AHC: Christian Turks

Well, hard.

There is, I am told, christian turk-speaking peoples in the balkans and around, but to see a christian SULTAN is another thing...
 
What if the Turkish people (Seljuks, Ottomans) were christians and not muslims? How could this happen? And how will that change history?

Many Turks were and are Christians... they are not all Muslims as the post suggests.

As for how it changes history, well a majority Christian Turkish people group (during the time of their migrations) would radically alter everything, from Byzantium to Castille, leading to a world very unlike our world today.
 
May I suggest making Seljuk convert to Eastern Orthodox Christianity rather than Islam and have his people adopt that religion as well? And all of a sudden the Islamic world will be shaken to its very foundations by hordes of invaders loyal to the Patriarch of Constantinopel.

Prepare for an interesting hybrid of Byzantine- and Ottomanwank...
 
Considering the distance and the amount of local support available to Orthodox Christians in Seljuk's area... perhaps we need a little more detail ;)
 
IMHO, Orthodoxy is out of question. Byzzies are simply too far to have a sucessful mission in Turkestan, too long from their bases.
Armenians were not quite proselyt.

BUT, Nestorian Turks would be the winning idea. After all, many turks were nestorian before the arrival of these peoples in Midde-East. Have more sucessful nestorian priest convincing enough leader, and you'll maybe have a good POD.

In the other hand, Islam is a powerful vector of integration in the Middle-East. You have to find a way that turks would be anyway out of controlling the Abassid throne, to be beaten by the persians, and you will have christian nestorian turks as a far less powerful nation in Middle-East, maybe in OTL Kurdistan, or between this region and Caucasus.
 
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