DBWI: The Neo-Byzantine Empire is Muslim?

The Neo-Byzantine Empire was the most military powerful empire of the Early Modern world. Claiming the imperial mantle despite its Turkish heritage, it not only restored the old imperial borders but even conquering the holy places of Islam. Its only real enemy was the Ottoman Persians (founded by Osman, a warlord who conquered Iran) and, later, the Catholic Europeans. It only collapsed in 1923 after the First Universal War.

Here's a map of the NBE:

OttomanEmpire1566.png


What if the empire was Muslim? Would it still be considered Roman?
 
Well, to start off, you would need more of the Turkish tribes to convert to Islam before they came to Anatolia, instead of staying pagan or converting to Nestorian Christianity easier, which would have made their conversion to Eastern Orthodox Christianity less likely when they came into Eastern Rome.
 
That's an interesting question. The people of the old byzantine empire considered themselves as romans, despite being ethnically and culturally greek.
A similar situation happened in east francia, as Otto, supported by the church, claimed the title of Holy Roman Emperor, based in the idea that his power derived from the old roman emperors.
In this sense, "Roman" was, and still is, a title of extreme prestige, which could be given to an empire that continued, to some extent, the tradition of the old lords of europe.

However loosely connected the byzantines, the germans and the turko-greeks were to the old romans, they had something in common: they were christians. Though christianity was a foreign cult to the romans at first, they embraced it as their official religion, thanks to Justinian. The church, after the fall of the WRE, became the central element of power legitimacy across all Europe during the middle ages.

A ruler aspiring for the title of Roman Emperor could be from any place, but he had to be christian. A foreign religion like islam could never be the Imperial Cult, perhaps even more so than others, as it directly antagonizes the tradition of the old emperors. Therefore, a muslim ruler would never be considered roman, not even by his subjects. His empire could be as powerful and influential as rome, but it would be something else entirely.

I wonder what would be the situation of islam today, had the turks been muslim. As we know, all of north africa, egypt and the levant was returned to the christian faith during the rule of the NBE, leaving islam confined to arabia, persia, india and east africa.
 
You'd need to avoid the collapse of the Ummayad Caliphate, and have a more effective dynasty rule the Islamic conquests. Then, you could avoid the revival of Zoroastrianism in Persia, and have it convert to Islam. As a result, when going through Persia to Anatolia, the Turks would convert to the Persian religion of Islam before going to Anatolia. Rather than having strong Muslim minorities everywhere from Sindh to North Africa, those lands would be majority Muslim, so the Turks would also convert to Islam when migrating to India, Persia, and Anatolia, rather than converting to the religion of those various lands.

I wonder what would be the situation of islam today, had the turks been muslim. As we know, all of north africa, egypt and the levant was returned to the christian faith during the rule of the NBE, leaving islam confined to arabia, persia, india and east africa

OOC: The only reason Islam is such a major faith in India is because Turks migrated into India.
 
the Turks would also convert to Islam when migrating to India, Persia, and Anatolia, rather than converting to the religion of those various lands.
The Armenians converted to Islam, so couldn't the Turks have learned the religion from them? It would be a nice twist too, since IOTL one of the last acts of the Neo-Byzantines was to massacre more than a million Armenians just for being Muslim.

I believe Osman I (who founded the Ottoman Persian empire) was also a Muslim Turk, who successfully conquered Iran from the decadent Zoroastrian Timurids and converted most Iranians to Twelver Shi'a Islam.
 

Deleted member 97083

Would a Muslim version of the Neo-Byzantine Empire still rely on the foederati system? I mean, the Byzantines captured and forcibly converted what they considered "Varangian heathens" to Christianity, and employed them as foederati slave-soldiers (much distinct from the "free" foederati of the First Roman Empire). Until the Auspicious Incident arranged by Heraklius IV, these Varangian foederati dominated the military of the Neo-Byzantine Empire.

I suppose a Muslim Turkish version of the Neo-Byzantine Empire could do what Abbasid Caliphate did to Turks; enslaving them and recruiting them as ghilman or mamluks. If they do what the Andalusian Caliphate/Second Ummayad Caliphate did, then the Muslim neo-Byzantines could march north and conquer all the "Saqaliba" in one fell swoop as the Andalusians did the "Firanji" conscripting them along the way.
 
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