AHC: Christianity for Africa, Islam for Europe

Chapman

Chapman

Donor
The idea of the challenge is fairly simple - with a POD(s) anytime after the founding of Islam, have Europe become majority Muslim while Africa becomes majority Christian.
To be more specific - the area of Europe i'm referring to should include at least areas OTL known as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany. On the other side, Christian Africa should encompass mostly Northern and Western Africa, including such areas as Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and the general area of the Malian Empire which was/is to my understanding deeply Muslim OTL. The Middle East is up for grabs, though I suspect it remains a divided area one way or the other.

This has probably been done before but I don't think I've ever explicitly seen such a thread, so feel free to link or discuss others below.
 

Silver01

I don't see it happening i mean eastern europe sure but western europe? The launch of the invasion of spain was north africa
 

funnyhat

If the Arab sieges of Constantinople in the VII/VIII centuries had succeeded and the Romans were conquered, Muslim forces might have eventually conquered the rest of Europe.

For Africa, you probably would need the Arab invasion of Egypt in 639 to fail, or one of the Coptic revolts to succeed.

Each of these is possible but to have both happen (conquest of Constantinople and defeat in Egypt) in the same timeline is tricky.
 

AtreusHashim

Muslim armies curl up into Italy and never conquer the Maghreb or Spain, but do manage to take the Peninsula.

The Alps provide a super defensible border which makes the possibility of a reconquista remote, plus with the Pope eliminated in the late 7th/early 8th century there are vast swaths of still-pagan Europe which are going to be very amenable to conversion to Islam.

On the other hand, if Morocco and Spain remain Christian, then eventually West Africa will convert due to contacts along the gold trade routes (just as they did with Islam). One Coptic revolt later and mission accomplished.
 
Last edited:

dcharles

Banned
Chapman said:
The idea of the challenge is fairly simple - with a POD(s) anytime after the founding of Islam, have Europe become majority Muslim while Africa becomes majority Christian.
To be more specific - the area of Europe i'm referring to should include at least areas OTL known as Italy, Spain, France, England, and Germany. On the other side, Christian Africa should encompass mostly Northern and Western Africa, including such areas as Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco and the general area of the Malian Empire which was/is to my understanding deeply Muslim OTL. The Middle East is up for grabs, though I suspect it remains a divided area one way or the other.

This has probably been done before but I don't think I've ever explicitly seen such a thread, so feel free to link or discuss others below.
Click to expand...

Echoing an earlier comment, this does seem difficult geographically speaking. Like, I can imagine Coptic and Orthodox crusader states springing from Nubia and Ethiopia, maybe leading to a reconquest of Northern Africa. Perhaps from there it might percolate southward.

Where my imagination fails me though, is trying to contemplate a situation where the Islamic military tradition is so robust as to completely subdue the entirety of Western Europe, yet remains weak enough for a collection of Greek or African Crusader states to reconquer North Africa.
 

Nivek

dcharleos said:
here my imagination fails me though, is trying to contemplate a situation where the Islamic military tradition is so robust as to completely subdue the entirety of Western Europe, yet remains weak enough for a collection of Greek or African Crusader states to reconquer North Africa.
Click to expand...
Specially when at the time, NA was as rich as europe too.
 
Flashman

Flashman

AtreusHashim said:
Muslim armies curl up into Italy and never conquer the Maghreb or Spain, but do manage to take the Peninsula.

The Alps provide a super defensible border which makes the possibility of a reconquista remote, plus with the Pope eliminated in the late 7th/early 8th century there are vast swaths of still-pagan Europe which are going to be very amenable to conversion to Islam.

On the other hand, if Morocco and Spain remain Christian, then eventually West Africa will convert due to contacts along the gold trade routes (just as they did with Islam). One Coptic revolt later and mission accomplished.
Click to expand...
Doesn't seem like it could really work with Italy - to invade Italy directly it seems like you would need to control most of the Mediterranean, at a minimum up to Tunis, to secure supply lines. At that point even if we somehow stipulate that Islam somehow fails to roll over Algeria and Morocco, it still becomes the major force in North Africa and a major part of the Trans-Sahara trade.

To prevent this from happening, you somehow need the Christians to hold out at least as far as Cyrenaica, if not to the Sinai, which seems hard considering the proximity to the Arab heartland. This abrogates the possibility of direct Italian conquest, so they'd have to go through Anatolia and the Balkans. This seems like a much tougher nut to crack than North Africa, so as @funnyhat notes it seems difficult to conceive of a situation where Islam is so weak as to be unable to take nearby and relatively undefended Africa but somehow strong enough to plow through Byzantium and the rugged Balkans.

Maybe the best solution is to say that Islam somehow fails to penetrate Egypt or perhaps Cyrenaica, and likewise fails to conquer Anatolia leaving it confined to Arabia, the Levant and Persia, but then have it successfully convert the nomads of the central Asian steppe. At some point a Quasi-Mongol force steamrolls and converts Europe or at least the North European Plain, perhaps a century or two before the appearance of our Mongols so that Christendom is still fairly weak and Paganism still a recent memory. Meanwhile Egypt, *Africa, and Morocco hold out, perhaps along with a few southern European Christian powers, making Christianity the prime force influencining the Subsaharan peoples.

Still might be somewhat difficult to prevent the conversion of the Swahili Coast, though.
 

AtreusHashim

Flashman said:
Doesn't seem like it could really work with Italy - to invade Italy directly it seems like you would need to control most of the Mediterranean, at a minimum up to Tunis, to secure supply lines. At that point even if we somehow stipulate that Islam somehow fails to roll over Algeria and Morocco, it still becomes the major force in North Africa and a major part of the Trans-Sahara trade.
Click to expand...
True, but Morocco and Algeria get the lions share of the trade coming across the desert. Islam will be present in Sub-Saharan Africa but not necessarily dominant.
Flashman said:
To prevent this from happening, you somehow need the Christians to hold out at least as far as Cyrenaica, if not to the Sinai, which seems hard considering the proximity to the Arab heartland. This abrogates the possibility of direct Italian conquest, so they'd have to go through Anatolia and the Balkans.
Click to expand...
Disagree. Things don't need to stay static after the initial Muslim conquests. It's possible that a Coptic power could gain the upper hand in North Africa after the Muslims have conquered Italy. See the rise of the Shia Fatamids (who absolutely would have been considered non-believers by other Muslims at the time). If you get a Christian power in Egypt with enough momentum it could (in tandem with Nubia, Abyssinia etc.) roll over North Africa and link up with Christians in the Maghreb.

Flashman said:
Maybe the best solution is to say that Islam somehow fails to penetrate Egypt or perhaps Cyrenaica, and likewise fails to conquer Anatolia leaving it confined to Arabia, the Levant and Persia, but then have it successfully convert the nomads of the central Asian steppe. At some point a Quasi-Mongol force steamrolls and converts Europe or at least the North European Plain, perhaps a century or two before the appearance of our Mongols so that Christendom is still fairly weak and Paganism still a recent memory. Meanwhile Egypt, *Africa, and Morocco hold out, perhaps along with a few southern European Christian powers, making Christianity the prime force influencining the Subsaharan peoples.
Click to expand...
This is a super cool idea that could also work. Russia could function as a backdoor in to Europe in this scenario.
 

Nivek

AtreusHashim said:
Disagree. Things don't need to stay static after the initial Muslim conquests. It's possible that a Coptic power could gain the upper hand in North Africa after the Muslims have conquered Italy. See the rise of the Shia Fatamids (who absolutely would have been considered non-believers by other Muslims at the time). If you get a Christian power in Egypt with enough momentum it could (in tandem with Nubia, Abyssinia etc.) roll over North Africa and link up with Christians in the Maghreb.
Click to expand...
The only way would be they evacuated egypt because need more men on europe...
 

Alex Zetsu

And of course everyone forgets about OTL Ethiopia.

Well I guess it shouldn't be too hard for them to stay Christian if Egypt does,.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top
Top