Fall of Constantinople 718
- Thread starter el t
- Start date
I think the Aegean and part of what we call Bulgaria, north macedonia and Albania would become Muslim 8 centuries earlier than OTL, even better with the sea lanes secures, Italian peninsula is a stone throw away
It means Greek culture enters the Muslim sphere directly, instead of by indirect osmosis (eg, translating Greek works), which has major effects on the still-developing Islamic world’s culture. The strains of Islam influenced by Platonic thought IOTL are likely to become much more so ITTL, for instance. Also, like the Persians there’s a good chance an Islamic Greek-speaking nation eventually breaks free from the Caliphate in its own right and becomes another nexus of the Muslim world.
I wonder how the muslim dietary rules would be implemented in this polity. Would they be even laxer than in Persia? And would the Quran be translated into Greek and if yes, would the Arabic or the Greek version be authoritative?
The Muslims conquer Anatolia and areas are depopulated as nomadic tribes move in Greece might for a time hold out the exchart of revena would most likely become the new roman emperors with the Romans gone any challenge to Muslim control of the sea so a conquer of Italy is more likely
Bulgaria might take advantage of the fall of the Romans and how overstretched the caliphate is to conquer more the Muslims have no real chance of destroying the first Bulgarian empire they are to entrenched at this point and by the time they consolidate the Bulgarian empire would make any Muslim army return leaving a lot of corpses in the mountains
Bulgaria might take advantage of the fall of the Romans and how overstretched the caliphate is to conquer more the Muslims have no real chance of destroying the first Bulgarian empire they are to entrenched at this point and by the time they consolidate the Bulgarian empire would make any Muslim army return leaving a lot of corpses in the mountains
Yeah, the new frontier is probably a very contested one around thrace, the bulgarians vs the caliphate, and eventually vs the turks. The bulgarians were still pagan at this point. Would they convert to christianity and reclaim former byzantine lands for themselves (this can be used both against the muslims and against the rump byzantine states)? Of course once the turks arrive things will get more complicated.
And this could result in even more slavificication of northern greece.
Or they would realize becoming muslim enter at the time very lucrative slave and economical trade sphere of the caliphate and might convert to Islam and might fight hard those become orthodox or stay pagan, if anything the Balkans like otl is going to a funland
It would depend on which way the Bulgars jump. At that point the Caliphate was politically unified, so an independent Muslim country would have been novel. Had the Caliphate's institutions learned a more diplomatic approach yet? If not, an offended Bulgar king might stay pagan or throw in with the Christians to retake Constantinople.
By 717 it's way to early to become Muslim as that meant submission to the caliphate the bulgars didn't convert to Christianity because of the mere idea that using Greek as liturgical language would mean that they would become in one way or another controled by the Romans
Submitting to the caliphate or even using Arabic for the Quran is a big no no to them
As say before, once they enter the balkans, everything change, people would jump into the caliph ship to get legitimacy and a gateway to Costantinople and the profitable MENA market as much other would oppose the Muslim, but i doubt would convert, the orthodox were defeated, little incentive for them at all ITTL point
It might, but a Fall of Constantinople is not really quite likely to butterfly the Muslim expansion across North Africa and Iberia, if anything it would make the Christendom even more hard-pressed, if it has much of an impact at all.
Holding Anatolia will make them overextended especially if Persia/Sassanids defeated the muslims.
With a POD this late, I doubt the Sassanids really play into the picture, their empire had been defunct 60 years by then. The Muslims are already in Spain by 711, 717-718 is mid-late stage for the Muslim expansion, with most of the important ground already taken. I'd agree with the overextension thing if this was 648 or something, but by 718, to speak metaphorically, the train has left the station. The Christendom would not be in a good place. I could see a mightier effort to try to push Muslims back in Spain but they'd have their hands full trying to hold Muslims off in the East, if they can muster the resources at all.
The siege of Constantinople was one of the very important pivot points in history, it was more important to the course of European history than even the Battle of Tours.
Persia is a nonentity at this point of time like even in OTL Byzantine put up more of a fight against the caliphate than Persia did . The sassanids were utterly steamrolled
At this point the conquest of these place was already done and renforcement from the rest of the caliphate did not play a significant role in theirs maintenance , so I doubt it will result in theirs loses .
Last edited: