No, I'm not talking about Heraclius.
I'm talking about the period leading up to the Umayyad siege of Constantinople in 717. During this time the Byzantines were wracked with internal problems and their morale was reeling. In OTL Leo III forced the abdication of a weaker emperor and managed to keep the empire alive, but it reads like it was touch and go there for a while and the survival of the Byzantines is more of a historical fluke than anything else.
So supposing that a Byzantine Emperor sees he is stuck between a rock and a hard place in the form of the Arabs and Bulgars, and decides to convert to Islam, what happens next?
At this point converting basically means submitting to the authority of the caliph in Damascus so at best he will be a puppet king, but supposing he allows Arab troops to bolster his own, what are the chances he manages to keep his throne? How far into Europe does Islam spread? Does this affect the development of classical Islamic culture to be less Persianate and more Mediterranean?
I'm talking about the period leading up to the Umayyad siege of Constantinople in 717. During this time the Byzantines were wracked with internal problems and their morale was reeling. In OTL Leo III forced the abdication of a weaker emperor and managed to keep the empire alive, but it reads like it was touch and go there for a while and the survival of the Byzantines is more of a historical fluke than anything else.
So supposing that a Byzantine Emperor sees he is stuck between a rock and a hard place in the form of the Arabs and Bulgars, and decides to convert to Islam, what happens next?
At this point converting basically means submitting to the authority of the caliph in Damascus so at best he will be a puppet king, but supposing he allows Arab troops to bolster his own, what are the chances he manages to keep his throne? How far into Europe does Islam spread? Does this affect the development of classical Islamic culture to be less Persianate and more Mediterranean?