NapoleonXIV
Banned
What if this Judaeo-Christian sect had survived longer than the 7thc, not dying out but continuing to grow and expand, taking in other groups than the Arabs and surviving as a major religion right into the present day?
Double blind: Islam survives
- Thread starter NapoleonXIV
- Start date
Well it depends on what relationship it has with nearby christianity. If they are friendly it could mean a surviving byzantine empire because of islamic attacks on persia, while if they're unfriendly europe will be in trouble, surounded by enemies like the norse, the hungarians, these new 'muslims', and eventually, the mongols. It could be that Christianity could be reduced to a regional faith in parts of europe, instead of dominant global religion that it is today.
This could have had some truly facinating social implications. Look at some of their lesser-studied tenets (ever since the publication of the Sana'a papyri we keep learning more and more about their writings).
The point of Islam (I believe it is translated as 'submission' or 'acceptance', but I'm no expert in dead langauges. Not many people read Arabic any more) is that the will of God is revealed as the supreme law. That places it much closer to Judaism than Christianity. I realise some people have referred to Islam as a 'Pseudo-Christian' movement ever since Muhammad was labelled hairesiarch in Antioch, but he is much better as a Neo-Judaistic patriarchal prophet in the mould of Moses. A lawgiver, arbiter and conduit of the divine word, not a spiritual leader of the flock and minister to souls. Now, the really interesting thing is that Islam had no organised rules of successorship to this position. Thus we have an extensive body of law (we have no idea how extensive the 'hadith' really were, but the few pieces we have found indicates that there mucst have been thousands if not tens of thousands of lines, many in high-quality metric prose), but no office allowed to alter or amend it. It is all down to interpretation, and unlike the Christian imperial church, it appears Islam never had any limits on who was permitted to interpret these texts. Just care to imagine what kind of social implications that would have. Widespread literacy, as everyone would be given access to the Law. Dikaiocracy and its democratic structures could have developed early in such a society that needed to establish its religious and political leaders by consensus. The very concept of 'heresy' would be alien to it. I think we have lost much with the withering of Islam. Not that its influence on the mainstream would have been all that great intially - the language barrier between the Arabs and the civilised Aramaic and Greek worlds would have been a great obstacle - but given their embrace of warrior virtues I think the Islamians (is that what you call them? I would hesitate to call them Muhammadans, like we would a Christian heresy) had a political future. The Hejaz is a rich province even today, and they might well have gotten as far as the Sinai and Oman. And offbeat groups can have disproportionate influence. Just look at the Martinians in Aquitaine or the whole breakaway Latin church. They, too, seem to have been closer to Dikaiocracy than we at the time, by the way. The history of the Roman Empire just is a long series of missed opportunities at that time.
Do you think that Islam could have made headway into the East? The Orientals never liked Christianity, its individualistic, non-traditional teachings seem to go against their character. That's why they're pretty much all Shan Buddhists now. But don't you think a more legalistic, organised, less guilt-obsessed faith might have stood a chance? I realise the idea of Central Asian Islamians is odd, but remember, these peoples used to have a warrior tradition every bit as strong as the Arabian one.
The point of Islam (I believe it is translated as 'submission' or 'acceptance', but I'm no expert in dead langauges. Not many people read Arabic any more) is that the will of God is revealed as the supreme law. That places it much closer to Judaism than Christianity. I realise some people have referred to Islam as a 'Pseudo-Christian' movement ever since Muhammad was labelled hairesiarch in Antioch, but he is much better as a Neo-Judaistic patriarchal prophet in the mould of Moses. A lawgiver, arbiter and conduit of the divine word, not a spiritual leader of the flock and minister to souls. Now, the really interesting thing is that Islam had no organised rules of successorship to this position. Thus we have an extensive body of law (we have no idea how extensive the 'hadith' really were, but the few pieces we have found indicates that there mucst have been thousands if not tens of thousands of lines, many in high-quality metric prose), but no office allowed to alter or amend it. It is all down to interpretation, and unlike the Christian imperial church, it appears Islam never had any limits on who was permitted to interpret these texts. Just care to imagine what kind of social implications that would have. Widespread literacy, as everyone would be given access to the Law. Dikaiocracy and its democratic structures could have developed early in such a society that needed to establish its religious and political leaders by consensus. The very concept of 'heresy' would be alien to it. I think we have lost much with the withering of Islam. Not that its influence on the mainstream would have been all that great intially - the language barrier between the Arabs and the civilised Aramaic and Greek worlds would have been a great obstacle - but given their embrace of warrior virtues I think the Islamians (is that what you call them? I would hesitate to call them Muhammadans, like we would a Christian heresy) had a political future. The Hejaz is a rich province even today, and they might well have gotten as far as the Sinai and Oman. And offbeat groups can have disproportionate influence. Just look at the Martinians in Aquitaine or the whole breakaway Latin church. They, too, seem to have been closer to Dikaiocracy than we at the time, by the way. The history of the Roman Empire just is a long series of missed opportunities at that time.
Do you think that Islam could have made headway into the East? The Orientals never liked Christianity, its individualistic, non-traditional teachings seem to go against their character. That's why they're pretty much all Shan Buddhists now. But don't you think a more legalistic, organised, less guilt-obsessed faith might have stood a chance? I realise the idea of Central Asian Islamians is odd, but remember, these peoples used to have a warrior tradition every bit as strong as the Arabian one.
I don't know what the effect would be on the peoples of the Catholic Church- probably minimal. In particular, I can't imagine Islam impacting the Second Schism that created the Catholics*. The peoples of the Athanasian Orthodox Churches would no doubt have clashed with Islamic peoples, possibly in the very countries and cities where the Incarnate Prince of Peace Himself lived. It seems improbable that Muslims would shed more Christian blood in Jerusalem than Christians themselves did. 
But consider the case of the First Schism, and the resulting Arian Orthodox Churches. They were always less hiearchial than the Catholics and Athanasian Orthodox, driven mostly by charismatic Bishops. More importantly, though, they never did (and probably never will) accept Nicene Trinitarianism because it seemed to them that it impinged on the absolute monotheism that distinguised their faith from the Pagans and Animists in their midst. Well, it's hard to get much more absolutely monotheistic than Islam. OK, so for the purposes of this thread it's a given that the Arabic and Turkic peoples aren't Christian. But what about the Zulus? If Islam had gotten a toehold in the Egyptian-Tripolitan Empire, would Africa itself be an Arian Orthodox Christian continent? Would the Arian Orthodox Church have survived at all? It seems silly to hand-wave away the faith of nearly a billion people, but I'm telling you, a straight-up, unnuanced monotheistic faith seen as superceding Christianity altogether (as Christianity is said to have superceded Judaism) would have been awfully tempting...
* Disclaimer: I wrote this from the Athanasian Orthodox perspective, of course. I'm actually Pagan myself, but it's extremely annoying to read stuff like "The Second Schism, which Athanasian Orthodox claim created the Catholic Church but the Catholic Church claims created the Athanasian Orthodox, yada-yada-yada, please don't hate me if I give the slightest offense; I've tried to be absolutely objective at the expense of writing something even remotely readable." So I chose the perspective of the largest of the three** Christian Communions. Everybody knows the history of the Schisms- quarrel about it amongst yourselves if you like; I'll be napping in the corner.
** Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: In the unlikely event a Protestant is reading this, you don't believe in a visible Church so you don't count as a "Communion" for the purposes of this thread. ***
*** Disclaimer to the Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: I ain't even gonna think about the Mormons.
But consider the case of the First Schism, and the resulting Arian Orthodox Churches. They were always less hiearchial than the Catholics and Athanasian Orthodox, driven mostly by charismatic Bishops. More importantly, though, they never did (and probably never will) accept Nicene Trinitarianism because it seemed to them that it impinged on the absolute monotheism that distinguised their faith from the Pagans and Animists in their midst. Well, it's hard to get much more absolutely monotheistic than Islam. OK, so for the purposes of this thread it's a given that the Arabic and Turkic peoples aren't Christian. But what about the Zulus? If Islam had gotten a toehold in the Egyptian-Tripolitan Empire, would Africa itself be an Arian Orthodox Christian continent? Would the Arian Orthodox Church have survived at all? It seems silly to hand-wave away the faith of nearly a billion people, but I'm telling you, a straight-up, unnuanced monotheistic faith seen as superceding Christianity altogether (as Christianity is said to have superceded Judaism) would have been awfully tempting...* Disclaimer: I wrote this from the Athanasian Orthodox perspective, of course. I'm actually Pagan myself, but it's extremely annoying to read stuff like "The Second Schism, which Athanasian Orthodox claim created the Catholic Church but the Catholic Church claims created the Athanasian Orthodox, yada-yada-yada, please don't hate me if I give the slightest offense; I've tried to be absolutely objective at the expense of writing something even remotely readable." So I chose the perspective of the largest of the three** Christian Communions. Everybody knows the history of the Schisms- quarrel about it amongst yourselves if you like; I'll be napping in the corner.
** Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: In the unlikely event a Protestant is reading this, you don't believe in a visible Church so you don't count as a "Communion" for the purposes of this thread.
****** Disclaimer to the Disclaimer to the Disclaimer: I ain't even gonna think about the Mormons.
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While Islam might have been able to take advantage of future strife between Persia and Byzantium (or if it lasted long enough during the Great Byzantine Civil War [only labled 'Great' because of how it drew in so many other powers, namely that of Hungary] between the Armenian and Epirite factions in the mid 1400's).
I doubt though that it would have spread much into North Africa, probably as far as the Sinai, because of the strength of the Byzantine successor state(s) in Egypt under the Heraclian dynasty (even before it was split between John-Carthage/Libya and Heraclius II-Egypt/Levantine Coast).
Central Asia is a toss-up between possibly going going with Islam (the aforementioned link between Arabs and local central Asian tribes being rather militant) or that strange militant Buddhist sect out of Western Tibet that they adopted in the late thirteenth century and ended up bringing to Anatolia in the late sixteenth century. Although Persia would have had to somehow disappear for their missionaries/armies to get there.
Had the Arabs been a bit more active trading (their attempts at control of the Red Sea being crushed by Axum and Egypt due to the turning to piracy instead of trade) was I think their downfall in their attempts to spread the faith. Had they been able to form lasting trade contacts Islam might have gone on to dominate sub-saharan Africa and converted many of the native black kingdoms their (which could have done much for literacy and strengthing those nations against later colonialism).
As for southern Asia, had they had a massive trade in the Indian Ocean we might have seen a slight muslim population in India (the southern cities would have seen the most) with maybe Ceylon or some of the Golden Islands converting (not many with Hinduism and Buddhism being so strong there) had their rulers been convinced to do so.
I doubt though that it would have spread much into North Africa, probably as far as the Sinai, because of the strength of the Byzantine successor state(s) in Egypt under the Heraclian dynasty (even before it was split between John-Carthage/Libya and Heraclius II-Egypt/Levantine Coast).
Central Asia is a toss-up between possibly going going with Islam (the aforementioned link between Arabs and local central Asian tribes being rather militant) or that strange militant Buddhist sect out of Western Tibet that they adopted in the late thirteenth century and ended up bringing to Anatolia in the late sixteenth century. Although Persia would have had to somehow disappear for their missionaries/armies to get there.
Had the Arabs been a bit more active trading (their attempts at control of the Red Sea being crushed by Axum and Egypt due to the turning to piracy instead of trade) was I think their downfall in their attempts to spread the faith. Had they been able to form lasting trade contacts Islam might have gone on to dominate sub-saharan Africa and converted many of the native black kingdoms their (which could have done much for literacy and strengthing those nations against later colonialism).
As for southern Asia, had they had a massive trade in the Indian Ocean we might have seen a slight muslim population in India (the southern cities would have seen the most) with maybe Ceylon or some of the Golden Islands converting (not many with Hinduism and Buddhism being so strong there) had their rulers been convinced to do so.