Was Iberia always bound to be reconquered by the western powers?

kholieken

Banned
to be honest if the Muslims of Iberia were conquered pre Almoravid the situation would be an inversion with the Muslims being second class citizens but without persecution. It only became a truly religious conflict with the entry of extremists from north africa .
Leon-castile would conquer the entire peninsula (without these invasions) , but the king had promised that the muslims would be treated fairly and could maintain their faith and practices (as the muslims had done with the christians). So if the conflict stayed between the iberians the situation would not escalate as it happened in otl. if the christians conquered iberia it would have a muslim percentage and if the muslims won the conflict it would have a christian percentage.
Doubtful of such guarantee. Future Kings might not honor such treaties and religious incentive for conversion remained. Muslims in Sivily, Italy, and Crete all disappears.
 
Doubtful of such guarantee. Future Kings might not honor such treaties and religious incentive for conversion remained. Muslims in Sivily, Italy, and Crete all disappears.
maybe there is no way to know about future kings. They can follow the Berber kingdoms that were radical and ultra intolerant, they can be tolerant or somewhere in between. There is no way to know the future, but it only became a big fanatical religious dispute after the invasions of the almohads and almoravids. So I don't see a mass conversion or anything like that, they will become second class citizens taking the place of christians who will replace muslims as first class. It is likely that, as happened in the otl, the majority switch to the religion that benefits them the most. It was islam now it would be christianity.
Crete doesn't have the same content (being one resolved much later in history), Italy had a short and brief interaction (I don't remember a king/lord promising to respect the islamic religion).
 
“The Almohads will brutally change the living conditions of Jewish and Christian dhimmis”, forcing them to convert, in violation, according to Michel Abitbol, of the Muslim tradition, which until then reserved a special status for the “people of the Book”. Thousands of Jews and Christians converted to Islam against their will; thousands more fled; many were killed, in North Africa as in Spain.

In Al-Andalus, the 12th century is considered the end of the golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula.

According to Adnan Husain, the advent of austere radicalism led by the Almohads was experienced as a catastrophe not only by Jews and Christians, but also, in Spain, by the Muslims of Al-Andalus.

Universities reject knowledge of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as the teaching of philosophers such as Averroes, whose Almohads publicly burned works after they banned philosophy and the use of reason. Several great philosophers of all religions were persecuted during this dynasty. Averroes, a Muslim philosopher, and Maimonides, a Jewish philosopher, are the best known. Averroes was accused of heresy and exiled for a year and a half (before being recalled to Morocco). In order not to be forced to renounce his religion, Maimonides will be forced to emigrate definitively; he will find refuge in Egypt at the court of the Fatimids and after Saladin.

Source wiki

They were fanatics who managed to radicalize the Iberian Christians. quite a feat
So the Almohads ruined everything?
 
Eh, Sicily was full of Muslim minorities and they never persecuted the local Christians; still ended up deported by 13th century Catholic rulers.
Read https://www.jstor.org/stable/40350668
This era is not an era of tolerance by Christians. (Or at least Catholics).

The only way to make Muslim Iberia survive is to have the Reconquista falls.
 
I think that Iberia could had kept Muslim at least partially if they just wouldn't had fall as multiple fighting small emirates and Christian kingdoms would had remained pretty weak.



I don't think that you need change something with Francia since between days of Charles Martel and fall of last Iberian Muslim kingdom is some centuries. You probably can do something even with 13th century POD.
 
Would it suffice for the Reconquista to go a bit slower, so that a big chunk of Spain is still Moslem when the Ottoman Empire arrives on the scene?
 
Eh, Sicily was full of Muslim minorities and they never persecuted the local Christians; still ended up deported by 13th century Catholic rulers.
Read https://www.jstor.org/stable/40350668
This era is not an era of tolerance by Christians. (Or at least Catholics).
The only way to make Muslim Iberia survive is to have the Reconquista falls.
again this is very general, if we use the maghreb as the primary example of how islam was practiced we have a religion that is continually led by bigoted fanatics who kill everyone who doesn't follow their version of religion, be it christian, jewish or muslim. We know this is a lie that this insanity was located in one region.

In 1074, Alfonso VI's vassal and friend Al-Mamun, king of the Taifa of Toledo died of poisoning in Córdoba, and was succeeded by his grandson Al-Qádir, who asked for help from the Leonese monarch to end an uprising against him. Alfonso VI took advantage of this request to besiege Toledo, which finally fell on 25 May 1085. After losing his throne, Al-Qádir was sent by Alfonso VI as king of the Taifa of Valencia under the protection of Álvar Fáñez. To facilitate this operation and to recover payment of the parias owed by the city, which had failed to pay him since the previous year, Alfonso VI besieged Zaragoza in the spring of 1086.[44] In early March, Valencia accepted the rule of Al-Qádir; Xàtiva resisted requesting the aid of the rulers of Tortosa and Lérida until he was forced to do so. Their raid of the region failed, and they withdrew under harassment by the troops of Fáñez.[39]
After this important conquest, Alfonso VI was entitled al-Imbraţūr dhī-l-Millatayn ("Emperor of the Two Religions") and as a gesture to the important Muslim population of the city, he promised them, in addition to respecting their properties, the right to use the main Mosque for their religious activities.
Wiki

iberia was seen as a land of two religions. who were first and second class changed with the leader's religion, but so far it wasn't a fight to the death over religion.
 
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It is not necessarily inevitable, but once the Arab campaign in Francia failed, it became likely, IMO. Even then, Francia was considerably more populous than Hispania. An isolated Muslim state with a large Christian neighbor, while ruling over a large Christian population itself, is going to be on the defensive.
It wasn't isolated, it was right next to the whole of North Africa
 
No definitely not inevitable. And if the Muslims had stayed united likely not even probable.
the dispute between new Muslims against old Muslims has to be resolved. With Arabs and Berbs against Iberian Muslims and Christians
 
Perhaps a good way to keep Iberia partly Muslim would be to keep Iberia divided, so to never have a crown of Castile, Leon or Aragon. Had there been equal friction between a handful of Christian states and a whole lot of Muslim states instead of the divided Muslims against the united Christians there would have been a great chance of keeping the balance around
 
That doesn't require disintegration
in no way needs disintegration, it demands reforms. Several structural reforms. Cutting off the strength of the old "Arab" oligarchs (who in the period had no more Arab physical characteristics), to stop importings Berbers, to elevate the Spanish Muslims (who were always allied with the Spanish Catholics, so they kind of came together in a package), solve the problem of heritability and that of the prime minister (who had a lot of power, maybe more than one prime minister. A council of important figures for the country, in which there would not be a greater adviser. The greatest would be the sultan.)
 
It is not necessarily inevitable, but once the Arab campaign in Francia failed, it became likely, IMO. Even then, Francia was considerably more populous than Hispania. An isolated Muslim state with a large Christian neighbor, while ruling over a large Christian population itself, is going to be on the defensive.
By the 11th century Al Andalus was fully Muslim not Christian majority

hence why the reconquista had to do so many expulsions and inquisitions
 
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