AHC/WI: Several European countries convert to Islam peacefully like Indonesia

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Islam with its' dietary laws in general and Ramadan in special is ill suited for more northerly latitudes. It simply woudn't do if a considerable portion the more religiously observant part of your population dies from dehydration whenever Ramadan happens to fall within 30 days of the summer solistice. So this pretty much rules out Scandinavia. Other regions that would have been unlikely to convert to Islam are those where viticulture was economically important so I'm rather doubtful that Italy, France or Greece would have converted voluntarily.
I'm skeptical that those restriction would really block people from converting, I'm quite sure Islamic law is flexible enough to not force people to starve(aren't sick people, pregnant women and children excluded from having to strictly abide to some of the dietary things?)
 
I'm skeptical that those restriction would really block people from converting, I'm quite sure Islamic law is flexible enough to not force people to starve(aren't sick people, pregnant women and children excluded from having to strictly abide to some of the dietary things?)
Or more likely they have a local version of Islam that skips or replaces Ramadan. For example in Indonesia there is/was a variant sect that only prayed 3 times a day instead of 5.
 
I'm skeptical that those restriction would really block people from converting, I'm quite sure Islamic law is flexible enough to not force people to starve(aren't sick people, pregnant women and children excluded from having to strictly abide to some of the dietary things?)

Banning eating pig and blood (both important sources of calories), banning alcohol (light beer and cider was pretty much the only safe thing to drink), fasting which followed a weird moon calendar, which fit very badly with their lifestyle, a legal system which to large extent ran counter to their own and no political benefit in converting. yes I guess the Europeans could convert to a version of Islam, which remove anything Islamic, but I can't see a reason why.
 

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Banning eating pig and blood (both important sources of calories), banning alcohol (light beer and cider was pretty much the only safe thing to drink), fasting which followed a weird moon calendar, which fit very badly with their lifestyle, a legal system which to large extent ran counter to their own and no political benefit in converting. yes I guess the Europeans could convert to a version of Islam, which remove anything Islamic, but I can't see a reason why.
Well, the Hanafi school (followed by 1/3 of Sunni Muslims) only considers wine and other grape-based alcohols haram. Alcohol derived by means of honey, barley, wheat and millet such as whisky, beer and vodka are permitted in the Hanafi school. So the ban on intoxicants wouldn't really affect the Kievan Rus or Vikings.

Alcohol was never the main source of water in ancient or medieval times. Natural bodies of water, and well water, were the main sources of water, which is why waterborne illness was such a big problem.

For the most part, historically, people didn't even realize that water could be polluted until the 1800s unless the water itself actually smelled and tasted bad. Even when London's sewer system was being redesigned in the 1860s they thought bad air and miasma rather than bacteria and toxins were what spread disease, although they did correctly identify contaminated water as the root of the problem.

Islam with its' dietary laws in general and Ramadan in special is ill suited for more northerly latitudes. It simply woudn't do if a considerable portion the more religiously observant part of your population dies from dehydration whenever Ramadan happens to fall within 30 days of the summer solistice. So this pretty much rules out Scandinavia. Other regions that would have been unlikely to convert to Islam are those where viticulture was economically important so I'm rather doubtful that Italy, France or Greece would have converted voluntarily.
Dehydration? In Scandinavia, which has hundreds of thousands of lakes and rivers?
 
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Islam with its' dietary laws in general and Ramadan in special is ill suited for more northerly latitudes. It simply woudn't do if a considerable portion the more religiously observant part of your population dies from dehydration whenever Ramadan happens to fall within 30 days of the summer solistice. So this pretty much rules out Scandinavia. Other regions that would have been unlikely to convert to Islam are those where viticulture was economically important so I'm rather doubtful that Italy, France or Greece would have converted voluntarily.

This is a bit silly.

I'm aware that the sun never sets in some places during the summer, and that therefore at face value, Muslims would simply not be able to survive Ramadan (since they eat and drink only after sundown during Ramadan).

However in practice Muslims are a bit more pragmatic than that. There are several exemptions from Ramadan which include people who are ill, pregnant women, young children and anyone on a journey who travels more than 50 miles, plus certain kinds of hard manual labour.

In addition in more recent years this question has been encountered by Muslims in Sweden and other northern latitudes. The accepted answer is that they follow the sunset and sundown times of the nearest Muslim country, or they can simply follow the Mecca timetable. For example, using the Mecca timeline for today means Muslims can eat and drink at 6.58pm. They do not need to begin fasting again until 04.12.

So you see, the weather/climate in the far north isn't necessarily a barrier to a hypothetical Muslim conversion of the far north.
 
Both Russian and Persian sources suggest that Vladimir (who, after a brief attempt at centralizing Slavic paganism, chose Orthodoxy) considered conversion to Sunni Islam. Once Kievan Rus goes Muslim, there's a good chance at Lithuania becoming Muslim too.
than they would most likely adapt Arabic script for their languages. East Slavic names would see a significant Arabization.
 
Banning eating pig and blood (both important sources of calories), banning alcohol (light beer and cider was pretty much the only safe thing to drink), fasting which followed a weird moon calendar, which fit very badly with their lifestyle, a legal system which to large extent ran counter to their own and no political benefit in converting. yes I guess the Europeans could convert to a version of Islam, which remove anything Islamic, but I can't see a reason why.
Well, the Hanafi school (followed by 1/3 of Sunni Muslims) only considers wine and other grape-based alcohols haram. Alcohol derived by means of honey, barley, wheat and millet such as whisky, beer and vodka are permitted in the Hanafi school. So the ban on intoxicants wouldn't really affect the Kievan Rus or Vikings.

Alcohol was never the main source of water in ancient or medieval times. Natural bodies of water, and well water, were the main sources of water, which is why waterborne illness was such a big problem.
(...)
OK, that might settle the beverages, the ban on pork and blood (there are a lot of black pudding variants across Europe) is more problematic. Pigs are actually very efficient animals to have and their needs are better served in the European environment than in the Middle East. Pork, was a very important source of protein, don't underestimate this.

As for water, well things like light table beer were indeed the safer thing to drink in the European towns of this period.
 
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