An Islamic Japan

[Dan1988]

Another question would be, how would the pronounce Allah?
Would it become Arra, Arrahu, or what? Or would they adopt the L sound from Arabic/Persian/Korean?

It would definitely be Allah (there's no way around it).

Basically, the flap /ɺ~ɽ/ would be treated as "L", and the trill /r/ would be treated as "R". With that, there's no way that Allah becomes "Arra" (as that would imply disdain towards God).

 

[Ridwan Asher]

Well, there is another way. Make Muslim traders migrate to North-Eastern China.
Then make China persecute Muslims. Then the Muslim Traders could escape to Korea, and then convert Korea to Islam, and make Korea conquer Japan and Islamize Japan.

How ?

I'm not going to speculate with so little knowledge I have about China, but as far as I know muslims only accessed the country through two routes : west and south, where their immediate interests are nearby. I don't know how they will be interested to wrestle East China Sea trade for themselves and for what incentive.

 

[MarshalBraginsky]

Well, would the Shoguns actually like the idea of praying in the direction of Mecca while the daimyos' domains were constantly at war? I'm sure there's bound to be huge cultural changes to an Islamic Japan.

 

[Wolfpaw]

Apparently the Japanese would pronounce it Arrāfu, Arrā or Arā, as they do IRL.

The Chinese also use the term Zhēnzhǔ (Jernjuu) for the God of Islam, which translates into "True Lord." In Japanese, this would be Shinshu.

 

[Amedras]

Creating an Islamic Japan is impossible. Not ASB. Impossible. What makes me say that is that Japan is as far away from the Islamic heartland as you're going to get. This is not going to be a proper vanilla Islamicate society, any more than Indonesia is, because getting a vanilla Islamicate Japan involves the kind of invasion that would make Japan the most virulently anti-Islamic place on the planet.

Creating a Japanese Muslim culture is possible, but it's a project on par with Roman survival; it's possible, just barely, but it's going to butterfly away everything.

The first big question I have is where the Japanese Muslims would be turning to for advice. It's going to take time for Islam to become indigenous, and until that point their scholars and qaris are gonna have to come from somewhere. Where is that? Because whatever the answer is, it's going to have more contact with (and influence on) Japan than anybody IOTL did until the Meiji Restoration.

My other question is how Islam handles the transition to an indigenous Japanese religion. Once the initial iconoclasm is over, how much do Japanese mosques steal from shrine architecture, and how much is Mawlid just another matsuri? What demographics convert, and how does their conversion alter Japanese social dynamics?

I really want to see something like this done, because I love divergent Japans and want more of them in general. A Japanese Muslim society would be stranger than most fantasy settings, up there with Poland-Lithuania and Taiping China. The Mosque of the Silver Pavilion, built in Nagasaki with the pillage the wako brought back? I would trade my firstborn for a chance to see it.

And it makes me sad, because I don't know enough to make an attempt worth reading. Or anybody who does.

 

[Sumeragi]

Creating an Islamic Japan is impossible. Not ASB. Impossible.

I have already addressed the issue. You might want to read a bit.

 

[Sang]

So let's say, a Muslim Korea managed to invade an Islamize Japan, as Sumeragi said.
What's next?
When and how does Japan become independent from Korea?
Does Japan become an Emirate, Sultanate, Caliphate, Shogunate or Empire later?
Does Japan still become fragmented? (Sengoku Jidai)
Does Japan still become a superpower in the early 20th century?
Does Meiji still happen?

 

[eliphas8]

So let's say, a Muslim Korea managed to invade an Islamize Japan, as Sumeragi said.
What's next?
When and how does Japan become independent from Korea?
Does Japan become an Emirate, Sultanate, Caliphate, Shogunate or Empire later?
Does Japan still become fragmented? (Sengoku Jidai)
Does Japan still become a superpower in the early 20th century?
Does Meiji still happen?

1. Probably a caliphate if the Emperor converted if not then a sultanate.
2. Probably not as the noble houses of Japan will be too devastated to really fight each other for awhile
3 & 4. That depends a lot on what happens in the mean time.

 

[Amedras]

I have already addressed the issue. You might want to read a bit.

I've read. I'm just really unconvinced that Islamic Goryeo-wank is more plausible than "Islamic Goryeo:Japan::Ottoman Turkey:Serbia."

So let's say, a Muslim Korea managed to invade an Islamize Japan, as Sumeragi said.
What's next?

Doubly impossible to say. At this point we're talking two nonexistent societies here, one of which is contingent on the other.

Given Sumeragi's idea, though? My best-case scenario is Arab-Persian relations mirrored across the Strait of Tsushima. More realistic scenario is a few centuries of tragedy and horror that comes with colonialism. Or maybe "China notices empire-building in their backyard and sends a few million soldiers to remind everybody who's boss."

 

[Sang]

More realistic scenario is a few centuries of tragedy and horror that comes with colonialism.

So basically...
Muslim Koreans conquering Japan = Norman conquest of England ("a few centuries of tragedy and horror that comes with colonialism")

 

[Amedras]

So basically...
Muslim Koreans conquering Japan = Norman conquest of England

Not "basically" (nothing is certain; this is far gone beyond the realm of fantasy writing), but that's actually a metaphor I hadn't thought of.

What's the relationship between the mainland and the archipelago? Invading Yashima isn't trivial, and depending on how *Japan is administered I could see this evolving in all kinds of interesting ways. (Mind you, a lot of them would be bloody, and probably locking Korea and Japan into a recurring on-and-off cycle of wars, but interesting to read about in an abstract short-term sense.)

 

[Sang]

Not "basically" (nothing is certain; this is far gone beyond the realm of fantasy writing), but that's actually a metaphor I hadn't thought of.

What's the relationship between the mainland and the archipelago? Invading Yashima isn't trivial, and I can see all kinds of interesting politics resulting from that. (Mind you, devastating and bloody politics, but if you ignore the body count, interesting to read about in the short run.)

Invading Japan was never easy.
The Mongols tried it, and it cost them dearly.

For the Koreans, it could cost thousands of men to invade and capture Japan. It would might end up as a Pyrrhic victory, and they wouldn't be able to hold Japan.
Japan might become another Iberia, with it's Reconquista against the Muslim invaders.

Or, if the Koreans win and manage to hold Japan, they might end up forcing Islam down on the Japanese people's throats, eventually Islamizing the country.

Either way, Japan's population would be screwed (in the first case: on the long run, in the second case: only on the short run), and they would indeed have centuries of horror, terror and tragedy...

 

[Amedras]

I'm gonna assume that the initial Islamic Korean conquest was a success; probably a taxing one, but a success anyways.

Or, if the Koreans win and manage to hold Japan, they might end up forcing Islam down on the Japanese people's throats, eventually Islamizing the country.

Or not. There's probably a fair bit of the whole burn-desecrate-pillage routine in the initial conquest, but there's no way to say what Islamic Korea's own attitudes towards religion are. What are they willing to put up with vs. persecute? (At the very least, they're not Islamo-Draka; dystopia is bad for business, and presumably there was some financial reason for conquering the islands in the first place.)

Either way, Japan's population would be screwed (in the first case: on the long run, in the second case: only on the short run)...

Either way, Japanese culture as we know it has been butterflied away. (So has *Korean culture as we know it, for that matter, but we don't know it as well.)

I'm not at all sure what ethnic politics are going to work out to be; too much contingent on all sides. There's going to be blood, and there's going to be bad feelings about it a few centuries later.

There's also going to be at least two completely different cultures evolving in their place. None of that gets appreciated by people in the TL, but we aren't, and for us looking closely at the little details of two radically divergent cultures makes that blood and hurt feelings worthwhile.

(Also makes for some very interesting global politics when the Age of Exploration gets underway.)