Challenge: Butterfly away islam

[DuQuense]

We could have Muhammed convert to Coptic Christianity somehow, before he founds Islam. He helps convert Arabia to Christianity. Of course, Judaism will grow as well.

Wasn't this sort of thing one of the premises Turtledove had in Agent of Byzantium? He had St. Mohamet be a convert to Christianity when he was a trader visiting Syria, then end up as a hymn-writer, bishop of Ispania, and patron saint of changes.

No need for any Conversions.
Turtledove forgot that Mohammad started out as a Cristian reformer [like Luther 1000 years later]
After disagreement with the Bishop of Mecca, Mohammad was kicked out of town.
He was taken in by the Arab tribesmen where he learned about Allah, and wrote his reformed religion.
Avoid the argument, or the taking in by the Tribes, and Islam never comes, or comes very different.

That isn't the problem, the problem is that even the "heretical" Christians who hate Constantinoble will fight to the death against the Jews. But the question is academic because the Arabs will first turn Jewish after the Arab Eruption, so we likely just see a few short term Arab Kingdoms in the Crescent.

In the first decade of the 500's one of the Yemini rulers converted to Judaism, This lead to a war with Axum, where Axum Conquered Yemen.
Have this war go different and you get a large prosperous Jewish kingdom at the south end of the red sea. 150 years before the Eruption.

 

[Ptholemaios]

No need for any Conversions.
Turtledove forgot that Mohammad started out as a Cristian reformer [like Luther 1000 years later]
After disagreement with the Bishop of Mecca, Mohammad was kicked out of town.
He was taken in by the Arab tribesmen where he learned about Allah, and wrote his reformed religion.
Avoid the argument, or the taking in by the Tribes, and Islam never comes, or comes very different.

And that is now best option from my point of view. Having Mohammad as just the local Christian reformer who was not kicked out, but instead was tolerated, as the Franciscans were.

 

[Snake Featherston]

And that is now best option from my point of view. Having Mohammad as just the local Christian reformer who was not kicked out, but instead was tolerated, as the Franciscans were.

Except Copts are heretical by both Eastern and Western standards due to Christology. Without Islam to distract the Eastern Christians, you might see Eastern Christians infighting in the manner Western Christians are still going to do ITTL.

 

[Ptholemaios]

Maybe Zoroastrianis could distract the Eastern Christianity, as Islam does IOTL? It could work out well with Persia never conquered by the Moslems.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Maybe Zoroastrianis could distract the Eastern Christianity, as Islam does IOTL? It could work out well with Persia never conquered by the Moslems.

There's a bit of a difference between the early Muslim societies and the Sassanid Empire, nor is there a guarantee that Sassanid Iran would have lasted beyond a generation or two longer barring a Muslim conquest. Now, another Zoroastrian empire may well have emerged, but methinks the Eastern Roman Empire would have been helping itself to parts of Sassanid Persia after the collapse. Then there's the issue of the Scientific Revolution. If it comes at all, it will emerge in the Byzantine empire, but what would be the trigger for Bzyantines to flee to Western Europe? And then, when the Mongols show up (the butterfly effect will have as hard a time barring the Mongols as it would an Arab Irruption of some sort)....

Sassanid Persia or its perhaps second or third successor state will collapse, and perhaps Byzantium as well.

 

[Ptholemaios]

Maybe after this thread I'll go to making a TL. Persia may survive well enough to just change ruling dynasty. What would you say to one of the steppe tribes taking Zoroastrianism as their religion and thus creating second Zoroastrian superpower on the borders of Russia, Hungary and Byzantium?

 

[Snake Featherston]

Maybe after this thread I'll go to making a TL. Persia may survive well enough to just change ruling dynasty. What would you say to one of the steppe tribes taking Zoroastrianism as their religion and thus creating second Zoroastrian superpower on the borders of Russia, Hungary and Byzantium?

Russia crushes it like it crushed the Buddhist khanates in Siberia IOTL or the Golden Horde IOTL as well.

 

[Ptholemaios]

Maybe there is a factor which could make the new empire stronger? At least strong enough to prove a threat to Russia, Byzantium and Hungary.

 

[Snake Featherston]

Maybe there is a factor which could make the new empire stronger? At least strong enough to prove a threat to Russia, Byzantium and Hungary.

What factor would that be? Remember, for quite some time Russia was weak...and now Russia still rules nearly all of Siberia and much of European Russia. Byzantium might grow stronger, or it might end up collapsing like the West did. Hungary would eventually come into contact with a growing Russia and would end up on the losing side of that spectrum. Russia's march to its current size, IMHO, is as unstoppable as a society in the eastern part of North America that gains the Mississippi coming to gain control over the better part of North America.

 

[Constantius]

Well, depending on when you choose your PoD, there might not be any sort of Russia.

 

[Ptholemaios]

I decided my PoD as 622 AD, with Muhammad becoming Christian Patriarch of Mekkah, instead of founding Islam. I would like to forge Russia, but as a competing force to the new Khanate in south.

What sort of nomadic tribe was dominate south of Russia at 9th-10th century?

 

[Snake Featherston]

Well, depending on when you choose your PoD, there might not be any sort of Russia.

There will however, be societies built by rivers like the Volga, Don, and Dnieper, and the region of Moscow's in as good a position to conquer what it did IOTL as Jamestown and Plymouth were. This butterflies away, possibly, an Age of Exploration on the scale we know today, as well, so there's no US.

 

[Snake Featherston]

I decided my PoD as 622 AD, with Muhammad becoming Christian Patriarch of Mekkah, instead of founding Islam. I would like to forge Russia, but as a competing force to the new Khanate in south.

What sort of nomadic tribe was dominate south of Russia at 9th-10th century?

Depends. If we're talking Tsarist Russia as Russia, then there's the Central Asian nomads that are so wanked IOTL. If we're talking Kievan Rus, then there's Armenians and Georgians and Circassians and Chechens, none of which were especially nomadic. And it also depends on what sort of Patriarch Muhammad becomes as well. If he becomes the wrong kind of Patrtiarch, the Christians'll deal with him very violently.

 

[Ptholemaios]

Wrong kind of Patriarch? How do you understand "wrong" in this case?

 

[rcduggan]

Russia crushes it like it crushed the Buddhist khanates in Siberia IOTL or the Golden Horde IOTL as well.

Except Russia was not crushing nomads until the 16th century, a thousand years after the POD.

There's a bit of a difference between the early Muslim societies and the Sassanid Empire, nor is there a guarantee that Sassanid Iran would have lasted beyond a generation or two longer barring a Muslim conquest. Now, another Zoroastrian empire may well have emerged, but methinks the Eastern Roman Empire would have been helping itself to parts of Sassanid Persia after the collapse. Then there's the issue of the Scientific Revolution. If it comes at all, it will emerge in the Byzantine empire, but what would be the trigger for Bzyantines to flee to Western Europe? And then, when the Mongols show up (the butterfly effect will have as hard a time barring the Mongols as it would an Arab Irruption of some sort)....

Sassanid Persia or its perhaps second or third successor state will collapse, and perhaps Byzantium as well.

Although at this point Byzantium will be close to collapse too, having fought to the death with the Sassanid Empire. Once that war ends, the other side would be too weak to pick up the pieces. I'd say Egypt and the Levant would go back to Roman control, but the Sassanids would keep Arabia and Mesopotamia.

What sort of nomadic tribe was dominate south of Russia at 9th-10th century?

The Khazars, my favorite [semi-] nomadic people!
However, with your POD they will almost certainly be butterflied away. For one, without the defeat by the Umayyads, the Gokturks may survive with their massive empire (the Crimea to Mongolia) intact for longer, so no Khazars. Maybe the Old Bulgars survive and create an empire from their base in the Crimea, or the Magyars. It is always possible the Khazars will still rise. They will not convert to Judaism ITTL, unless Zoroastrianism can play the role of Islam (the Khazars were squished between Christian and Muslim areas, so chose the middle path). Still, maybe it will be Manichaeism they convert to.

 

[Hashasheen]

I am a muslim and am not offended, its a normal discussion for us. Anytime in the Meccan-Medianan wars, a desicive defeat would mean the end of the business as we know it.

true, fellow muslime here. but who about we make it a bit religous?
instead of god sending down the angel to give mohamaad the koran, why not tell him to spread the word of judaism in Arabia? or even Christanity? can you honestly imagine a Jewish-Arab Empire stretching all over the middle east. that would be so cool! plus no hard hitting holocaust, since they would just deport them to the middle east. Jewish Ottomans would rock as well.

 

[Snake Featherston]

true, fellow muslime here. but who about we make it a bit religous?
instead of god sending down the angel to give mohamaad the koran, why not tell him to spread the word of judaism in Arabia? or even Christanity? can you honestly imagine a Jewish-Arab Empire stretching all over the middle east. that would be so cool! plus no hard hitting holocaust, since they would just deport them to the middle east. Jewish Ottomans would rock as well.

...

If the much more powerful Christians don't smash them up first. Twas not easy enough to be a Jew without Jewish armies on the outside posing threats. In that case, it might be like Japanese on the mainland US, where the Jews are seen as possible fifth-columnists inside Christian lands and there's much earlier and nastier pogroms. And if Muhammad becomes Christian, there's no guarantees that Arabian Christianity would have been any more decent to Jews than Eastern and Western European Christendom was. Islam was much better for Jews than Muhammad becoming Christian (or ironically, Jewish) would have been.

Wrong kind of Patriarch? How do you understand "wrong" in this case?

Say...Oriental Orthodox in a land surrounded by Eastern Orthodox Byzantium. If it sounds like they wouldn't do it, remember that Cathars were closer in a sense to Catholicism at this stage than Oriental Orthodox were to Byzantium. theologically. In pre-Industrial Christianity, the power behind a theology ensured whether or not it lived or died more than its correctness did. in the absence of Islam, Eastern Orthodox might have wracked up a death toll of Oriental Orthodox to rival the West with the Arians.

Except Russia was not crushing nomads until the 16th century, a thousand years after the POD.

Russia, no...but the Slavs will still be there, and so will the Varangians. The ingredients for early Russia are still there, and whoever controls the Moscow region will be in a damned good position to do OTL all over again.

 

[rcduggan]

...
Russia, no...but the Slavs will still be there, and so will the Varangians. The ingredients for early Russia are still there, and whoever controls the Moscow region will be in a damned good position to do OTL all over again.

And the Finno-Ugric peoples, don't forget them.

IIRC Moscow was a backwater town until the 14th century, so that's still pretty anachronistic.

 

[Xenos]

Easy! Mohammed killed by rival tribes before his cult gains any real following. Or better still, before he hears voices in his head, so he does not become a martyr. Of course, someone else in the Middle East is bound to have a similar 'experience' sooner or later. But the delayed arrival of Islam (or some variation of it) might give the Byzantine Empire the breathing space it needs to consolidate its hold on the Mediterranean. The muslims were, after all the only power at the time capable of rivalling the Byzantines. Byzantine rule over North Africa was very brief before they were expelled by the muslim armies. So without Islam, Christianity would have dominated the known world and advances in science and technology would be severley delayed.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

Of course, someone else in the Middle East is bound to have a similar 'experience' sooner or later.

Why ?