AH Challenge: Muslim Russia

I posted this topic in the post 1900s section but was told that this was a better place a topic like this. So here goes:

Okay... a friend of mine who was playing Empire: Total War gave me the idea for this thread.

Basically, he was playing as Prussia. He succesfully invades Egypt and packed off all the imams to Russia, where they converted everyone there and Russia became a Muslim nation overnight.

I know that this POD is not very practical. But WI Russia was an Islamic state? How would it arrive at that state and what would the results be? Would a reformation have occured to allow for the Koran to be weitten in Cyrillic? Would it have affected the basic doctrines of Communism?
 
I posted this topic in the post 1900s section but was told that this was a better place a topic like this. So here goes:

Okay... a friend of mine who was playing Empire: Total War gave me the idea for this thread.

Basically, he was playing as Prussia. He succesfully invades Egypt and packed off all the imams to Russia, where they converted everyone there and Russia became a Muslim nation overnight.

I know that this POD is not very practical. But WI Russia was an Islamic state? How would it arrive at that state and what would the results be? Would a reformation have occured to allow for the Koran to be weitten in Cyrillic? Would it have affected the basic doctrines of Communism?
make that tsar a teetotaler. he was going to make russia muslim; until he found out about the no drinking rule. so he made russia eastern orthadox instead.
 
Prevent the destruction of the Mongol Golden Horde. Create a stable line of succession from the reign of Mohammed Uzbeg Khan, the ruler whom made Islam the state religion from 1312 onwards. Avoid war with Tamerlane of the Chagatai Khanate. And undermine the rise of the Muscovy state under Grand Duke Ivan Kalita from the 1320's onward.
 
Vladimir converts to Islam instead of Orthodox Christianity.

Vladimir's own mother was a daughter of the Byzantine Imperial family, and would have had Christian priests among her own entourage while her son was growing up. If Vladimir was going to choose a different religion, its pretty unlikely that it would have been Islam.
 
Has anyone here read "Islands in the Sea" by Turtledove? The POD is that Constantinople fell to the Arabs in 717 and the story revolves around the competing efforts of Muslim and Christian representatives to convert the Bulgars. Anyway, given that scenario, the Russians would have no incentive to convert to Christianity and every incentive to become Muslim, to foster better relations with Constantinople.
 
for the byzantine empire to fall to islam the 1st crusade would need to fail so have kilij arslan not fight the danishmends and there you go the crusaders are defeated at nicaea the byzantine empire falls the tsar converts to islam to foster better realations with the powerful muslims in control of the bospherus
 
Has anyone here read "Islands in the Sea" by Turtledove? The POD is that Constantinople fell to the Arabs in 717 and the story revolves around the competing efforts of Muslim and Christian representatives to convert the Bulgars. Anyway, given that scenario, the Russians would have no incentive to convert to Christianity and every incentive to become Muslim, to foster better relations with Constantinople.
That was a great short story. I think this is the best situation for having a Muslim Russia.
 
Has anyone here read "Islands in the Sea" by Turtledove? The POD is that Constantinople fell to the Arabs in 717 and the story revolves around the competing efforts of Muslim and Christian representatives to convert the Bulgars. Anyway, given that scenario, the Russians would have no incentive to convert to Christianity and every incentive to become Muslim, to foster better relations with Constantinople.

That's a very major POD, however, and messes heavily with the rest of the world too.
 
for the byzantine empire to fall to islam the 1st crusade would need to fail so have kilij arslan not fight the danishmends and there you go the crusaders are defeated at nicaea the byzantine empire falls the tsar converts to islam to foster better realations with the powerful muslims in control of the bospherus

The umayyads sieged the city twice, from 674-8 and 717-8. After that, you have about 300 odd years until the crusades begin, altough the bysantines were rebounding during a portion of that time. Furthermore, the first crusade had little or nothing to do with the balance of power in anatolia, at least in terms of proping up the byzantines. So there are other ways, and easier ways, than no crusade, to have the city fall.
 
Now, the Third Rome was only established due to the Fall of Constinaople, correct?
Preventing that, but giving the Muslims a route through Central Asia into the Kazahk area, then maybe you can get Muslim Russia.
 
I would still recommend setting the POD during the 14th Century when the Mongol-Tatar Golden Horde held influence over the politics of Russia. That might be the best and most realistic chance for Sunni Islam to overtake Russian Othodox Christianity as the dominant faith in that country.
 
That's a very major POD, however, and messes heavily with the rest of the world too.

Russia is not going to go Muslim while Constantinople is Christian, and once the Orthodox church is established it's not likely to go away. I suppose that you could have a Russia united by Muslim Tatar states instead of by Christian ones, but I don't know if that would really count.
 

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Anyway, if Russia ngoes muslim due to a early fall of Constantinople, there would be huge ripples. The Balkans would fall under Muslim domination early. There would probably be no crusades, but several battles between Christians and Muslims in Eastern Europe. How it would affect Russian relations with Tatar states I don't know, neither can I say for sure how much the Mongol invasion would be altered, would probably depend on how united Russia and the rest of the Muslim world is at the time. A early Byzantine collapse due to the Arabs would upset the Turkish migration pattern. Yes, the changes would be enormous.
 
One of the factors that caused the Golden Horde Mongols to adopt Islam was the fact that most of their rank and file soldiery and bureaucrats were in fact drawn from the populations of the Volga Bulgars as well as Kypchaks and Turks from Khwarezm. While dominant politically, the actual Mongol element in the Horde was quite small in comparison. So given that many of the Turkic groups in the region had been well acqainted with Islam for several hundred years, some might think it was inevitable that the Turks of Central Asia and the Pontic Steppe would turn Muslim from that point.
 
Prevent the destruction of the Mongol Golden Horde. Create a stable line of succession from the reign of Mohammed Uzbeg Khan, the ruler whom made Islam the state religion from 1312 onwards. Avoid war with Tamerlane of the Chagatai Khanate. And undermine the rise of the Muscovy state under Grand Duke Ivan Kalita from the 1320's onward.

I tried a Tamerlane POD with the aim of creating a Muslim Russia. Consensus was that the G.H. was on its last legs by that time and the Christian principalities were already on the rise. So something needs to happen to weaken the Christians and strengthen the GH. Maybe a "divide and conquer" approach, rather than a policy that favored Muskovy?
 
Now, the Third Rome was only established due to the Fall of Constinaople, correct?

The "Third Rome" was an intellectual idea which nobody except the Russians had any interest in (the Balkan and Near Eastern Orthodox were happy to acknowledge their protector the Ottoman Sultan as the Roman Emperor), and it would take over a century before the Patriarchate of Moscow and All Russia was established. Russia was already unbudgeably Orthodox in 1453 (indeed, the "Tatar Yoke" had only entrenched Christianity because the Mongols exempted it from tax.

I agree with the idea that after the conversion had happened it would be a tough job to reverse it, and so the best course is an early fall of Constantinople and a Muslim mission among the Russians.

I tried a Tamerlane POD with the aim of creating a Muslim Russia. Consensus was that the G.H. was on its last legs by that time and the Christian principalities were already on the rise. So something needs to happen to weaken the Christians and strengthen the GH. Maybe a "divide and conquer" approach, rather than a policy that favored Muskovy?

Mongol policy started as divide and conquer, but because of the decline (which wasn't precipitated by the Russians, but by natural nomad fragmentation: they just took advantage of it) the Mongols were unable to beat the Lithuanians by the middle of the 14th cebntury. With Lithuania gobbling up one Russian principality after another, the Mongols deliberately promoted Muscovy as a buffer. That, and delegating the tribute system was cheaper. So you'd need a stronger GH somehow, one that can't be challenged by an ambitious east-central European power.
 
First off, I'd like to declare my belief that any POD after 1100 AD is a travesty. Couple of hundred years of Christian influence is more than enough for Christianity never been wiped away from Russian Plains.
And this can only be happening with an Islamic conquest of Byzantine Empire preceding it.
I agree. After everything is said and done, Vladimir took very cold-blooded step of adopting his main trading partner's religion, making Russian dealing with Constantinople as smooth as possible.
Now, the Third Rome was only established due to the Fall of Constinaople, correct?
Third Rome followed 500 odd years of Russian Orthodox tradition. It is that after the fall of Constantinople some part of Russian elite felt themselves entitled to pick up the fallen banner, so to speak.
Great... So what are the results? Or do I have to ask this question in the post 1900s forum?
As I said, I don't believe that Christianity might be replaced by Islam in Russia at any time after 1100. However, leaving issue of POD aside, it would be squarely impossible to Islamize anything North of Smolensk-Nizhni Novgorod line, as hog-less farming is impossible here (your Muslim peasants would just die out). So, out of old Kievan Rus, covering modern Ukraine, Belarus and Western Russia, we have Muslim Ukraine and Southern Russia (some Southern regions of Belarus could convert too, but not many of them) creating "Russian shahdom", with OTL Novgorodian and Central European lands following Paganism for some more time (similar ot OTL Lithuanians) and then likely converting to Catholicism, becoming "another Poland" (one more Slavic nation on periphery of Europe, influenced by Catholicism) under name of, let's say "Slovenia" (a tribe which built Novgorod called themselves "Slovene"). It is likely that Slovenia would eventually control all of Northern Russia and half of Ural, with Shahdom winning Siberia (they have convenient route to Siberia up the Kama river and across the Urals at their disposal). That is, unless Shahdom conquers Slovenia early and rules them the way Turks ruled Balkans. It isn't impossible, since Shahdom would be spared the main weakness of OTL Muslim armies in this region (very inferior infantry) and would always be more populated.
 
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