AHC: Islamic Romans

Simple enough, make a Roman successor state (or go mad and make the original Empire Islamic) with Islam as it's state religion. Preferably the Byzantine Empire, with extra points awarded if they rewrite the Koran to be more... appropriate, as well as creating a sect that uses Greek/Latin instead of Arabic prayers.
 
Arab conquest of Constantinople. When (I think it's when, not if) the Caliphate breaks up, the newly converted Graeco-Roman aristocracy of the Western Caliphate are able to stamp their influence onto it as decisively as the Persians were able to IOTL.
 
Simple enough, make a Roman successor state (or go mad and make the original Empire Islamic) with Islam as it's state religion. Preferably the Byzantine Empire, with extra points awarded if they rewrite the Koran to be more... appropriate, as well as creating a sect that uses Greek/Latin instead of Arabic prayers.

There's no chance the Byzantines would go Muslim. Christianity was the way that the emperors legitimized themselves. If an emperor alone converted to Islam, they would be instantly killed. There's almost no chance anything like Constantine could happen again, with the intolerance of Christianity combined with the way that much imperial authority came from being the "Equal to the Apostles,"
 
Arab conquest of Constantinople. When (I think it's when, not if) the Caliphate breaks up, the newly converted Graeco-Roman aristocracy of the Western Caliphate are able to stamp their influence onto it as decisively as the Persians were able to IOTL.

If they're recently converted, how likely are they to stay converted? I suppose if they were opportunistic enough to convert in the first place, they might as well stay as they were once the Caliphate shattered.
 

yourworstnightmare

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Simple enough, make a Roman successor state (or go mad and make the original Empire Islamic) with Islam as it's state religion. Preferably the Byzantine Empire, with extra points awarded if they rewrite the Koran to be more... appropriate, as well as creating a sect that uses Greek/Latin instead of Arabic prayers.
Well, the Ottoman Empire if we ignore all the extra points.
 
The Ottoman Empire. ;)

Anyways a successful Arab conquest of Constantinople is the pivotal first step towards the Caliphate expanding to the rest of the Balkans and from there, you can expect the old Greco-Roman ruling class to begin converting in droves to Islam and eventually, break off and claim the Caliphate for themselves. And Roman Islam is likely to have some differences.
 
If they're recently converted, how likely are they to stay converted? I suppose if they were opportunistic enough to convert in the first place, they might as well stay as they were once the Caliphate shattered.

I'd say as likely as the Persians were. Persian religions and traditions are, after all, much older than Roman ones, and the Iranian elite was pretty thoroughly Islamised by the eighth century, after all. If Iranians can become Islamic and then "Iranise", for want of a better term, the Islamic faith, I think it's quite plausible for Romans to become Islamic and "Romanise" Islam. You can see this sort of Roman influence on the Ummayads, after all, prior to the Caliphate's centre of gravity moving decisively eastward with the conversion of the old Sasanian aristocracy.
 
I'd say as likely as the Persians were. Persian religions and traditions are, after all, much older than Roman ones, and the Iranian elite was pretty thoroughly Islamised by the eighth century, after all. If Iranians can become Islamic and then "Iranise", for want of a better term, the Islamic faith, I think it's quite plausible for Romans to become Islamic and "Romanise" Islam. You can see this sort of Roman influence on the Ummayads, after all, prior to the Caliphate's centre of gravity moving decisively eastward with the conversion of the old Sasanian aristocracy.

Well the Romans Romanised Christianity pretty well, so presumeably Islam would adapt in the same way if adopted by the Romans. Islam has quite a lot of local traditions absorbed into it all over the world, to accomodate the beliefs of the people of the region. This in turn leads to bouts of puritanical attempts to distill it. There is little difference from Christianity this way.


Islamic Romans, you could be cheap and have an Islamic claimant to be the successor of the Roman Empire (so basically the Ottoman Empire :rolleyes:) so lets say that the Sultanate of Rum conquers what in the OTL the Ottomans did and presto! :D

That's too easy, so to make it harder, let's make the united empire Muslim: Constantine gets defeated or Julian survives and is suceeded by a pagan heir. That way you have a more tolerant and pluralistic society. The Roman Empire then survives the Germanic invasions (if you don't want to make it a Roman wank then lets say they still lose North Africa, Iberia and/or Gaul). I don't think this implausible considering how long the Roman Empire had already survived, but then you have to not butterfly away Mohammed, and so lets say Arabia, in its relative isolationism, is united under Mohammed. The Arabs then send ambassadors to the Roman Empire, wherever its capital might be by the 7th century, and try to pursuade the Roman emperor to convert. The pagan emperor would probably not convert, but he would probably be receptive to the idea of allowing Muslims to build mosques and preach.

If you throw in some political chaos, or the Arab conquest of the Sassanid Empire, then Islam will seem more appealing. Maybe Arabia becomes an ally of Rome, or maybe it goes to war with them. Rome wins (assumed for the sake of this scenario) and the Arabs come into the Empire, but either way Islam comes into the Empire. Islam would probably be popular among the Christian population, which is likely to be a large minority, and could spread quickly. If we then just let Islam follow the route Christianity did (and I'll use this as a conservative estimate, though Islam in history spread far faster), then within 300 year you have the first Islamic emperor, probably as Islamic as Constantine the Great was Christian (which is very debatable). The Caliph could be another title for the Roman emperor or maybe the Caliph becomes simply an Islamic pope. Or maybe the emperors would cause a schism and this divides Islam between a Roman caliph and an Arab/Persian caliph.

Anyway assuming the emperor becomes a Muslim, this should pave the way for a Muslim Roman Empire by 1000 AD.
 
I think it's quite plausible for Romans to become Islamic and "Romanise" Islam. You can see this sort of Roman influence on the Ummayads, after all, prior to the Caliphate's centre of gravity moving decisively eastward with the conversion of the old Sasanian aristocracy.
I wholeheartedly support that it was quite plausible.
That would definitely change the course of history.
 
If it's acceptable to start over with a new idea rather than elaborating on others' (I honestly don't know the protocol for this)...

As others have pointed out, Christianity was well entrenched in the Roman Empire by the 300s at the very latest. In order to make an Islamic Roman Empire, I would maintain that you'd need one of two things: an Islamic world so successful that Christian resistance can be overcome, or a Roman Empire where Christianity is not popular, making it Islam vs. assorted paganism instead of Islam vs. Christianity.

Various points of divergence I'd suggest, with the caveat that I'm no expert on early Christianity; a dead or otherwise incapacitated Apostle Paul, a more effective repression by an emperor after Nero and before Constantine, longer reign by Julian the Apostate, etc (all intended to create a world where Christianity is not popular). OR, and keeping in mind that I know even less about the circumstances of Arab expansion, you'd need a Caliphate that could take Constantinople and Rome, besides more general regions like North Africa and probably Greece, before falling prey to internal divisions.
 
Simple enough, make a Roman successor state (or go mad and make the original Empire Islamic) with Islam as it's state religion. Preferably the Byzantine Empire, with extra points awarded if they rewrite the Koran to be more... appropriate, as well as creating a sect that uses Greek/Latin instead of Arabic prayers.
English isn't my main language, so what does AHC mean ?

Also, Quran has no human authors.

Yours,
 

yourworstnightmare

Banned
Donor
English isn't my main language, so what does AHC mean ?

Also, Quran has no human authors.

Yours,
1. AHC= Alternate History Challenge
2. The extra points challenge is to have Greco- Roman bastardized version of Islam, one very different from the OTL (our time line) Islam.
3. If you ignore the extra points and just want a Islamic Roman Empire, the OTL Ottoman Empire already fulfill the requirements.
4. We try to not involve much theology in our discussions (especially the nature of God, etc.) It gets messy. (There is chat for that, but even there...)
 
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I wholeheartedly support that it was quite plausible.
That would definitely change the course of history.

It would have an interesting impact on what constitutes East and West. Even in OTL, the Islamic World was influenced by Greek philosophy to a great degree. In this TL, it'd be even more explicit. The impact on the so-called "Clash of Civilisations" would be very interesting, perhaps overzealous Germanic Europeans will begin to consider Hellenic culture part of the mysterious and despotic East, in need of civilising by the freedom loving individualistic West!
 
It would have an interesting impact on what constitutes East and West. Even in OTL, the Islamic World was influenced by Greek philosophy to a great degree. In this TL, it'd be even more explicit. The impact on the so-called "Clash of Civilisations" would be very interesting, perhaps overzealous Germanic Europeans will begin to consider Hellenic culture part of the mysterious and despotic East, in need of civilising by the freedom loving individualistic West!

Well, they basically felt that anyway in OTL...
 
It would have an interesting impact on what constitutes East and West. Even in OTL, the Islamic World was influenced by Greek philosophy to a great degree. In this TL, it'd be even more explicit. The impact on the so-called "Clash of Civilisations" would be very interesting, perhaps overzealous Germanic Europeans will begin to consider Hellenic culture part of the mysterious and despotic East, in need of civilising by the freedom loving individualistic West!
Rus would probably be Muslim in this ATL. Islamic Russia would nave changed something globally as well.
 
This made me remember a muslims country named after romans:
Sultanate of Rum
The term "Rûm" comes from the Arabic word for the Roman Empire. The Seljuqs called the lands of their sultanate Rum because it had been established on territory long considered "Roman", i.e. Byzantine, by Muslim armies. The state is occasionally called the Sultanate of Konya (or Sultanate of Iconium) in older western sources.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sultanate_of_Rum
 

J.D.Ward

Donor
Constantinople as the second city of Islam?

When Mohammed is driven out of Mecca, how far can he go?

OTL Medina.

What happens if he leaves Arabia and goes to Constantinople?
 
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