AHC: Catholicising Islam

For centuries, Christianity was virtually synonymous with Catholicism, and thus Christianity was a structured, hierarchical and patriarchal religion based out of a city in a different culture group from the origin point of Christianity. How can we get all that to apply to Islam? Bonus points if Arabia is not Muslim ITTL.
 

Delvestius

Banned
For centuries, Christianity was virtually synonymous with Catholicism, and thus Christianity was a structured, hierarchical and patriarchal religion based out of a city in a different culture group from the origin point of Christianity. How can we get all that to apply to Islam? Bonus points if Arabia is not Muslim ITTL.

If the Caliphate falls beyond repair somehow, the Persians would probably be the new center of Islam. Is that what you mean?
 
For centuries, Christianity was virtually synonymous with Catholicism, and thus Christianity was a structured, hierarchical and patriarchal religion based out of a city in a different culture group from the origin point of Christianity. How can we get all that to apply to Islam? Bonus points if Arabia is not Muslim ITTL.

That's not true for much of early and Medieval Christianity, in the Patristic Age the Church was multipolar and Rome's primacy only came as a result of often being the mediator between disputes among the Eastern Sees. Islam's rise did much to weed out factions in Christianity, since the Miaphysites and Sees of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria were captured. However, most of the Christian population was in the Greek Church in the East.

If you want a more hierarchical form of Islam, then you're going to have to have the Caliphate's succession agreed upon instead of the Shi'i-Sunni schism. Shiite Islam is more hierarchical than Sunni because of the Sunni's primary source being consensus in the Umma, but if Ali is recognized immediately as Muhammad's successor than this could very well butterfly such differences.

Islam is rather biased towards Arabs in many ways, so it would require something like an invasion for a Caliph to be non-Arab, especially if it's done by descent of Ali (unless said Caliph is matrilineally linked to Muhammad).

However the Caliphates were already based in other cities, such as Damascus and Baghdad, so that is not a major issue.
 
Last edited:
I think Christianity got its rigidity from being quickly adopted by the Roman empire as the state religion. Not only did Rome adopt christianity, but I think that Christianity adopted Rome as well. So very early in the Romanization of Christianity councils were held and the idea of who was a heretic and who wasn't was decided.

So think along those lines I wonder if the Persian Empire was much more centralized and dominated the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Mohammed, could Islam be adopted by a Persian Shah and enforced as part of the Imperial order?
 
I think Christianity got its rigidity from being quickly adopted by the Roman empire as the state religion. Not only did Rome adopt christianity, but I think that Christianity adopted Rome as well. So very early in the Romanization of Christianity councils were held and the idea of who was a heretic and who wasn't was decided.

So think along those lines I wonder if the Persian Empire was much more centralized and dominated the Arabian Peninsula at the time of Mohammed, could Islam be adopted by a Persian Shah and enforced as part of the Imperial order?

If it dominated the Arabian peninsula, Mohammad would be butterflied.

Plus, Islam's caliphs at least in name (and failing in practice for reasons that don't concern us in looking at its origins) are head of both "church" and state - that's more than any Patriarch (Rome's included) had.
 
If it dominated the Arabian peninsula, Mohammad would be butterflied.

Plus, Islam's caliphs at least in name (and failing in practice for reasons that don't concern us in looking at its origins) are head of both "church" and state - that's more than any Patriarch (Rome's included) had.

I was thinking that the Catholicickyness that Roberto was talking about was more the idea that each Bishop has his Diocese and each Priest his Parish. For Islam it seems like the only organization is the Ulema and the Caliph. With each individual with a direct relationship with God.

Christianity needed a structure to spread itself all over a pre established empire, while Islam was a compact organization that eventually ruled an empire.
 
Top