Christian Asia Minor Moorish Spain

Is it possible that Islam could have kept the Iberian penninsula but Christians, presumably orthodox, could have controlled what is now Turkey?>

If so what would be the consequences?

Would it be likely that Islamic Spain would have sponsored the Genoese explorer sailing West?

If not does it postpone contact between Europeand the Americas
 
It would be amusing if one of the Italian states had managed to establish a state on the Asian Minor or maybe even Bulgaria. Or maybe one of the Turkic Tribes converted.

Basically to have any of these or even a surviving Byzantine state you have to prevent the House of Osman or any Islamic force from taking Rumelia.
 
Not at all impossible, explored in a couple timelines here in fact.

Although "all of Iberia belongs to the House of Islam" in the same timeline as a Byzantine success - that I don't know of.

Consequences depend on specifics - but it has an enormous impact on eastern Europe.
 
It seems very doable if you don't mind multiple PoDs-Muslim Spain has been discussed before and it seems maintainable if they win at Tours and the Franks get stuck in enough squabbling that the Cordobans can take out smaller potentially dangerous Christian kingdoms and done some internal housecleaning. Similar PoDs might accomplish both. Christian Asia Minor is also probably doable with a early PoD-possiblities include the Arabs being checked at the Yarmouk, slowing their conquest of Syria,more of an effort to expand into the ruins of the Sasanian empire to the east, or something on the lines of Bulgaria having awful internal troubles and Basil I/Nicephoros Phokas/John Tzimces/the other good rulers of that time period having more of a free hand to push the Arabs back to a more defensible frontier earlier and focus on firming up that boundary, with any of these very good emperors being able to institute the needed internal reforms.
As for slowing exploration, it could but that is something that would require a slowing of shipbuilding. It's the sort of thing that would really depend on how the timeline plays out I think. But the New World will be explored once you have good navigation and ships that can go the distance across the Atlantic and consistently get back OK.
 
The fact is a small, christian state on a coastal strip of the Iberianian Peninsula is always going to look west. So maybe if Portugal is butterflied...certainly if the Islamic states in North Western North Africa managed to prevent a Christian Iberian nation from colonizing the region and the little islands off the coast.
 
An intensity of wars that happened between Spain and France IRL would have been gazilliondupeled between this scenario islamic united Iberia and France. As such, the drain of resources would've been more evident in the slower progress of colonization for the stated civilizations. If you kick in the Reformation I can certainly see Al - Andalus making all kinds of alliances of short term benefits with the Calvinist Netherlands or german Lutheran states, thus tying France's resources even longer into 16/17 cent.

From other point of view it wouldn't be odd for Orthodoxy to go from Arkhangelsk to Cairo. Military expenditures would certainly be lesser than in the first case and you would have a state that, if she conquered the Balkans and can with success wage wars against any Persian empire she comes across turn into a giant economic force of the age.
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What is more interesting is how would Islam develop in from the point of Byzantine miraculous revival onward if they would control Egypt again? After centuries of separation versions of it in Al-Andalus and Maghreb would be a whole lot different than that in the Central Asia and beyond.
 
How did we go from "Christian Anatolia" to "the Eastern Roman Empire restored in full."?

And I think you're exaggerating the Iberian-French wars here just a tad.
 
Geographic terminology would likely be different, since it was so dependent on culture and religion OTL. Perhaps the term "Christendom" would supersede "Europe" in this scenario.
 
They certainly used terms such as Europe and Asia, but whether they had the same meaning or not, i ain't quite sure.

Maybe not then, but our modern definitions have a lot to do with how we saw the world back then. Asia is over there and Muslim, Europe is over here and Christian.
 
Have the County of Barcelona not be ruled under the dynasty of Wilfred the Hairy and retain Barcelona under the rulers of Septimania and maybe later Barcelona will become a part of Toulouse or Aquitainian duchies.
 

Thande

Donor
Not at all impossible, explored in a couple timelines here in fact.
I would describe it as somewhat of an AH Cliché on maps in fact. I'm not sure if it's because people like both Byzantium and Al-Andalus as "AHy" civilisations, or if it's a pendulum-fallacy thing where you think if you have to give in one place you have to take away in another, like how if the USA loses the CSA it then often conquers bits of Canada.
 
I would describe it as somewhat of an AH Cliché on maps in fact. I'm not sure if it's because people like both Byzantium and Al-Andalus as "AHy" civilisations, or if it's a pendulum-fallacy thing where you think if you have to give in one place you have to take away in another, like how if the USA loses the CSA it then often conquers bits of Canada.

Speaking for myself (as someone planning to do it), its the former.

I like Byzantium, and I like the idea of the Scholarly Arabic Tradition being what the West sees from Islam - whether it recognizes it or not being another problem.

But it does seem to be like the pendulum in some maps. Despite the fact that if anything a world where Byzantium does better (with a post AD 1081 POD), the odds favor Al-Andalus doing worse.

It's not impossible or even especially implausible to have both succeed, but . . .
 
Perhaps the muslims don't control the entire peninsula, just most of it? Have some small Christian kingdoms around the Pyrenees (most likely Catalonian and Basque) and maybe one or two Castilian/Leonian kingdoms on the northwestern coast.

Furthermore, the muslims may not be a unified state, but a number of muslim caliphates.
 
Perhaps the muslims don't control the entire peninsula, just most of it? Have some small Christian kingdoms around the Pyrenees (most likely Catalonian and Basque) and maybe one or two Castilian/Leonian kingdoms on the northwestern coast.

Furthermore, the muslims may not be a unified state, but a number of muslim caliphates.

Or other states, although how are divided Muslims keeping control of Iberia?
 
Or other states, although how are divided Muslims keeping control of Iberia?

Weight of numbers, possibly. That could be how the situation arises, actually: the Umayyad caliphate focusing solely on Iberia, giving the eastern Romans a chance to refortify the border, and deal with the other threats of the time.
 
I wonder if a Crusader conquest of Egypt following some reverses for the Iberian kingdoms might not produce the OP's result. If the Christians can hold Egypt (maybe with the help of Makurian mercenaries as I once suggested to a former member) it might make the rest of Africa focus more westward so they can hold a large chunk of Spain. Depending on how things shake out they might even regain some territory. This situation might give the eastern empire enough cover to retake Anatolia by reducing western attacks on the Greeks. Especially if there is a chance to go to Egypt to win lands and wealth instead of the comparatively poorer Balkans.

I confess, if RoS is ever done I kind of want to try my own hand at a successful Al-Andalus. LSCatilina and I like to talk about ethnic divisions, but Seville united the Muslim parts of the peninsula save Granada and still couldn't stand against the Christians and I'm not entirely sure why. I have my own suspicions regarding the Andalusi organization of Islamic society but that's all they are.
 
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