AHC: Scandinavian invaders establish lasting islamic-"Norman" style polities

raharris1973

Gone Fishin'
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Rolf or rollo in otl was a pagan Viking warlord who seized the mouth of the seine from France, converted to Christianity and established a relatively well-organized polity in Normandy whose "spin-offs" went on to conquer England Ireland southern Italy Sicily and to be a major founding force in eastern Mediterranean crusader states

Could pagan Viking warlords have successfully established themselves further south, in Muslim ruled territories, and converted to Islam, possibly imparting a vigorous new influence? Candidate territories coming to mind include portugal around the mouths of rivers where oporto and Lisbon lie, elsewhere in Spain, especially the far south, morocco. If they on the other hand, come down the eastern route, the Varangian trail, they might perhaps establish an emirate in Muslim ruled caspian littoral, Cyprus, Lebanon, northwest Syria, Palestine or Crete.


Could this be accomplished and could it in turn lead to follow on expansions like occurred from Normandy, leading to norman emirates conducting successful jihad against christian ruled portions of the mediterranean, or takeovers from local dynasties in Egypt Arabia algeria or Persia?
 
There were at least two big raids by the Norse in Morocco around the 9th century. I even tried to do a timeline about the second raid against the Kingdom of Nekor, a predominantly Berber kingdom ruled by the descendants of an Yemeni Arab transplant. The Viking force is unknown in terms of number but they brought sixty-two ships so one may suspect it may have carried quite a few people, maybe a few thousand in total. They annihilated a Moorish force that attempted to stop the plunderers. The Vikings were in Morocco for a good eight days during that raid before returning to attacking the Mediterranean coast of Spain.

I of course took certain liberties as to how and why the Vikings came there in the first place. ;)
 
did your TL get into any long-term consequences?

I didn't get to finish it. I kinda lost interest in continuing it. As for the long term consequences, I suppose the Ummayads would probably like the idea of using these Islamicized Vikings to terrorize Asturias and their other enemies. And things would be interesting if some Viking leader is willing and intelligent enough to exploit the tensions in Andalusi society between the Berbers, Arabs, Muladi and Mozarabic Christians.
 
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