Can Islamsism be prevented

WI there had been no Balfour delcaration and no largescale Jewish migration to Palestine and British authorities and the Congress party had found ways of doing a deal in Jinnah and thus preventing Pakistan.

(I must say I like the idea of South Africa welcoming Jewish migrants and refugees and that shifting the balance of the white electorate)

How significnt would Islamism be?

What would be the consequences in the Arab World?
 
IIRC white South Africa's idea of Jews as a means to boost the white population didn't last very long, and the initially warm feelings were unanswered. Jews tended to support liberal movements.

Don't remember where I read this though, it could be wrong.

Remember that the muslim world were more conservative and resisted modern-age reforms much longer than Europe. Once the muslim world lags behind in technology and power, a way to blame the infidels for this is needed for reasons of pride, and that way is islamism.
 
Whilst you might get rid of Israel as a major irritant and the various Indo-Pakistani conflicts doesn't really do anything to change the fundamentalist Wahhabi religious nutters in Saudi Arabia, and once they get the oil money behind them they can start seriously exporting their extremist beliefs as they've done in our timeline. As I understand things up until the last twenty years or so Islam in a lot of regions was pretty moderate, it's been inflows of Saudi cash for mosques and madrassas along with the accompanying Wahhabi propaganda that's started moving things more to the extremes.

I've often wondered what might of happened if more moderate rulers had come to take over Arabia instead. The Hashemite Kingdom of Hejaz taking them over is one of the most popular propositions but there's been some debate about how achievable that might of been, another idea I had was one of the tribes from the Al-Hasa region managing to stay independent or win out. Better yet combine the two, a surviving Kingdom of Hejaz along the west coast and an Al-Hasa/Bani Khalid state along the eastern coast containing most of the gas and oil fields.
 
WI there had been no Balfour delcaration and no largescale Jewish migration to Palestine and British authorities and the Congress party had found ways of doing a deal in Jinnah and thus preventing Pakistan.

(I must say I like the idea of South Africa welcoming Jewish migrants and refugees and that shifting the balance of the white electorate)

How significnt would Islamism be?

What would be the consequences in the Arab World?

It can be done, but you'll definitely need to butterfly one Muhammad ibn Abd al-Wahhab: he was essentially the founder of modern radical Islam.....in fact, maybe even farther than that. :(
 
As others have said, have the Hashemis defeat the Al-Sauds leading to the formation of The Hashemite Kingdom of Arabia, in a best case scenario it's a scaled up version of Jordan with all that oil money. This won't prevent Islamism per se, there will always be nutters with radical agendas, but they won't have the quiet backing of the Saudis, until they start to turn their attention towards them and won't become as strong as they are today.

This may prevent the emergence of the Talibsn and other extremist groups but would it prevent Khomeini in Iran especially if the Shah tries his White Revolution as per OTL?
 

RousseauX

Donor
WI there had been no Balfour delcaration and no largescale Jewish migration to Palestine and British authorities and the Congress party had found ways of doing a deal in Jinnah and thus preventing Pakistan.

(I must say I like the idea of South Africa welcoming Jewish migrants and refugees and that shifting the balance of the white electorate)

How significnt would Islamism be?

What would be the consequences in the Arab World?
Just avoid the 1967 war and Islamism gets forestalled for at least a couple of decades because Nasserism does not get discredited.
 
Continue the Islamic Golden Age. Or have an Islamic Platinum age instead, which gets further or focuses on more practical engineering instead. Then the mogals can run headfirst into massed musket fire.

Of course then you'd probably end up in a world with militant christianism.
 
As I understand it the Al-Sauds can be just as decadent as anyone else, is there any point they could have purged the Wahabi clerics.

Or just not made that devil's bargain in the first place?
 
No need to butterfly the saudis, you just need to prevent british support for them leading to the takeover of a large part of the arabian peninsula and naming it after their family.
The hashemites were moderate and well in tune with western culture as well as being traditional muslims, their problem was that they had too much influence with the rest of the muslim world and prestige for the british to stomach.
You had delegations form India, and african muslims going to mecca and begging
the sharif to take up the khalifate.
And Sharif hussien was getting a bit uppity after the end of world war 1 and he forgot that he was dependent on british goodwill for money and arms, so he had to go.
The saudis got supplies of weapons and ammo and he got nothing, and they had allot of fanatical wahabi inspired tribesmen, so he lost.

Before world war 1 the Wahabis were considered by most muslims to be some weird cult outside the fold of mainstream Islam.
As soon as the oil money started flowing by the 60's they were already exporting their interpretation of islam by building madarassas and funding the construction of mosques throughout the muslim world as well as charitable activities.
Wahabism was starting to take hold and spread form the 70's onwards, and the imagie of saudis changed to be one of benevolent and pious muslims, instead of dangerous cultists.

sadly today and growing percentage of the muslim population share the same beliefs and the wahabi or salafi interpretation of islam is becoming mainstream.
 
It was the actions of Britain and U.S.A. which contributed to the growth of the Islamic fundamentalism to a great extent. The first action was the creation of Saudi Arabia. The Saudis should have never been allowed to own such a large part of the Arabian Peninsula.The western and the eastern halves should have been kept separate and the western half containing the holy cities of Mecca and Medina should have been entrusted to the Hashemites.
Then comes the creation of Israel. A homeland for the Jews could have been founded somewhere else. Even if it was to be in the present spot, the Palestine also should have been established simultaneously. The West Bank and some parts of Jordan also could be included. The Hashemites wouldn't have complained if they got a large tract of Arabia.
The creation of Pakistan could have been avoided, but for the machinations of the British Government. If the birth of Pakistan was the action of Britain, its survival was ensured by the U.S.A.
It was the action of U.S.A. arming the Mujahideen in Afghanistan that brought Taliban into power there. The Taliban Government was propped up by Pakistan through I.S.I. Even today the Taliban's battle against U.S.A. and Allies is covertly supported by the I.S.I.
The U.S.A. and the Western powers have always upheld the conservative and fundamentalists like Saudis in the Middle East and tried to displace the secular and progressive rulers. It was Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, close allies of U.S.A. which have financed and provided arms and training for Islamist terrorists all over the world.
 
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