DBAHC: Wank Islam

[AltoRegnant]

Islam is a small Abrahamic faith localized in the arabian deserts. Its Prophet, Mohammad, united the arabic tribes under his faith. However, most attempts to expand out of Arabia, both politically, and theologically, have failed.

Your challenge is to make Islam a major player in modern theology, and have a muslim empire become a great power geopolitically.

 

[Comte de Dordogne]

Really complicated. The Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanian Empire were blocking the possible spread of Islam. Both would have to be weakened to allow Islam to spread, but they hadn't been at war for a long time.

 

[Escape Zeppelin]

Kind of a difficult task. To the north of their religious center are both the Byzantines and Persia which really limits their routes of expansion and to the south is the solidly Christian states of the old Axum empire. I think that their best hope is for one of those three to collapse under pressure which would leave an opening for conversion.

 

[CastilloVerde]

Effectively ASB. As @Comte de Dordogne and @Escape Zeppelin mentioned, both the ERE and Persia to the north limit Islamic expansion. Two incredibly powerful empires that were near the height of their power and had strong state religions. Both empires must be weakened to the point that Islam could spread. The trick is to find a POD that can allow that to happen in the first place. As already mentioned, both states hadn't been at war for some time so perhaps making them fight a war at precisely the timeframe that Islam was founded would go a great deal to allow Islamic expansion. However even if that were to happen, it does not guarantee that Islam could find an opening and expand its influence. It would almost take a near collapse of at least one empire for that to occur.

But again, this is so unlikely and requires a such a perfect storm of events that it is effectively ASB.

 

[AltoRegnant]

Effectively ASB. As @Comte de Dordogne and @Escape Zeppelin mentioned, both the ERE and Persia to the north limit Islamic expansion. Two incredibly powerful empires that were near the height of their power and had strong state religions. Both empires must be weakened to the point that Islam could spread. The trick is to find a POD that can allow that to happen in the first place. As already mentioned, both states hadn't been at war for some time so perhaps making them fight a war at precisely the timeframe that Islam was founded would go a great deal to allow Islamic expansion. However even if that were to happen, it does not guarantee that Islam could find an opening and expand its influence. It would almost take a near collapse of at least one empire for that to occur.

But again, this is so unlikely and requires a such a perfect storm of events that it is effectively ASB.

Could Islam take across the Red Sea and expand into the Swahili Coast or the Horn of Africa?

 

[CastilloVerde]

Could Islam take across the Red Sea and expand into the Swahili Coast or the Horn of Africa?

I suppose it's possible, Islamic merchants have indeed succeeded in establishing trade communities in parts of East Africa and even into the Spice Islands. If you were looking for opportunities to wank Islam, perhaps expanding into the Swahili coast is the way to do it.

The Christian states of Axum as mentioned by @Escape Zeppelin though are extremely difficult to convert, so bypassing Axum and focusing on the Swahili coast is indeed the best course of action.

 

[CV12Hornet]

If they can spread to the Horn of Africa or Swahili coast via Arab merchants, then they can get toeholds in India and Southeast Asia, too.

 

[Silver01]

maybe caliph Abu Bakr not kill khalid al walid for his participations and success
took parts of Battle of Uhud Battle of Mu'ta Conquest of Mecca Battle of Hunayn (630)

but umar was scared of him , so he killed him , some say this prologoned the ridda wars,with the death of abu bark the conflict just escaltated until caliph umar united the caliphate in 642 putting an end to the 10 year long conflict , the caliphate was so weakend that it need it time to recover
maybe with a shoter ridda wars we can see an expansion similar to the huns or central asians since the muslims where no differnt being another confederation of nomadic tribes

 

[Tamara]

It seems to be that the easiest way would be to have some large empire convert to the religion and spread it among their people. Maybe some kind of Turkish or Iranian Empire that converts to Islam?

 

[Galba Otho Vitelius]

I suspect the key is to screw Mazdaism. I actually originally and erroneously thought that Islam was as sect of Mazdaism, not knowing much about Arabia, and they do seem to be quite close. If you can keep Mazdaism as not having much popular appeal, which apparently was the case before the 5th century, that is enough to weaken Persia. As a bonus, the widespread conversions to Islam in Syra and Egypt to Mazdaism among Christians unhappy with the theological direction of Rome and Constantinople don't happen and they convert to Islam instead. Its supposed to be a monotheistic religion and so it wouldn't be a huge step.. And a different set of Sassanian kings would work.