AHC - Coptic Egypt from 10th Century onwards

In an ATL scenario where the Abbasids fall sometime during the 10th century (say around the periods of the 2nd to 5th Fatimid Caliphs or 934-996 AD being the POD) to an alliance between the Zoroastrian Ziyarids and Qarmatians, the challenge to establish a Coptic (or non-Coptic) Christian Egypt whether via a successful Coptic Revolt or during the Crusades.
 
The country was still majority Coptic well into the early 2nd millennium so all you need is something like a better 5th Crusade. The 5th Crusade was a fairly close run thing and with some more cohesive Crusader leadership it could potentially have done what they were aiming to do. If you push off the Albigensian Crusade further, there's more French troops and others as well.
 
The issue with using crusaders to keep Egypt Coptic is that the crusaders despised Eastern Christians. The Crusader States in the Levant mistreated non-Roman Catholics and Constantinople was sacked by Western Crusaders. So I'd say that you'd need an earlier POD to keep Egypt majority Christian
 
The issue with using crusaders to keep Egypt Coptic is that the crusaders despised Eastern Christians. The Crusader States in the Levant mistreated non-Roman Catholics and Constantinople was sacked by Western Crusaders. So I'd say that you'd need an earlier POD to keep Egypt majority Christian

I dunno, I think the best approach is a combination - the Coptic Revolt rising up and taking power as the 5th Crusade arrives in Egypt - and have the 5th Crusade fail as per OTL - or at least have the Crusader Element retreat, whilst the Coptic Revolt obtains support from the Emperor.

Quick back of the napkin

0) Good robust revolutionary starts to make himself popular, and gets (surrupticious) backing from the Coptic Patriarch.
1) Crusade takes Damietta and kills Al-Adil
2) Seeing this as the right moment, Revolutionary starts the rebellion, with rapid success in Upper Egypt, whilst Al-Kamil is trying to deal with the Crusade
3) Crusader Army under Pelagius is surrounded and attacked by Al-Kamil
4) Revolutionary forces intervene and surround Al-Kamil, leaving him trapped between the Coptic peasants and the Crusaders. (VICTORY)
5) Pelagius and the Crusaders, grateful for their rescue, despite being rendered vastly weaker, agree to exchange Damietta for an alliance and logistical support/military support in Palestine.
6) King Revolutionary the Nth rules as King of Egypt, allied with the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

I'm not quite sure how the Revolution takes over the various cities, perhaps simply because they are able to be inside the cities and overwhelm the guards time and time again (or completely blockade them from any merchant traffic).

After a while, I can see Egypt being an intermediary between a restored Roman Empire from the Nicaean Empire, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem - essentially negotiating agreed upon borders and domains - with the Romans having Europe and Anatolia, Jerusalem has Syria and Palestine, and Egypt maintains Egypt - and agreeing to defend one another. Leading to the unusual situation of a Coptic Egypt, Catholic Jerusalem, and Orthodox Rhomanion dependant on each other for defending against Persia. (Although, admittedly, Catholic Jerusalem would probably get the worst of it with each invasion).

I could even see Egypt assisting against the Sultanate of Rum in Anatolia when the time comes. Essentially opening a southern Anatolian front, whilst the Romans focus on the North.
 
Was there ever historically a substantial revolt by Egypt's majority Copic population that enjoyed even a modicum of success? I don't think so.

This revolution would generally look like a tax rebellion and a riot - easily accomodated if the Muslim leadership had the luxury of doing so and easily crushed if they did not. The lack of a martial tradition among the Copts would be a substantial obstacle to say the least.

Geography also plays a role here. Sucsessful rebellions are easier when the rebels have mountainous or rough terrain, and many places to hole up or hide. Nothing like that exists in Egypt really.
 
more cohesive Crusader leadership it

Somehow, I think the crusaders have better odds of winning a 10K vs 30K battle (which they don't have good odds at all) than having a better leader than Richard the Lionhearted (3rd Crusade). And in his case, some of his allies spoiled what the tactician cooked up because trying to kill infidels now meant more than a battle plan that would take over an hour to execute and help the campaign further down the line.
 
Somehow, I think the crusaders have better odds of winning a 10K vs 30K battle (which they don't have good odds at all) than having a better leader than Richard the Lionhearted (3rd Crusade). And in his case, some of his allies spoiled what the tactician cooked up because trying to kill infidels now meant more than a battle plan that would take over an hour to execute and help the campaign further down the line.

Actually the heavy cavalry employed by Crusaders were very effective as a force modifier against Arab troops, but here I'm talking about better than OTL leadership. Pelagio arrived from Rome and made a mess of basically everything, the army took longer than expected to do just about anything, and neither the Emperor nor King of France got involved
 
In an ATL scenario where the Abbasids fall sometime during the 10th century (say around the periods of the 2nd to 5th Fatimid Caliphs or 934-996 AD being the POD) to an alliance between the Zoroastrian Ziyarids and Qarmatians, the challenge to establish a Coptic (or non-Coptic) Christian Egypt whether via a successful Coptic Revolt or during the Crusades.
The main issue would have to get a non-arabized Coptic identity at this point : not only in the Xth, most of the urbanized population was so (if not outright islamized), but the countryside elites weren't Coptic to begin with. At best you'd end up with something quite similar to Andalusian taifa with a more or less sizeable Christian population whom main political expression would be islamized elites.

There's nothing really solid to be expected from Crusaders : most of plans about Egypt were either passing trough a road with less logistical and suppliement issues than Anatolia, either to take "Babylonia" (roughly Upper Egypt) to trade it against Jerusalem, either half-assed glorified raids by the Yerosolemites. (You have as well the last-minute plan made by Richard during the IIIrd crusade, but it's really hard to consider it seriously, or if he even proposed it so in first place)
 
The issue with using crusaders to keep Egypt Coptic is that the crusaders despised Eastern Christians. The Crusader States in the Levant mistreated non-Roman Catholics and Constantinople was sacked by Western Crusaders. So I'd say that you'd need an earlier POD to keep Egypt majority Christian

Not true. Some crusaders did, some did not. Notably, the ones that settled in the Levant tended to be far more ecumenical in their outlook than the new crop that came over whenever a crusade was called.

It would have been tricky to ally with the Armenians otherwise.
 
Maybe have Ethiopia come up from the south to try to help Coptic rebels?
You had only thin relations between Abyssinians and Coptic Egypt at this point, and it was mostly religious (altough not unsignificant). A bit like Nubian kingdoms (while less so), Ethiopia was dependent for a good part of its wealth and structural reinforcement from relatively stabilized relationship with Islamic Egypt : even admitting Copts would pull a religious-identitarian revolt out of nowhere, there was not much to be gained supporting it, and a religious support might have launched counter-attacks from Islamic neighbours (which, especially in Ethiopia, had a modus vivendi with Christians).
 
Not true. Some crusaders did, some did not. Notably, the ones that settled in the Levant tended to be far more ecumenical in their outlook than the new crop that came over whenever a crusade was called.
Generally speaking, it seems that eastern Christians (altough not melkites) did somehow welcomed the Crusader takeover at least for what mattered urban settings. The big problem was the hierarchical replacement in episcopalian grounds, which Latins tended to monopolize : but for what matter basic structures, as it happened for Muslims, it seems that not only you didn't have much pressure, but possibly less than before the Latin takeover.
 
The main issue would have to get a non-arabized Coptic identity at this point : not only in the Xth, most of the urbanized population was so (if not outright islamized), but the countryside elites weren't Coptic to begin with.

So the challenge is how to de-Islamize the place, at least in the rural areas. I have no idea how to manage this.
 
So the challenge is how to de-Islamize the place, at least in the rural areas. I have no idea how to manage this.
It's not really a religious issue, but rather a social-institutional one, as Islam provide with related features : Christian populations were integrated into Arabo-Islamic structures entierly at this point, and you simply didn't have the idea to rebel to create Christian dominated ones, would it be in urban or rural situation, especially when the Christian elites generally converted in the IXth century onwards, while keeping a control over their former co-religionists.
 
It's not really a religious issue, but rather a social-institutional one, as Islam provide with related features : Christian populations were integrated into Arabo-Islamic structures entierly at this point, and you simply didn't have the idea to rebel to create Christian dominated ones, would it be in urban or rural situation, especially when the Christian elites generally converted in the IXth century onwards, while keeping a control over their former co-religionists.

To be fair though, there was also no consensus to revolt in Egypt during the Byzantine rule, despite legitimate claims and reason to. As I have argued before, the Christian populations across the Islamic world have a very particular history tied all the way to the Roman Empire. There is more deep reasons than 'within Arabo-Islamic structures.'
 
To be fair though, there was also no consensus to revolt in Egypt during the Byzantine rule, despite legitimate claims and reason to.
You didn't have a clear distinction between what was orthodox and heterodox, in spite of what Constantinople could pull in religious matter. Distinction existed, but it really grew out after the Arab conquest.

There is more deep reasons than 'within Arabo-Islamic structures.'
Certainly but these explain a lot of things, namely the growing distinction between melkites and Copts, a dependence to the Arabo-Islamic state (Coptic religious relations were parallel, if independent, to Egyptian political horizon), and a general acculturation (it's not an Egyptian specifcity : a part of the Christian identity in Islamic Europe and Africa was tied to Arabic references, notably a relation to Ghassanids).
While you had a distinct, religiously based, identity it's far from obvious that Cotps percieved themselves as not only excluded from Arabo-Islamic society as a whole in the Xth, but as a potential counter polity.
 
How about something more modest, with the region having a large Coptic following into the 1300s, something like 75% as well as the rural rich being copts. Of course, this means they need to make conversions in a hostile environment while ruled by a muslim government trying to get rid of them
 
How about something more modest, with the region having a large Coptic following into the 1300s, something like 75% as well as the rural rich being copts. Of course, this means they need to make conversions in a hostile environment while ruled by a muslim government trying to get rid of them
You have to remember that arabisation isn't just a matter of acculturation by contact, but a social marker, namely an elite social marker. If you're a rich rural landowner, chances are great that you were alloted the land, or that your family eventually converted while keeping the land.

Not that Arabs were really undergoing a "convert or die", especially not in the Xth century : while you had more of a pressure on conversion than you had up to the VIIIth century (mostly trough fiscal and social pressure), you had a general contentment with the "natural" islamization of society, due to the institutional role of Islam in Egypt.
The question is less that rich rural Copts would be under lethal duress, but social duress to not convert. On this regard, 75% of the Egyptian population remaining Christian until the XIVth, in a period where Islam defined itself more cohesivly not only as contrary to Christianism (oriental, melkite or frank), but in itself trough whole theological/scholarly currents, seems hard to get.
 
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