AHC: Romance speaking and Muslim in NW African.

With a POD no later than the 13h century, create a country in the Maghreb that uses a Romance language is some official capacity, is spoken by the masses AND said population is majority Muslim that lasts until modern times. How would such a polity interact with Europe knowing that they owe at least part of their existence to a shared Roman/Western heritage? During the age of imperialism, assuming it still takes place, how does this nation fit into the European world view?
 
Have the Caliphate Empire collapse earlier than it did OTL, before Arabic can be instituted in all the places it was conquered. At least one of the successor states in the Maghreb, probably centered around Africa (the Roman province, not the continent), continues to use the old African Romance language. It was already influential on North African Arabic IOTL (according to wikipedia anyway). So less of a push from an Arabic based empire might be enough to end up with a creole that eventually evolves into its own thing. Another option would be having al-Andalus adopt the Mozarabic language and then conquer parts of North Africa or at least become culturally important enough that it spreads on its own.

As for their interaction with Europe, it probably wouldn't be that dissimilar to OTL. The Christians really didn't like the Cathars, even though they spoke the same language, so I don't see why they'd tolerate Muslims that speak a similar language.
 
Arabic was the prestige language of Islam, and the ruling class of North Africa had been Berbers since the final decline of the Western Empire (with intermissions of the Vandals and Byzantines in certain parts). The African Romance language was also deeply associated with the Christian population of the region (they were called Afariqa in some parts, obviously a reference to Africa the Roman province). I just don't see a reason why the Berber Muslim ruling class of the Maghreb should adopt the language of Christians, be it Latin or African Romance.
 
What about a surviving Exarchate timeline - Egypt still gets conquered, but the invasions of Africa fail to succeed, leaving Africa where it is.

Instead, it undertakes the same effects as the Caliphates Indian Ocean trade partners. People in cities convert, and eventually the Exarchate is either converted, or overthrown internally. If we mimic Indonesia and Pakistan, they didn't change their languages to Arabic, even if the language made some headway.

What could be interesting, is if there is a significant attempt to build monasteries to reinforce Christianity in the mountains and beyond, that when the cities start to flip and certain tribes do, they get converted into ready-built mosques.

Interestingly, you can make a legal argument that this would be capable of building a Muslim "Western Roman Empire", which if wanked a bit, could have a world with a Muslim WRE restoration, with a reduced Orthodox (and perhaps converting?) ERE, Egyptian, Persian, and Arabian Muslim Empires, and a mix of Catholic and Pagan Germany. It'd be a very different world.
 
But that didn't happen anywhere else in Europe/the Mediterranean world so why would it happen in North Africa? They're still going to have plenty of trade with Christian Europe too. If it did, then you might as well have a significant amount of Europe convert to Islam as a result as well.
 
But that didn't happen anywhere else in Europe/the Mediterranean world so why would it happen in North Africa? They're still going to have plenty of trade with Christian Europe too. If it did, then you might as well have a significant amount of Europe convert to Islam as a result as well.

Well, to my knowledge, only a few intermediaries actually traded directly with the Muslim world, most refusing to, and applying scrutiny to those that did. There is a difference between those and the Exarchate.

The Exarchate would be under a Greek Rite government, ruling over largely Latin Rite Christians. It is possible for them to go full Latin Rite and be their own schism, go them - but the whole point is there is less scrutiny. They also have to be self sufficient in many of the ways a state requires. But they also lack a Patriarch. They're in a weird place religiously where they don't have the same level of religious institutions as the Roman Empire, or under the same political pressures as Catholic Merchants smuggling out artefacts.

Plus, who is to say that there isn't an active effort. Traders set up, and then petition to be allowed to have a mosque, and snowball.
 
Perhaps it'd be prudent for the Arabs to have maintained Islam's early reputation as an Arab-centric religion and any non-Arab Muslim converts as second-class. There is no "Abbasid Revolution" and resentment continues to grow. The Mawla, kept from serving in the upper echelons of government and military, eventually revolt. The Berbers force the Ummayads out of North Africa except Egypt and form their independent statelets, Muslim but free from any pretense of Arabizing. Among the areas populated by Romance-speaking populations, the local leaderships introduce de-Arabization of society, state and culture and promote local identities.
 
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