Arab Australia?

[Lothal]

What if Oman or another Arabic nation colonize Australia? Or what if Britain used Arabs as settlers for Australia? Australia has the same climate (mostly) the same climate as most of the Arab world and camels OTL were accidentally feralized by Britian who used them for transportation. So what would this Australia look like and what would the POD be?

 

[Martinus Paduei]

Most likely, you'd need knowledge of a valuable resource in (northwestern, most likely) Australia to become known in the wider world. Perhaps some of the aboriginals find gold deposits and start to make use of them for ornamentation, then news of this filters out through traders in Makassar.

The only other thing I can think of is some POD where a chunk of Arab refugees need to get far, far away from somebody--perhaps because of religious persecution, either from adherents to a different religion, or by adherents to a different flavor of Islam.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Chunks of Australia, basically the east coast and south western Australia are good agricultural land, in a pleasant climate. The Brits aren't going to give any of that up.

Suppose they do settle Arabs in the desert in the middle - they'll only end up as a few percent of the population of the continent, precisely because that land's desert and can't carry many.

So that's not going to give you an 'Arab Australia'.
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As for Arabs doing it on their own. When did they ever set up settle colonies anywhere? You'd first have to have something in Australia for them to trade for, then you could get Arab trading communities and an Arab based creole could be a lingua franca for the continent. But that wouldn't be "Arab Australia" any more than OTL has an "Arab East Africa".

 

[SinghKing]

Chunks of Australia, basically the east coast and south western Australia are good agricultural land, in a pleasant climate. The Brits aren't going to give any of that up.

Suppose they do settle Arabs in the desert in the middle - they'll only end up as a few percent of the population of the continent, precisely because that land's desert and can't carry many.

So that's not going to give you an 'Arab Australia'.
----

As for Arabs doing it on their own. When did they ever set up settle colonies anywhere? You'd first have to have something in Australia for them to trade for, then you could get Arab trading communities and an Arab based creole could be a lingua franca for the continent. But that wouldn't be "Arab Australia" any more than OTL has an "Arab East Africa".

You mean, OTL's Somalia and Zanzibar? And Mayotte, the Comoros, and the Seychelles? Can't these regions still be counted as OTL's 'Arab East Africa'?

 

[Martinus Paduei]

As for Arabs doing it on their own. When did they ever set up settle colonies anywhere? You'd first have to have something in Australia for them to trade for, then you could get Arab trading communities and an Arab based creole could be a lingua franca for the continent. But that wouldn't be "Arab Australia" any more than OTL has an "Arab East Africa".

Well, its not an especially high probability TL, but not ASB either, and it all depends upon how much resistance there is, what resources are found and how quickly. I can see a situation somewhat similar to North Africa, though with less Arabization. You will have some Arab states, some Aboriginal states, a lot of admixture between the two, and if the POD happens early enough, a pretty thoroughly Islamized continent.

 

[SinghKing]

Well, its not an especially high probability TL, but not ASB either, and it all depends upon how much resistance there is, what resources are found and how quickly. I can see a situation somewhat similar to North Africa, though with less Arabization. You will have some Arab states, some Aboriginal states, a lot of admixture between the two, and if the POD happens early enough, a pretty thoroughly Islamized continent.

So, like the situation in Indonesia? Not much of a stretch...