The last few weeks I've been playing a good deal of Crusader Kings II, partially explaining why I've been taking a break from my Amalingian TL. While playing my most recent scenario as an Irish dynasty, I was horrified/bemused to see that an Islamic dynasty had managed to secure the Byzantine throne and were busy converting the population to the Sunni faith. Two centuries later, the Orthodox Church has been almost entirely overwhelmed and the Holy Roman Empire just had repulse a Sunni jihad for Sicily.
Now, before anyone speaks up; I'm very aware that strategy games (even amazing ones like CKII or the rest of the Paradox line) do not always lead to the most realistic alternate history scenarios. But, that being said, the entire thing got me to thinking:
Would it have been possible (perhaps not likely, but possible) for a native Greek dynasty to come to power in the Byzantine Empire which embraced the Islamic faith and went about converting the Greek people to that faith.
A secondary question: even if the Byzantines go Islamic, I suspect that they would come to embrace a version of the faith which would be unique to the Greek speaking world. 1) the faith would need to adapt to the Greek culture if it was to truly take hold and 2) from a political standpoint, it would be in the best interest of the dynasty to differentiate itself from the faith embraced by the Caliphate. And so, how would a Greek Islam develop?
Now, before anyone speaks up; I'm very aware that strategy games (even amazing ones like CKII or the rest of the Paradox line) do not always lead to the most realistic alternate history scenarios. But, that being said, the entire thing got me to thinking:
Would it have been possible (perhaps not likely, but possible) for a native Greek dynasty to come to power in the Byzantine Empire which embraced the Islamic faith and went about converting the Greek people to that faith.
A secondary question: even if the Byzantines go Islamic, I suspect that they would come to embrace a version of the faith which would be unique to the Greek speaking world. 1) the faith would need to adapt to the Greek culture if it was to truly take hold and 2) from a political standpoint, it would be in the best interest of the dynasty to differentiate itself from the faith embraced by the Caliphate. And so, how would a Greek Islam develop?