin Yusuf Al Nasri, “Aixa the Chaste” the mother of Boabdil, dies of smallpox.

1487: Spanish forces retreat from Málagra after several months of an unsuccessful siege. Granadan forces under Hamad El Zagrí swear loyalty the emir’s uncle, Mohammed XIII Al Zagal. Boabdil is held prisoner at Lucena.

1496: Santo Domingo founded by Bartholomew Columbus, the capital of the Spanish New World for over a century

1499: Collapse of Granada; Pragmaticas initially issued for Muslims, Jews forced to convert or flee. Boabdil and the Nassrid dynasty go into exile in the dominions of his Marinid relatives.

1500: Nueva Cádiz is founded by the Spaniards on the island of Cubagua, Venezuela. It is the first settlement on the Spanish Maine

1506: Spain conquers Mostaganem in Algeria from Morocco

1509: The Saadi dynasty establishes its own emirate at Tagmadert in southern Morocco; while still recognizing the Wattasids as Sultans; through a series of tribal alliances they would replace first the Marinids as the primus inter pares of noble dynasties;

in Asia, the Portuguese defeat the combined forces of the Ottomans, Mamelukes and Venetians near the Indian port of Diu in the Arabian Sea, opening Indian ports to Portuguese trade

1510: Spanish conquistadores from Santo Domingo conquer Cuba; in Europe, Spain conquers Tripoli-in-Africa and therein establishes a fort

1511: The Portuguese seize Malacca

1513: The Portuguese seize Hormuz in the Persian Gulf

1516: From his base in Algiers, Barbarossa seizes Mostaganem from the Spainards. Mostaganem would quickly become a rival port to Spanish Oran

1517: After previous Wattasid failures to do so, the Saadi dynasty successfully ousts the Portuguese from Agadir, securing the allegiance of the Hintata tribes who controlled Marrakesh. The Nassrid dynasts and supporters in Fes flee to first to Portuguese Anfa, and from there further north to Chellah, still nominally under the Marinid governor of the Wattasid sultan.

The Ottomans conquer Mameluke Egypt

1518: Pro-Wattasid Nasrids and emissaries from the Wattasid sultan prepare to sail to the New World to seek support for countering the Saadi dynasts on the rise. A Berber expedition of nearly 600 sets out eventually landing on the eastern portion of Hispaniola, and eventually onto the Maine, near what would become Al-Qulhawa. There, they are well received by a delegation of 20 dignitaries further inland at Cempoala and make their way eventually to Tenoqtitlan.

1519: The Treaty of Tadla is signed between the Wattasids and Saadi dynasty. It confirms the Wattasid as overall sultan based in Fes, while recognizing the autonomy of the Saadi emirate now controlling the entire south based at Marrakesh.

This newfound stability allows for the Saadis in the south to increasingly force out the Portuguese from along the coast. Barbarossa places himself and his dominions between Algiers and Morocco under the Ottomans

1519: Cortes’s Expedition lands near an earlier Berber landing site at what would become Al-Qulhawa. Scuffles with Berbers and indigenous allies in Cempoala is considered the first battle of the Reconquista in the New World

1520: Emirate of Atlantis established following Spanish defeat by Moqtezouma II, who subsequently converts to Islam and Berber allies. Cortes is later arrested by a legion under the command of Pánfilo de Narváez, and brought to trial in Cuba for insubordination, mutiny, and treason. He is eventually pardoned in exchange for his returns to pacify the Yucatan

1521: Ferdinand Magellan claims to Philippines for Spain

1522: The Wattasids conquer Peñon de Valez from Spain

1523: The first Atlantean return expedition to Morocco arrives in Agadir

1524: Spain begins conquest of the Yucatan

1527: Emirate of Bayouk established by Mudéjar refugees failing to sail to Atlantis; Spanish settlements are established in Rio de la Plata

1530: Mahdia established by Mudéjar refugees in Bayouk;

In the Old World, Spain bequeaths Tripoli-in-Africa to the Knights of Malta;

Ottoman-Acehnese relations commence

1532: Spanish forces under Francisco Pizarro conquer the Inca Empire

1534: Jacques Cartier explores the Saint Lawrence river valley, claiming “New France.” While trappers and traders established seasonal forts, there was no successful attempt at settlement at this time

1538: Ottoman forces fail to eject the Portuguese by siege from Diu in India

1541: A Spanish expedition is defeated in Algiers by Barbarossa

1543: Forces of the Ottoman Empire, Aceh and the Adal Sultante in the Horn of Africa under the command of Imam Ahmad bin Ibrahim Al-Ghazi defeat the Portuguese-Ethiopian forces. The Muslim victory ejects Portugal from the Red Sea and from ambitions in Ethiopia

1547: An Ottoman fleet of 62 ships under the command of Hussein Pasha of ejects the Portuguese from Diu

1549: Moulai Mohammed Al Sheikh, the founder of the Saadi dynasty successfully conquers Fes and Tlemcen from the Wattasid sultan Ali Abu Hassan, who flees to Ottoman Algiers where he is offered asylum.

1554: The Wattasid sultan Ali Abu Hassan retakes Fes with the support of Ottoman janissaries under the command of Salah Reis. Peñon de Valez is given to the Ottomans as a repayment.

In September, Ali Abu Hassan is killed at the Battle of Tadla, ending the Wattasid dynasty. On September 13th, Mohammed Al Sheikh Al Saadi is proclaimed Sultan of all Morocco, and promptly begins attempts to ally with Spain against Ottoman expansion in the east. Moulai Mohammed Al-Sheikh refuses the Algiers Regency’s demands to recognize Suleiman the Magnificent as caliph.

1557: Mohammed Al-Sheikh is assassinated by the Ottomans by the orders of Hassan Pasha, the son of Barbarosa; his son, Abdallah Al-Ghalib succeeds him. Their brothers ascension prompts the princes Abdelmoumen, Abdelmalek and Ahmed Al Mansur to flee to Ottoman Algiers for protection

1558: The Spanish and their Moroccan ally Abdallah Al-Ghalib fail to capture Mostaganem from Ottoman Algiers. This defeat marks the end in Spanish interests to seriously stop the Ottomans by allying with the Moroccans. Further east, a Franco-Ottoman fleet expels the Habsburg-backed Knights of Malta from Tripoli-in-Africa

1560: The Ottomans defeat Spanish attempts to retake Tripoli-in-Africa at the Battle of Djerba

1562: Ottoman Algiers’s Songhai Expedition results in Songhai recognition of the Ottoman sultan as caliph as well as Songhai support for the Exiled Princes to regain the Moroccan throne

1564: Sultan Hussain Ali of Aceh recognizes the Suleiman the Magnificent as caliph

1565: Fort Caroline destroyed by the Spaniards, Ft. Ghibou established under Moorish protection near Morisco and Adite settlements in Kahoqiya;

in the Old World, Ottoman forces under Sinan Pasha the Zaidi dynasty definitively. Supporting the landed Sunni nobles further south, Sinan Pasha shipped off many members of the clans of the Zaydiyyah including Al Hassan bin Ali bin Dawood, and their generals to Constantinople. Leaders of the resistance from outside of the sacred clan were executed, with their severed heads later thrown into the waters of the Bosphorus, marking the end of the Zaidi Imamate

1566: Shahzade Mehmet, the son of Suleiman the Magnificent by Roxelanna, succeeds his father as Mehmet III, Ottoman Caliph, Padishah and Sultan

1568: A joint Acehnese-Ottoman force successfully captures Malacca from the Portuguese

1569-1573: Morisco Rebellion results in nearly 90,000 Morsicos being expelled to Morocco, majority of whom will continue to Bayouk along with several thousand Huguenots who had arrived via Navarre

1570: Abdallah Al-Ghalib is overthrown by his brothers Abdelmalek and Ahmad Al-Mansur and killed along with his son Abdallah Mohammed; subsequent defeat of Portuguese by Moroccan-Ottoman forces (in a smaller-scale version of TTL’s Ksar Elkbeir.) Abdelmalek installed as sultan, recognizing the Ottoman Padishah as caliph

1574: Ottoman and Moroccan forces capture Tunis from Spain; Anglo-Moroccan relations commence

1577: The French send a consul to Fes, commencing Franco-Moroccan relations; the English Barbary Company is established strengthening the Anglo-Moroccan alliance

1579: Nuevo Leon founded and settled by crypto-Jews and conversos from across Iberia and New Spain

1583: Newfoundland is founded by the English

1585: Treaty of Santo Domingo renders Atlantis a vassal of New Spain

1596: Atlantean merchants first contact with Songhai

1598: New Mexico founded eventually devolving into missionary-theocracies across various Pueblo settlements

1604: The French establish a colony at Acadia

1607: Santa Fé, later Al-Barquq, founded as the capital of New Mexico; on the Atlantic Seaboard Jamestown, Virginia is founded by the English

1608: Quebec is founded by France

1609: The French ally with the Algonquin and Huron tribes

1612: Shipwrecked members of a Virginia Company ship found the English colony at Somers Isle

1613: Bayouk signs a Treaty of Friendship with Prince Maurice of Orange, negotiated by the Morisco ambassador Ahmad bin Qasim Al-Hajari; Dutch Protestants gain access to Baywani ports in their attempts to colonize the Caribbean

1620: Plymouth colony is founded by England

1624: Collapse of Atlantis, Expulsion of the Atlanteans

1625: A Moroccan fleet with Ottoman janissaries under the command of Judar Pasha arrives in Mahdia to assert royal control over the settlement; end of the Courts of Bayouk

1626: Mexican Inquisition summons Carvajal family from Nuevo Leon for supporting and tolerating Jewish rights in Nuevo Leon, prompting their flight to Bayouk. Many residents revert to crypto-Judaism, while others migrate to territories of the Kadwani Confederacy;

In the Old World, the Farès-Razilly Treaty is signed by Isaac de Razilly of France and Sidi Farès of Morocco, demarking the borders of New France and Bayouk

1628: Cardinal Richelieu forbids Huguenots from settling in New France, prompting many to migrate to English colonies, or to inland colonies of Huguenots in Bayouk

1629: Massachusetts-Bay colony is founded by England

1631: Caribbean Corsairs and Muslim Aztec refugees establish pirate haven on Ihtiyat Island off of the Spanish Maine; a vital port for slavery from New Spain and networks of Muslim and syncretised Islamic tribes throughout the jungles of the Yucatan and Central America

1654: The Polish-Lithuanian vassal of Courland founds a colony on the island of Tobago

1655: The English capture Jamaica from Spain

1661: Charles II of England’s marriage to Catherine of Braganza sees Bombay and Tangiers included as part of her dowry

1663: The English colony of Carolina is established

1664: New Mexico inspector Nicolas de Aguilar burned in Tenochtitlan for suppressing missionary oppression of natives in New Mexico;

New Netherlands is surrendered to the English

1668: Rupert’s Land is claimed by England

1670: The Hudson Bay Company is founded

1680: Pueblo Revolt sees first Moorish victory over Spain in centuries; New Mexico annexed as Jizan; mass migration of conversos and crypto-Jews from Nuevo Leon to what becomes known as the “Jewish Marches”

1683: The Anglo-Moroccan Treaty of 1683 returns Tangiers to Morocco and demarcates the border between Bayouk, and the English colonies of Carolina and Virginia seeing the first transfer of sovereignty of Muslim Adites to Christian powers

 

[Herzen's love-child]

I was just going to suggest that you give us a chronology. Great!

 

[ramones1986]

What was the language spoken in the Emirate of Atlantis?

 

[altwere]

A berberized Nahua or a Berber Nahua creole.

 

[Essam]

Great minds think alike, Herzen!

What was the language spoken in the Emirate of Atlantis?

A berberized Nahua or a Berber Nahua creole.

Yes, Berber (I refer you to the entry on the Emirate of Atlantis from post #9) and Nahuatl were the spoken languages amongst the majority of Atlantis, while elites studied and knew (and likely spoke at times to stress status, see this narrative from when Soufiane met Maimouna from post #25 for example.)

It depended on the family in question. Were they Aztecs or Berbers? Although as mixing came along, families with Berber fathers and Aztec mothers probably came out speaking Berber in public (because of its association with Islam in Atlantis,) and retained such a creole or Berberized Nahuatl as altwere suggested at home and amongst others who understood.

For how Bayouk and Moorish "North America" will develop its important to remember just how Berber Atlantis was, compared to Bayouk where Arabic is the mother-tongue and lingua franca for those whose mother-tongue isn't Arabic.

 

[Kosta]

Great minds think alike, Herzen!





Yes, Berber (I refer you to the entry on the Emirate of Atlantis from post #9) and Nahuatl were the spoken languages amongst the majority of Atlantis, while elites studied and knew (and likely spoke at times to stress status, see this narrative from when Soufiane met Maimouna from post #25 for example.)

It depended on the family in question. Were they Aztecs or Berbers? Although as mixing came along, families with Berber fathers and Aztec mothers probably came out speaking Berber in public (because of its association with Islam in Atlantis,) and retained such a creole or Berberized Nahuatl as altwere suggested at home and amongst others who understood.

For how Bayouk and Moorish "North America" will develop its important to remember just how Berber Atlantis was, compared to Bayouk where Arabic is the mother-tongue and lingua franca for those whose mother-tongue isn't Arabic.

I'd like to know if there's any way that Mozarabic will survive in the colonies, or will the Mudejar and all other Iberians switch to Arabic? It might come in handy at least with communicating with the Jews in the Marches, but then again, if I recall correctly from world history class, plenty of the Sephardim spoke Arabic.

Speaking of the Marches, do you think that it might eventually see immigration by non-Iberian Jews as a safe-haven, or is that too far in the future to worry about?

 

[idumea]

Has the Great Mound of Tenoqtitlan survived for good, maybe converted to a masjid? Or does the Fall of Atlantis and the Mexico Inquisition deal it its OTL fate just deferred?

 

[Al-numbers]

OK. Now that I've settled in my destination, I can finally elaborate on just how awesome is this timeline of yours! A Muslim New World, new Jewish settlements, Aztecs and Moriscos and synchro-feminine Islam?

I never thought someone would be creative enough to actually attempt this! Hats of to you for creating a story worth reading about.

Okay! Now for some questions!


1) I don't think the Ottomans and the Acehnese would be prepared for the consequences of retaking Malacca. The Malaccan royal family split in multiple directions when the city fell and there are a lot of questions to be answered now. How would the trade-powerful Johor branch take the news? In OTL, they were already warring with Aceh over trade interests right up until British and Dutch colonisation (Ahh, the Triangular War...).

Also, how would the resource-rich Perak branch take this news? They were also directly descended from the Malaccan royal family and they have all the tin and resources to trade with the outside world to get something out of it. Furthermore, how are the fierce Orang Laut pirates taking this news? They are technically pirates to the outside powers, but they were also the original bodyguards of the Straits, loyal to the Malacca and Johor branches until they degenerated once the other Malay States asserted their power in the 18th century. I expect there to be a lot of battles over supremacy of the Malacca Straits now that the one unifying factor among all the powers are gone. God knows what's going on in Siam too, they have an eye towards Pattani and the Northern Malay Peninsula for centuries.


2) Besides that, How did the early Muslim explorers view the human sacrifice of the Aztecs? I wouldn't be surprised if they tried to stop the practice out of sheer horror, though that might sour relations with their hosts dramatically.