AHC:Islam.......................On Scandinavia

Hmm, how about this:

Vikings on their travels encounters some imams that are hospitable --> tells them about their religion --> chieftan is smitten by the fact that this Mohammad sounds way cooler than that Jesus guy --> converts --> goes back home and tells everyone of this badass prophet from the desert --> Scandinavia is islamic -->
 
Hmm, how about this:

Vikings on their travels encounters some imams that are hospitable --> tells them about their religion --> chieftan is smitten by the fact that this Mohammad sounds way cooler than that Jesus guy --> converts --> goes back home and tells everyone of this badass prophet from the desert --> Scandinavia is islamic -->
--> would they be able to comprehend the idea of a desert though? :D
 
See above,sons of Abraham.

Can you do it,in the name of Allah? :)

The main issue is that Scandinavia is far, really far from Islamic centers, giving almost no incitative to do so. Scandinavians seemed really being about keeping their old rites, and finally were opened to Christianism because of obvious, and relativly powerful, Christian neighbours.

That quite the problem core : Christian big kingdoms (critically in comparison of scandinavian puzzle) were the target of raids that looted religious objects, sometimes Christian slaves. Eventually Christianisation was the result of double effort : from Frankish and German missionaries, that had no real result before Scandinavian rulers supported them in order to use Christianism to reach, from a popular kingship that gave a limited by gathering power, to a vassalic kingship based on what existed in Christian kingdoms (and on interpretation of Christian theology. Basically the king was "God the father" of his land, resumed caricaturally).

In the same time, the raids against Arabs were...limited. Even if a PoD made the expedition in Muslim Spain sucessful (something that given what the Arabo-Andalusian fleet was, would need for a good PoD), it was far and limited to exceptionnally big and lucky takes (think of Celtic expeditions in Italy and Greece).

It would be far more easier to have sucessful Norses settling Spain, converting and being consideredto as free Saqaliba.

A conversion by Norses being really implausible, would a conversion by Varangians could do?

Admittedly, there's a slightly better chance. Have Constantinople falling into Arab hands at some time, and the trade roads on Volga and Dniepr could be both dominated by Islamic traders, instead of having the Dniepr road being a Byzantine highway.
In whatever would replace Russia there (likely butterflied by the PoD), Varangian traders would most probably encounter more Islamic influence.

It won't be easy, as Christians neighbours are still much closer and much more dynamic : putting it simply, Islam didn't really knew at this era another mode of mission than "mission by sword", and a great expedition all trough *Russia to Scandinavia is likely to be ASB. Furthermore, they could deal with non-Islamic rulers and it actually served them relativly well, as it reinfiorced a position seen as superior.
On the other hand, Christians did had an important missionary drive. By cultural exchanges, sword and/or teaching. Christianisation was seen as definitely important for diplomatic features (the only modern comparison I can think of, would be the difference for a state recognized by UN or not).

Still, as thin it is, it's still your best chance for this precise OP.

Vikings on their travels encounters some imams that are hospitable

The only contacts between Vikings and Islamic imams were when the former tried to plunder the latter. Not the best background for theological debates, some can say.

More seriously, I could see some Vikings integrating Islamic teaching. It sounds unlikely at first, but why not.
They are, however, likely to integrate them in their existinc religious and cultural structures, rather than adopting the religion. See, the main difference between Christianism and Islam is that the former is more proteiform, more likely to adapt itself to new cultures; when Islam is a political religious structure that is highly hard to modify without falling automatically into something that can't take the name.
 
"No pork? No wine or ale or mead? No way!"

Gee, religious restrictions didn't seem to stop many, many, many Middle Easterners from drinking. As for pork, it'd probably be casually violated along with the alcohol ban. Pork wasn't/isn't popular in the Middle East due to issues relating to water and feed, which aren't problems in Scandinavia.
 
That's actually a common misconsception. Pork was widepsread in ME before or after Islam, while porchers were considered as a low rank of society due to inner impurety (that existed before Biblical or Koranic prescriptions).
The "hygenist" hypothesis is interesting, but it should be considered as for some other interdiction as a regular sacrifice made to God without a mandatory practical purpose.

For alchool, I agree. For a long time, but really in regions that produced wine before Islamic conquests, wine wasn't even considered as haram while not outright accepted.
Have we informations abotu alchool production and consumtion in pagan Scandinavia? Or importations of wine from Carolingia, for instance?
 
Have we informations abotu alchool production and consumtion in pagan Scandinavia? Or importations of wine from Carolingia, for instance?

Potentially. It all depends on whether you believe Ibd Falan encountered Scandanavian Rus, or Slavs... As the ritual he describes is full of drink...
 
Potentially. It all depends on whether you believe Ibd Falan encountered Scandanavian Rus, or Slavs... As the ritual he describes is full of drink...

I was more thinking of material culture, or something we could have found in archeological digs. Wine being one of the major trades, I would be surprised if it didn't resulted in some traces.
 
I was more thinking of material culture, or something we could have found in archeological digs. Wine being one of the major trades, I would be surprised if it didn't resulted in some traces.

Can't seem to find anything online using my institutional login... Certainly English chroniclers always portrayed the Vikings (or Norsemen, or Scandinavians) as committing attrocities under the influence... But I can't remember hearing anything about. Now the material remains of coins and ships, that is what we heard about.
 
I think the easiest way to do this is to go all out and make most of Europe go Muslim. Have Charles Martel die in childhood Muslims are more successful in Western Europe, butterflies away the Crusades, the Byzantine Empire falls quicker, Christian Europe is battered from both sides and never manages to get their northern neighbors to convert. Finally the borders of Islam are pushed up towards Scandinavia, and the Vikings are conquered or converted by their more populous neighbors.
 

katchen

Banned
One thing that would help would be if the Norse discover the Azores, Madeira and/or Canary Islands. These islands are small, but clement, and can support tens of thousands of Norse people apiece. And it gets the Norse south in the Atlantic, where they can appreciate the value of trading as well as raiding.
Go a viking. Raid Ireland for thralls. Sell thralls at market in Sevilla. Bring home gold and fine cloth and be the envy of other viking parties in the neighbourhood until they get the idea.
And yes, these Muslims are tolerant of kaffirs from afar, but the authorities charge atrocious taxes and are strong enough to keep your knorrs from leaving the harbour if the tax is not paid. And 2/3 of the tax is something called jizya, a tax that will be waived if you will just say the magic words La ihala al Allah....three times.....
I suspect that this sort of logic is how Islam spread in what is now Indonesia. It can spread this way in the Norse lands, especially if the Amazigh Moors master the art of sailing along the coasts of Europe the same way Arabian Arabs did, the Indian Ocean. Trade can spread Islam more efficiently than the sword.
 
I think the easiest way to do this is to go all out and make most of Europe go Muslim. Have Charles Martel die in childhood Muslims are more successful in Western Europe.

Full stop there.
Muslims forces represented at the very best no more than 20 000 men (by that, I mean there were fewer forces in the main part of VIIII century). OTL, Arabo-Berbers had one garrison passed the Pyrénées in Arbûna/Narbonne (admittedly, they maybe had another in Avignon, but it lasted less than a year), the rest of the land being let to local rule.

While we could consider the 721 campaign in Tolsan (that didn't ended prettily, the battle was actually more remembered by Arabs than Poitiers/Tours) to be possibly a war of conquest (There were maybe war engines, meaning an intention to take the city by siege), all their military actions in Gaul between 718 and 732 were raids (as the raid of 725 that plundered Sens).

Even without Charles Martel, at least Francia proper was united by Peppinids (critically his father Pepin II). Charles dead, you could actually end with a stronger Francia as you won't have the "Austrasian civil war" between Pepin II heirs, meaning the Ugonids would have the upper hand (or more likely, would keep it).

May I point the odds of conquering a more structured region than the civil war-plagued Spain (more populated as well, from 3/3,5 millions to 5/7 millions), with a severe lack of forces on Muslim side, were...how to say that.

Well, if odds were a wheel, you should dig at the bottom to reach the possibility.
 
And it gets the Norse south in the Atlantic, where they can appreciate the value of trading as well as raiding.

The Norses had their collective...fundamentals...largely kicked by Iberic populations. Not only Umayyads that disposed of a huge fleet (a good comparison would be Somalian pirates taking on Vth Fleet). What they need are not bases placed at the other edge and not really known and from which (if they were so valuable, something I hugely doubt, just look at the distance far from actual bases), what they need are fortified outposts as they had in Gaul or Ireland.
Something actually close from targets, that could serve as trade posts and easily reachable in case of failure.

And 2/3 of the tax is something called jizya, a tax that will be waived if you will just say the magic words La ihala al Allah....three times.....
That's the theory. Now, in sweet reality, even converted people had to pay that, critically in Umayyad Spain.
The magic words didn't meant shit if you weren't issued from Arab tribes or hugely arabized, up to the early X century.

Trade can spread Islam more efficiently than the sword.
This is not how Islam, structurally speaking, managed to expand. Each great religion tend to have a different way of expanding itself, (Hinduism being hugely relayed by trade by exemple), but in almost every exemple I can think of medieval Islam, it was conversion by sword (either conquered and slowly converted population; or defeated and changing religion being a clause of treaty).
For Islamic conception, it was a rightful way to do it and they stopped quickly to send letters asking if rulers of other countries could, pretty please, convert to Islam.
 
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