AH Challenge: Muslims Leave Middle East, Christians/Jews Stay

The Lebanon thread had me thinking: Over the last 150 years, the trend throughout the Middle East has been for the area to become more and more Muslim. Christians began emigrating from Lebanon and Syria in large numbers around the turn of the 20th century, and now large numbers of Copts and Chaldeans are moving to the U.S. At one point, IIRC, Palestine actually ranged up to 30% Arab Christian - almost all of whom have become part of the Palestinian diaspora now. And of course, the long-standing Jewish communities outside of Israel are now largely gone.

Could we see, with a POD later than 1500, the reverse? Some sort of mass migration of Muslims out of the Middle East to somewhere else? Please note, I'm not asking for neo-crusaders to ethnically cleanse the area. I'm also not asking for some sort of mass conversion.

But would it be possible to have a substantial enough migration to have roughly the following percentages Christian?

Lebanon (in the modern sense) - 60%
Palestine - 50%
Syria - 30%
Egypt - 20%
Jordan - 12%
Iraq - 7%

Plus, of course the Jewish communities in the Middle East pretty much remaining as they were pre-Israel
 
The Lebanon thread had me thinking: Over the last 150 years, the trend throughout the Middle East has been for the area to become more and more Muslim. Christians began emigrating from Lebanon and Syria in large numbers around the turn of the 20th century, and now large numbers of Copts and Chaldeans are moving to the U.S. At one point, IIRC, Palestine actually ranged up to 30% Arab Christian - almost all of whom have become part of the Palestinian diaspora now. And of course, the long-standing Jewish communities outside of Israel are now largely gone.

Could we see, with a POD later than 1500, the reverse? Some sort of mass migration of Muslims out of the Middle East to somewhere else? Please note, I'm not asking for neo-crusaders to ethnically cleanse the area. I'm also not asking for some sort of mass conversion.

But would it be possible to have a substantial enough migration to have roughly the following percentages Christian?

Lebanon (in the modern sense) - 60%
Palestine - 50%
Syria - 30%
Egypt - 20%
Jordan - 12%
Iraq - 7%

Plus, of course the Jewish communities in the Middle East pretty much remaining as they were pre-Israel

...............
 
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I recall hearing that as recently as WWI, Baghdad was assumed to be about one third each Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. Of course, the vast majority of the countryside was Muslim, so I don't know what the proportional population of the Ottoman vilayet was.
 
I recall hearing that as recently as WWI, Baghdad was assumed to be about one third each Christian, Jewish, and Muslim. Of course, the vast majority of the countryside was Muslim, so I don't know what the proportional population of the Ottoman vilayet was.

The region wasn't really subjected to any census, so it's really hard to know, but there were very few Christians in central Mesopotamia, so it seems really unlikely Baghdad was 1/3 Christian. An estimate from 1908 returned:

Shia Muslim: 50,000
Sunni Muslim: 40,000
Christian: 7,000
Jewish: 53,000

In general Christians were concentrated more around Mosul, where they comprised a more significant minority (but still really minor). Sectarian conflict between Christians was a serious problem for the Ottoman administration. Leo's Mandeans were in the far south in the Basra region. Assyrians were basically Christian Kurds and were largely nomadic, semi-nomadic, and transhumant.
 
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I take it from the kitten about to commit suicide you think I'm asking a stupid WI Abdul?

I admit it seems highly unlikely. But I do wonder if there's any way to make Muslims emigrate from the region, without falling back to the Caliphate of Cordoba surviving and colonizing the New World or something. I can't see any way it would happen under the Ottomans.
 
Probably a lot of Middle Eastern Christians moved to the New World because the states there were also Christian. It's possible that if there was more of an Islamic presence (not necessarily a state, what matters is that Muslims are at least an accepted minority) in the New World, more Muslims would move there.
 
I take it from the kitten about to commit suicide you think I'm asking a stupid WI Abdul?

I admit it seems highly unlikely. But I do wonder if there's any way to make Muslims emigrate from the region, without falling back to the Caliphate of Cordoba surviving and colonizing the New World or something. I can't see any way it would happen under the Ottomans.

No, it's just that I said seventy billion times in the Lebanon thread that the reason Lebanon shifted from majority Christian to majority Muslim was NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT because the Christians all emmigrated, but because the French tripled the geographic size of Lebanon, adding areas with overwhelming Muslim majorities like the Bekaa Valley, but it's like I'm Cassandra and nobody can hear me saying it.

Of your percentages, Syria and Egypt are probably unobtainable realistically, and the others are largely what was the case. Lebanon just requires a minor shift or less territory added to it by the French.

The reason I think Egypt is unobtainable is because the population of the country is rather large, so tripling the Christian population would require either massive conversion, massive Muslim flight/death, or humongous Christian settlement. Making Syria 1/3 Christian would also mean tripling or quadrupling their ratio, which is hard to imagine without some human catastrophe.
 
No, it's just that I said seventy billion times in the Lebanon thread that the reason Lebanon shifted from majority Christian to majority Muslim was NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT NOT because the Christians all emigrated, but because the French tripled the geographic size of Lebanon, adding areas with overwhelming Muslim majorities like the Bekaa Valley, but it's like I'm Cassandra and nobody can hear me saying it.

Of your percentages, Syria and Egypt are probably unobtainable realistically, and the others are largely what was the case. Lebanon just requires a minor shift or less territory added to it by the French.

The reason I think Egypt is unobtainable is because the population of the country is rather large, so tripling the Christian population would require either massive conversion, massive Muslim flight/death, or humongous Christian settlement. Making Syria 1/3 Christian would also mean tripling or quadrupling their ratio, which is hard to imagine without some human catastrophe.

Oh, I read your comments about how the Christian emigration didn't change the balance in Lebanon in any real manner. But the fact remains Christians left, and Muslims for the most part stayed. I was just asking if the reverse could have happened to a far larger degree than HE - something more similar to what happened with say Norway, where more Norwegians left for the U.S. than remained behind.

Anyway, I had thought Egypt was around 10% Christian. Syria is 20% Christian now, but reading more, it was 12% up until this decade, when the Iraqi Christians immigrated there.

Anyway, I probably shouldn't have posted the percentages. I was more interested if someone could come up with a long-term emigration process which favored Muslims over Christians, increasing the minority as a percentage throughout the region.
 
So you are simply looking for greater number of immigrants leaving rather than fewer overall muslims in the middle east? Because this is alot easier to achieve than how I first read your challenge.

I would imagine it is almost impossible short of catastrophic events to reduce the overall population of muslims in the middle east with a great exodus somewhere else.
 
Are you trying to misinterpret what I wrote for comedic affect? Christians left. Not in amounts large enough to sway the overall percentage however. Muslims did not immigrate to the west until the 1960s, IIRC. If they immigrated to elsewhere in the Middle East, I don't know of any information, and you didn't list such information in your posts.

I was not saying the Christian immigration had *any affect* on the overall percentages in OTL at all. I was asking if Muslim immigration could.
 
Muslims vastly outnumbered Christians and Jews throughout the Middle East (except for Lebanon) so I don't see any reason why Muslims would leave the Middle East.
 
Are you trying to misinterpret what I wrote for comedic affect? Christians left. Not in amounts large enough to sway the overall percentage however. Muslims did not immigrate to the west until the 1960s, IIRC. If they immigrated to elsewhere in the Middle East, I don't know of any information, and you didn't list such information in your posts.

I was not saying the Christian immigration had *any affect* on the overall percentages in OTL at all. I was asking if Muslim immigration could.

The did actually migrate quite often within the Middle East. To cause massive Muslim emmigration out of the Middle East, they would have to be acceptable immigrants somewhere else, which they weren't. Muslims were not permitted to live in the Christian world until the 20th c. in anything but token numbers.

If you want a POD, it would have to make the Christian world a lot more tolerant - then you might be able to have Muslim emmigration to the Americas, or maybe Australia, but that doesn't seem all that likely. As it was, even if they had wanted to leave, there was nowhere to go.

Christians, BTW, generally went to the Americas and a couple of other places (notably Egypt) to raise money with the aim of returning home. Approximately 2 out of 3 emmigrants returned home. Lebanon had the largest emmigration due to its acute population pressure.

As I said in an earlier post, there was significant outflow of Christians after the Young Turk revolution as a reaction against general conscription, which had never before applied to Christians.
 
The Lebanon thread had me thinking: Over the last 150 years, the trend throughout the Middle East has been for the area to become more and more Muslim. Christians began emigrating from Lebanon and Syria in large numbers around the turn of the 20th century, and now large numbers of Copts and Chaldeans are moving to the U.S. At one point, IIRC, Palestine actually ranged up to 30% Arab Christian - almost all of whom have become part of the Palestinian diaspora now. And of course, the long-standing Jewish communities outside of Israel are now largely gone.

Could we see, with a POD later than 1500, the reverse? Some sort of mass migration of Muslims out of the Middle East to somewhere else? Please note, I'm not asking for neo-crusaders to ethnically cleanse the area. I'm also not asking for some sort of mass conversion.

But would it be possible to have a substantial enough migration to have roughly the following percentages Christian?

Lebanon (in the modern sense) - 60%
Palestine - 50%
Syria - 30%
Egypt - 20%
Jordan - 12%
Iraq - 7%

Plus, of course the Jewish communities in the Middle East pretty much remaining as they were pre-Israel


eschaton

I think to get widespread Muslim emigration with the result that the Christian population is proportionally dramatically increased would be earlier and more doctrinaire foreign control of the region. By more doctrinaire I mean that new non-Muslim rulers, would have to be Christians really as can't see anyone else having the power, seek to encourage their own faiths far more than the European colonisers did in OTL. Not necessary forced conversion or anything like that. You might have:
a) An application of the sort of rules early Islam applied to their conquests with extra taxes and relatively minor discrimination against the Muslim minority. [Since this also means giving the Christians a majority of military power but imposes military responsibilities for them this would also have impacts].
b) There is a view amongst some elements of the Muslim community that Muslims must live under Islamic rule. This was not important during the early centuries when Islam was expanding but did cause some debate during early set-backs, such as the Byzantium re-occupation of much of Syria in the 10-11th century and the Spanish reconquest. [In the latter this was irrelevant eventually because the Muslims were forcible expelled anyway but not thinking of this here].

Factor b) is less likely to have a significant impact unless there is a clear discrimination against Muslims or as Pasha said better opportunities elsewhere. I doubt that many people will give up their homes and lands just to be under Muslim rule unless markedly better opportunities elsewhere and/or conditions are getting very bad.

You might get the doubling of the Christian proportion of the population in Egypt and possibly also the figures suggested in Iraq. [Since there were ancient Christian communities in that region]. Also the Lebanese target. Not sure about the others.

However it would be difficult, especially since given that the Muslim community has a long history of power and dominance there would probably be continued unrest, even with pretty moderate treatment. [That gives opportunities for population movements but not really the voluntary ones your thinking of].


Also, maintaining the Jewish population would be a problem. Until the modern period which discriminated against the Muslims tended to treat Jews better than the Christian parts of the world. Therefore it would need some fairly significant changes in the new ruling group to make a more moderate view to them I fear.

Steve
 
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