AH challenge: Al-andalus survives to modern day

What POD would be required to have Al-andalus survive up to the present?

How might a surviving Al-andalus alter history?
 
Either outright conquer the entire Iberian peninsula of all rival Christian states in the area and keep the border at the Pyrenees where troops can defend it from invasion via mountain fortress. Either that or nothing else. The Christian states either if it was Castille in OTL or Portugal was going to have the bragging rights of expelling the Muslims from Spain. There is no middle way.
 
I studied this a ton for The Raptor of Spain and wrote a very long post explaining the dynamics of Al-Andalus. And then AH.com ate the post when I tried to submit it.

Sorry. In a nutshell: there were religious, ethnic and cultural differences that combined with the pressure of the Christians and that rulers only had powerbases in their particular slice of the religious, ethnic and cultural makeup of Al-Andalus meant that to actually rule you had to forcibly hold down everyone else with your particular group. This is why after Abd ar-Rahman III and Al-Manzor Al-Andalus disintegrated. They had held everyone down for 80 years but it was only force that covered the differences and the backlash created the Taifas.

Maybe if A a-R conquers the Christian states, abandons any ambitions to regain the Caliphate early on and aggressively pushes the Hanifa doctrine of Dar-al-Islam.
 
Hmm, several possibilities...


  • Sometime in the 8th-10th centuries, al-Andalus conquers the Christian Kingdoms on the northern border. It probably still disintegrates as in OTL, but at least there aren't any Christians south of the Pyrenees to take advantage.
  • Kill off al-Mansur, and give the Ummayyad dynasty a chance of lasting (harder to pull off, due to the reasons MNPundit cites).
  • Butterfly the Almoravid and Almohad invasions. IMO they kept the Muslim half of Iberia destabilized and prevented any stable successor states to the Cordoban Ummayyads from forming. A TL without them will probably produce an Iberia with a collection of stable Christian states in the north and a collection of stable, equally strong Muslim states in the south.
  • Make Las Navas de Tolosa a draw, or a Muslim victory, instead of a crushing Muslim defeat. This would allow a remnant Muslim state covering all of present-day Andalucia (including Cordoba and Seville) to survive for sometime longer than OTL.
 
Hmm, several possibilities...
  • Butterfly the Almoravid and Almohad invasions. IMO they kept the Muslim half of Iberia destabilized and prevented any stable successor states to the Cordoban Ummayyads from forming. A TL without them will probably produce an Iberia with a collection of stable Christian states in the north and a collection of stable, equally strong Muslim states in the south.
That is kind of interesting. What role did al-Mutamid's jaunt to North Africa to beg Tashfin to save them have in assisting Alfonso VI's capture of Toledo? From what I know it allowed Alfonso more time to seize defensible control of areas surrounding the Toledo Taifa but with both al-Mutamid and (I think) the Zaragozan emir dying shortly their-after it might not have made a difference as their almost alliance dissolved. The southern Taifas certainly did not send any help to Toledo during the period.

If Toledo still falls it may be that the Taifas remain doomed.

ED: From what I understand Mutamid went to N.A. twice, once before and once after the fall of Toledo.
 
Top