A Different islamic superpower

Egypt, Persia, The Mughals, A Surviving Al Andalus controlling all of Spain, and a hypothetical muslim Greek state controlling Anatolia are all contenders.
 
Deccan.

If you would like a European-North Africa-Middle East area power You could have Al-Andalus owning Iberia and maybe into Aquitaine. There could be a hypothetical Greek or Italian Caliphate. Another option would be even earlier and have Islam become the majority throughout europe.
 
The last one is tricky. No empire after the Achemenids controlled Egypt, Anatolia and Iran for long: it's a real logistical card-trick to pull off, and even the Achemenids probably only managed it due to the fairly loose nature of their overlordship.

Bruce
 
The original Caliphate was a superpower in its day. Some ups and downs are inevitable, but it wasn't inevitable that the caliphs would lose their power to kingmakers, or so much territory to local dynasts.
 
Maybe if the Golden Horde rumbles all the way around the Black Sea and into the Balkans? The Hungarian plain can support about 10,000 western horses and probably more of the lighter steppe types so they can certainly generate the cavalry base needed to sustain themselves.

In this scenario perhaps one of the Turkish Beyliks rises to power in Anatolia and Constantinople survives longer trapped between two powers? Alternately maybe some sort of revival in Egypt could extent Mamluk or some successor's influence into Anatolia to check the White/Black Sheep Turks.
 

katchen

Banned
The Mamluks in Egypt were the biggest contenders. Later on (late 18th Century, Ibn Wahab and the first Saudi King came a lot closer to defeating and supplanting the Ottoman Emperor than people realize.:(
 
One wonders how far they could have gone. Perhaps unify the area of the Saudi state and the gulf states today, but I doubt they could have taken Syria for long even from a weakened Ottoman empire: perhaps Iraq, which was harder to reach from Istanbul? Gunpowder empires: the days when a lightly armed cavalry army of the sort they led could make sweeping conquests in densely populated areas were over save under fairly exceptional circumstances. (And Muhammed Ali of Egypt would have kicked the Saudi's ass if they tried to take Egypt: his sons took the Saudis down on their own soil, after all.)

Bruce
 
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