AHC: Holy Rome Becomes Muslim

What if the Holy Roman Empire becomes a Muslim monarchy instead?
ASB.The entire ethos of the HRE was that it was the protector of the Catholic Church.Sure you have people like Frederick II who have no problem with Muslims and was a suspected atheist,but the moment he turns Muslim is the moment he gets overthrown.
 
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Umm... there is a difference between the Holy Roman Empire, which is basically a German-dominated confederation that doesn't do justice to its name; and Rome which during the rise of Islam, is under the Papacy. Don't know which you're referring to.

If it's the HRE, then no. Muslim forces are overstretched as it was, and anything less than an early Black Death raging through Christendom would not have done more to make it Muslim. Even then, it's still virtually impossible to press the monarchy to convert on all accounts.

Rome becoming a Muslim city is more achievable. Simply have greater conflicts between the Byzantines and Catholic states and have the Muslims sweep in from Sicily when they're exhausted.
 
What if the Holy Roman Empire becomes a Muslim monarchy instead?

You've been here since 2012 and you think this is a good AH question to ask? :p

As others have said, the whole point of the HRE was to 'unify' the Catholic Church. Any attempt at converting the HRE to Islam would result in the destruction of the HRE.
 
Even by the extremely distended definition of HRE as beggining with Ottonians, I don't see how it would be possible. The whole imperial kingship and the whole political reference to Rome (even it have been conflated by some emperors) is about the Roman pontiff, the protection given by the emperors and the ensuing working relationship (at least technically).

Even Frederic II Honestaufen, which was the closest thing of an atheist in Middle Ages you could find, never ever tought about dismissing the pope entierly.

Conversion being ruled out as extremely implausible, what about a Muslim conquest of Rome?
In spite of Arabo-Berber victories in Western Mediterranean basin, it doesn't looks much doable either : you did have regular raiding in Italy, including Latium, up to semi-permanant Arabic presence up to the Xth century (see Battle of Garigliano).

It's mostly that Arabo-Berbers weren't much interested about controlling the hinterland (as they didn't in Provence, while dominating the coast up to late Xth as well) by lack of manpower and political control (critically with this coastal presence being more or less largely autonomous).

On this perspective, it wasn't much different from most of Viking raids in Atlatic or Mediterranean : not a conquest but establishing some presence; while matters in Africa proper (critically being cut of most reinforcements) were a main focus, while Christian forces on the land weren't exactly underpowered (fleet and lands armies defeated some of these raids).

Assuming, tough, an actual takeover I think it may look like the IOTL Emirate of Bari that didn't had much time to live on before being repelled of southern Italy.
A temporary conquest of Rome is then doable, but in lack of much stable Arabo-Berber political entities with the ability to focus only on Mediterranean takeover, AND willing to go for the conquest of Latium that, is rich, was less obviously a target than, say, Sicily...

I'd say that in this case, either Carolingians/successors of Carolingians or Byzantines may take back relatively quickly the whole of it.

Even there, the consequences would be more important for Arabo-Berbers than for papacy :

It would be hardly the first time Rome get sacked : St Peter, the seat that technically represented pontifical legitimacy was sacked IOTL, and it wasn't considered as a divine punishment.

Even if the pope and all the cardinals were killed because Muslims would be ev0l, and admitting Arabs have an interest taking Rome once raided, the structures that made the pope an unifying and dominant religious structure IOTL would still be there.
 
The only reason the Holy Roman Empire came to be (officially) was because the Pope was pushing for it so hard. So..... do you want a secretly Muslim Pope? Because that Sounds great! :D
 
The best possibility would be an Arab conquest of Constantinople, which would remove an obstacle. This would most likely lead to a Muslim Balkan and Russia. It would not necessarily lead to an immediate fall of Western Europe, but Germany and Italy could become Muslim at a later time. Western Europe was much weaker at this time than when the Ottomans were attempting to conquer Vienna many centuries later.
 
I think it would be possible, but you would need a lot of Islamwanking to make it work. The Umayyads pushing the Christians out of Asturias, and then pushing into southern France, Constantinople falling and opening up Eastern and Central Europe to Muslim influence, Sicily serving as a launchpad for the conquest of southern Italy and Rome, Muslim raiding parties terrorising Christendom as far north as Scandinavia (not so nice when it happens to you now is it?), etc. Throw in a nasty bout of plague that weakens the remaining Christian powers and is taken as a sign that God as abandoned them. After all that it wouldn't be unreasonable to have the HRE go Muslim to switch to the winning team. Either the Emperor converts, or more likely, a high ranking noble does and is installed as Emperor with the help of an invading Muslim army. Needless to say this is fairly ASB.
 
If Constantinople fell to the Arabs, many centuries prior to the OTL fall to the Turks in 1453, no doubt the Islamic presence in Europe would be much larger than OTL. Even OTL, there were many Muslims on the Balkan prior to mutual expulsions. If the Arabs conquered Constantinople, at least Balkan and Russia would be mostly Muslim in population by the year 1900. More likely than not, other parts of Europe would at least have a large Muslim population. Like in OTL, the Caliphate would also in this ATL fall apart after some time, but if Christian crusaders at a later stage would try to conquer Constantinople, the city would probably get help from other parts of the Muslim world. A state based around Constantinople might even try to expand northwards on the Balkan and conquer territories not conquered by the Arabs. If large parts of Germany became majority Muslim, it is likely that most of what was left of Europe would also become majority Muslim.
 
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