AHC: A long Muslim nation returns to prior faith

Resistance to what?

The closest analogy I can think of is to the position of the Orthodox in the eastern lands of Poland-Lithuania, who entered union with Rome under Polish pressure as a Ruthenian church and were then separated from this union by Russia following the partitions.
 
Why not Granada, Spain? From 711 AD to 1492, the area was ruled by Muslims and had a Muslim majority but within a generation it would become Christian again!

A Mozarab Christian-Muslim mixed kingdom of Grenada with an own identity would be interesting.
 
Resistance to what?

The closest analogy I can think of is to the position of the Orthodox in the eastern lands of Poland-Lithuania, who entered union with Rome under Polish pressure as a Ruthenian church and were then separated from this union by Russia following the partitions.

Resistance to colonial occupation by an Arab power that is trashing Egyptian heritage and claiming Egyptians are just Arabs.
 
Did the Iberian Peninsula have a Muslim majority at some point? And if so, for how much time?
Richard Bulliet's classic study on medieval conversion to Islam would have Muslim Iberia reach a Muslim majority around 961, coincidentally the time around which 'Abd al-Rahman III, first Caliph of Córdoba, died.

The reconquista was almost complete by 1261, so I actually doubt that there was ever a Muslim majority in Iberia for more than three centuries as OP wanted. Same goes for Muslim-majority Ottoman territories in the Balkans.
 
Richard Bulliet's classic study on medieval conversion to Islam would have Muslim Iberia reach a Muslim majority around 961, coincidentally the time around which 'Abd al-Rahman III, first Caliph of Córdoba, died.

The reconquista was almost complete by 1261, so I actually doubt that there was ever a Muslim majority in Iberia for more than three centuries as OP wanted. Same goes for Muslim-majority Ottoman territories in the Balkans.

For how long might it have had a Muslim majority? Could a delayed, but still ultimately successfull, reconquest be a possibility?
 
Resistance to colonial occupation by an Arab power that is trashing Egyptian heritage and claiming Egyptians are just Arabs.

But that's the thing. Egyptians just saw themselves as Mizrahi Arabs right up until the twentieth century.
 
What is your source for that?
He's not really right. From The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule, 1517-1800 (the leading work on Early Modern Arabia):
During the Ottoman period, the word ‘Arab’ did not have the ethno- national connotations it does today but instead was a somewhat derogatory term used by speakers of both Arabic and Ottoman Turkish to refer to a nomadic or semi-nomadic inhabitant of the desert or the rural hinterlands of towns. (In Ottoman Turkish, furthermore, ‘Arab’ also frequently connoted a sub-Saharan African.) On the other hand, cities, towns and villages in the Ottoman Arab provinces were inhabited by Arabic speakers who tended to identify themselves by their places of residence and/or by the confessional communities to which they belonged.
 
He's not really right. From The Arab Lands Under Ottoman Rule, 1517-1800 (the leading work on Early Modern Arabia):
During the Ottoman period, the word ‘Arab’ did not have the ethno- national connotations it does today but instead was a somewhat derogatory term used by speakers of both Arabic and Ottoman Turkish to refer to a nomadic or semi-nomadic inhabitant of the desert or the rural hinterlands of towns. (In Ottoman Turkish, furthermore, ‘Arab’ also frequently connoted a sub-Saharan African.) On the other hand, cities, towns and villages in the Ottoman Arab provinces were inhabited by Arabic speakers who tended to identify themselves by their places of residence and/or by the confessional communities to which they belonged.
I find it funny, wasn´t the term "Turk" also somewhat derogatory when referring to a Ottoman noble?
 
I find it funny, wasn´t the term "Turk" also somewhat derogatory when referring to a Ottoman noble?

The Ottoman nobility didn´t refer to themselves as "Turk". The term was used about the peasants in Anatolia. In Europe it tended to be used about Muslims in general, even those who didn´t speak Turkish.
 
The Ottoman nobility didn´t refer to themselves as "Turk". The term was used about the peasants in Anatolia. In Europe it tended to be used about Muslims in general, even those who didn´t speak Turkish.
That´s what I mean, calling a noble a Turk would be derogatory because it would be like calling a king a peasant.
 

raharris1973

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I guess Mardavij might have expanded something like this (give or take):
1024px-Buyids_970.png


Because the Buyids used the same power base as Mardavij, they were his successors, sort of.
They used Daylamite Iranians, held Shāhanshāh title, etc.
The Buyids were Muslims, not Zoroastrians; but they and their followers were closer to shiism, so here religious minority ruled over religious majority.

May be Mardavij was mad as a cow, when he wanted to revive Zoroastrianism. Or may be it was a sound decision; as we don't know how deeply Islamic was the region. May be he saw that in many cases Islam was only skin-deep (or none); and could be replaced by the revived Persian imperial pride and ancient honored Iranian religion - Zoroastrianism.
Mardavij died too early, so it was all over before it started...

A few centuries later the non-Muslim Mongols ruled the region, they murdered caliph, sacked Baghdad; their support was from the non-Muslim groups only - Jews, Christians, etc. And by that time Islam was firmly imprinted on the local population.

Here Mardavij with his Zoroastrians might rely on the Iranian Renaissance, patriotism, unstable newly converted Iranian Muslims as well.


The Byzantine hold against the whole world of Islam for half a millennia; they can make a good ally to the Zoroastrian Iran together with Armenian and Georgian Christians, why not?

Actually the unity of the Muslim world is somehow exaggerated. Let's take Crusader kingdoms - some of the Muslim entities allied with the Christians against their fellow Muslims.

Fascinating- Well a Zoroastrian/Sassanid revival in Persia might have marginalized or Islam in Central Asia and India, as others have suggested. However, it might not have, especially if the Sassanid revival looks like the map above, which allows Caliphate rule along the south Caspian and proselytization in Central Asia.

Such a "checkerboard" pattern could result in a later return of Persia to Muslim control, on the backs of invading nomads, or not.

Likewise, if Tengrist Turks end up more influenced by the Magi than the Sufi, Zoroastrian power and enclaves may spread to the Mediterranean and Anatolia with Turks.
 
If we define "being Muslim" as being under Muslim rule, much of the Middle East was still majority Christian in the High Middle Ages. If the Schism is not made official in 1054, the Crusades might unfold very differently, with Western and Eastern Christians working together to establish lasting states, instead of the Westerners deciding to overthrow Constantinople.

A massive oversimplification to say the least.
 
Fascinating- Well a Zoroastrian/Sassanid revival in Persia might have marginalized or Islam in Central Asia and India, as others have suggested. However, it might not have, especially if the Sassanid revival looks like the map above, which allows Caliphate rule along the south Caspian and proselytization in Central Asia.

Such a "checkerboard" pattern could result in a later return of Persia to Muslim control, on the backs of invading nomads, or not.

Likewise, if Tengrist Turks end up more influenced by the Magi than the Sufi, Zoroastrian power and enclaves may spread to the Mediterranean and Anatolia with Turks.

The Ziyarid's were from South Caspian / Tabaristan though may potentially expand along roughly similar lines to the OTL Buyids (as shown on the map) in a Zoroastrian / Sassanid revival scenario under an ATL Ziyarid dynasty.
 
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