Caliph in Constantinople: Hellenized Islamic World ATL

[Falecius]

True. It was every Muslim scholars (except Khawarij, some Shiite sects and Salafi) to preserve the Ummah and avoid Fitna (discord). The difficulty I see here is to create a Ummah that would take Mu'tazalites as a mainstream ideology with Greek influences (perhaps Gnostics?) that are not immediately labelled as Bidaa (innovation in religion). Can you even imagine the fierceness of a Greek Khawarij movement after the Arabs shun Greek culture or a Khawarij revolt against the nobility of the Mu'tazalites. Like I said earlier, I feel Greece could become like Iran, Muslim but opposed to the widespread use of Arabic and somewhat different in theology an application of Shariah, perhaps icons are slightly more accepted.

Interesting ideas. Kawarij ideals IOTL seem to work better in lightly urbanized milieus, so I think that the opposition in Hellenic areas is more likely to embrace an analog to Zaydi Shi'a, but I think you are spot on.

Answering the Syriac connection, I was not saying built off of as in the language itself but it is obvious that Kufic and Naskh were built from the Syriac script as used in Iraq abd Edessa from 200 BC till the 500s AD.

Actually the overwhelming consensus nowadays is that the Arabic script evolved from Nabatean script, not Syriac (as posited, among others, by Starcky in the sixties). Recent findings in Saudi Arabia appear to confirm this strongly, although they are not published yet. However, there is an undeniable Syriac influence in some letter shapes, particularly in Kufic. When I studied Semitic Philology some years ago, Syriac derivation was still considered a serious hypothesis by some, but the work by Gruendler and Healey in the nineties is fairly compelling about the Nabatean origin of Arabic script, and some later discoveries have tended to confirm it. (There is a Saudi scholar who suggests a South Arabian derivation. His ideas are interesting, but, as far as I can tell, pretty weakly supported by any known evidence.)

 

[hasdrubal barca]

Cool wit me.
I'd look forward to a prequel.

Why not have the Abbasid choke off the more metaphysical and politically controversial proponents of the mu'tazilites in favor of those more geared to the harder sciences? Maybe have them concentrate on more tangible avenues or judge their worth based on how they can enrich the caliphate as a whole, from the common man all the way to Caliph?

Sounds good to me. The Mihna inquisition style stuff defiantly isn't helping the Mu'tazilites popularity .

 

[John7755 يوحنا]

Interesting ideas. Kawarij ideals IOTL seem to work better in lightly urbanized milieus, so I think that the opposition in Hellenic areas is more likely to embrace an analog to Zaydi Shi'a, but I think you are spot on.



Actually the overwhelming consensus nowadays is that the Arabic script evolved from Nabatean script, not Syriac (as posited, among others, by Starcky in the sixties). Recent findings in Saudi Arabia appear to confirm this strongly, although they are not published yet. However, there is an undeniable Syriac influence in some letter shapes, particularly in Kufic. When I studied Semitic Philology some years ago, Syriac derivation was still considered a serious hypothesis by some, but the work by Gruendler and Healey in the nineties is fairly compelling about the Nabatean origin of Arabic script, and some later discoveries have tended to confirm it. (There is a Saudi scholar who suggests a South Arabian derivation. His ideas are interesting, but, as far as I can tell, pretty weakly supported by any known evidence.)

I would love to see a Zaydi Greece, I used the Shurha mainly because they are known by most people and they are extremely anti Arab nobility.

I was under the impression that Nabatean was highly influenced by the Syriac and Aramaic script. However based upon similiarities I would say that many of the styles in Kufic are derived from Syriac and the style of writing in Iraq. Perhaps I should study more the possible origins of the Arabic scripts. A south Arabian origin would be interesting.

 

[hasdrubal barca]

I would love to see a Zaydi Greece, I used the Shurha mainly because they are known by most people and they are extremely anti Arab nobility.
.

A Zaydi Greece does sound interesting. The Shiites would be more tolerant to the Christian communities.

 

[Falecius]

I would love to see a Zaydi Greece, I used the Shurha mainly because they are known by most people and they are extremely anti Arab nobility.

I was under the impression that Nabatean was highly influenced by the Syriac and Aramaic script. However based upon similiarities I would say that many of the styles in Kufic are derived from Syriac and the style of writing in Iraq. Perhaps I should study more the possible origins of the Arabic scripts. A south Arabian origin would be interesting.

Nabatean is Aramaic, so it's cousin to Syriac, as they diverged from a common source that appears to have been a form of Late Imperial Aramaic used under the last Achaemenids. Syriac scripts reflects various other influences as well (e.g. Parthian and Palmyrene, which in turn are other offsoot of Imperial Aramaic) and the whole thing is pretty convoluted, particularly because we don't have a lot samples of Aramaic writing from Hellenistic and Roman times that are not from Nabatene and Palmyra. Nabatean seems to have evolved largely independently (I am referring only to the script here, i.e. the letterforms, regardless of the language it was used to write) but after it was adopted to write Arabic later on (sporadically perhaps already in the II century AD, although this dating is controversial) a Syriac influx appeared. You are right that some letterforms in Kufic purposefully resemble Syriac, but the basis is Nabatean.
A good and not too specialistic introduction to all this is "The Early Alphabet" by John Healey, which should be freely available on the Net. It's a little dated the broad outline is still generally valid.
A South Arabian origin seems unlikely on the basis of known evidence. On the other hand, known evidence is scant on the Arabic side, less than twenty inscriptions (as opposed to thousands of Nabatean ones, and tens of thousands of known ones, and likely hundreds of thousands of undiscovered ones, in the various "South Arabian" scripts and the related "North Arabian" ones.
I am holding my breath for the details to be published by a French archeological mission about the "transitional" script between Nabatean and "Arabic"* whose discovery in Southern Saudi Arabia has been announced last July.

* You could call it "proto-Kufic" I guess, although palaeographers would likely protest.

 

[Falecius]

A Zaydi Greece does sound interesting. The Shiites would be more tolerant to the Christian communities.

Not necessarily, and Zaydism as we know it would be butterflied away ITTL - but I was suggesting that it may be a rough guide to what an oppositional ideology that is successful in Islamized Greek areas ITTL could look like.