DBWI- What if the Ottomans hadn’t become Hellenised

Since there has been some controversy in Rhomania with the publication of “History of the Fidios Dynasty”. What would it be like if Osman’s family hadn’t become Greek and eventually gained the throne of Caesars.
 
Well, we might have seen Serbia or Bulgaria assume the "mantle" of Rhomania as even in our world, these states were quite strong during the 14th Century.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
For starters, Islam would have remained an "Asian" religion. There wouldn't have been any anti-Rhomanian crusades; I doubt that the Great Schism would be enough to move the Holy See to call for a crusade against Rhomania. But when the ERE ultimately embraced Islam as its state religion... well, we know what happened.

Come to think of it: in such a scenario, there probably wouldn't be a Sultanate of Kiev, either.
 
For starters, Islam would have remained an "Asian" religion. There wouldn't have been any anti-Rhomanian crusades; I doubt that the Great Schism would be enough to move the Holy See to call for a crusade against Rhomania. But when the ERE ultimately embraced Islam as its state religion... well, we know what happened.

Come to think of it: in such a scenario, there probably wouldn't be a Sultanate of Kiev, either.
Although the ERE did adopt Islam it synthesised it with Orthodox Christianity which made it a heretic sect amongst Islam. Kiev may have been absorbed by an orthodox Novgorod if support from Rhomania hadn’t been a thing.
 

Skallagrim

Banned
Although the ERE did adopt Islam it synthesised it with Orthodox Christianity which made it a heretic sect amongst Islam. Kiev may have been absorbed by an orthodox Novgorod if support from Rhomania hadn’t been a thing.

Certainly, Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims regard the "Byzantine Islam" as a heresy, but not moreso than they consider each other to be heretical, as well. I think the common view nowadays is that Byzantine Islam is as legitimate as the other two major branches of the faith.

I agree about Orthodox Novgorod being a good contender for southern expansion in the ATL.
 
Certainly, Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims regard the "Byzantine Islam" as a heresy, but not moreso than they consider each other to be heretical, as well. I think the common view nowadays is that Byzantine Islam is as legitimate as the other two major branches of the faith.

I agree about Orthodox Novgorod being a good contender for southern expansion in the ATL.
Speaking of which, Bulgaria and Serbia wouldn’t bleed each other to death so they could claim to be the Third Rome which ultimately led to Basil III Megas conquering them in 1453. They may be independent in this TL
 
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Other effects of a less Hellenistic and more "Levantine" Ottomans is that they wouldn't have had years of stalemate wars against Persia due to "Alexandermania", and they wouldn't have had an Arab Revolt by their neglected southern territories, or artificial nation-states created by the other empires.

If the Ottomans focused more on their Arabic lands, then when they conquered the Mamluks, they would have completely rooted out the Mamluks to establish centralized control, instead of letting them remain in de facto power until the "Gallic" invasion.

A more Turco-Persian Ottoman Empire certainly would have had extensive colonies in the Indian Ocean and would have invested enough in their navy to defeat the Portuguese in India.

Further, instead of siding with decentralized pirates in the Barbary coast to raid Europe indirectly (a quite Byzantine strategy), a less Hellenic Ottomans would have just outright annexed Granada and upheld al-Andalus.

If the Ottomans weren't Hellenistic there would be no Lebanon today as it was their admiration for all things Byzantine that led to the survival of the Maronites.

I imagine that it could lead to an entirely different culinary culture. Hard to imagine the Turks without their love of baklava, strong coffee or fasolada.
If the Ottomans were less Hellenised, there definitely wouldn't have been coffee shops in 18th century Europe during the Enlightenment -- it would be seen as too foreign by the Christians.
 
Alexandermania really weakened the Fidios but on the other hand it led to the creation of Mesopotamia as an independent realm to prevent wars after Georgios I succeeded his father, Basil. Georgios dealt with the revolt with placation although his nephew let everything go to hell.

The Mamluks were collapsing anyway by the time Basil led the conquest. It’s likely they would have been usurped by a native dynasty which could have reinvigorated the state.

I agree that the lack of colonies in India hurt the Fidios in terms of trade but Portugal has never cared much about religion so they were happy to keep the spice trade flowing so long as they could get a cut of it.

The Barbary Crusade killed the Fidios Dynasty as Constantine XI, who was a brain dead idiot, authorised them to attack Rome! Annexing Grenada would have brought all of Europe down on the Ottomans however so this may not have worked.

Lebanon would be part of South Syria today if the Maronites has been oppressed by a Levantine-Centric Ottomans.

☹️ If coffee wasn’t in Europe during the Enlightenment then we’d miss out on the greatest meme of all time, King Alexander of Britain dying from caffeine overdose.
 
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ASB. Greek was a highly developed and influential culture. There is no way that the Turks were ever going to maintain their own culture once they entered into the Greek sphere. It's often said that children grow up speaking the language of their mothers, after all and so Hellenization was assured.

Maybe you could maintain the Turkish identity if they moved North of the Caucus though.
 
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ASB. Greek was a highly developed and influential culture. There is no way that the Girls were ever going to maintain their own culture once they entered into the Greek sphere. It's often said that children grow up speaking the language of their mothers, after all and so Hellenization was assured.

Maybe you could maintain the Turkish identity if they moved North of the Caucus though.
What if a steady depopulation and resettlement of Anatolia by the Turks occurred, the Greeks would be forced into Hellas and perhaps Macedonia.
 
What if a steady depopulation and resettlement of Anatolia by the Turks occurred, the Greeks would be forced into Hellas and perhaps Macedonia.

Well, you already saw this in OTL. After Manzikert there was a steady depopulation in central Anatolia. And yet the Turks were Hellenized withing a couple generations. Turkish identity was doomed the moment they settled down next to the more advanced Greeks - thats just the way history works (and don't bother bringing up England - that is, at best, the exception thst proves the rule. And some archeologists are now theorizing that part of England may have been heavily Germanized during the Roman period).

(OOC: Sorry guys, totally satirizing those people who same similar arguments in OTL, despite evidence to the contrary :) )
 
Well, you already saw this in OTL. After Manzikert there was a steady depopulation in central Anatolia. And yet the Turks were Hellenized withing a couple generations. Turkish identity was doomed the moment they settled down next to the more advanced Greeks - thats just the way history works (and don't bother bringing up England - that is, at best, the exception thst proves the rule. And some archeologists are now theorizing that part of England may have been heavily Germanized during the Roman period).

(OOC: Sorry guys, totally satirizing those people who same similar arguments in OTL, despite evidence to the contrary :) )

Good points, i suppose its possible but it would need the collapse and opression of a Greek State, perhaps 1204 is more successful and Nicaea is crushed by Rum but that in of itself is close to ASB.

(OOC- Part of England Germanised during the Roman Period? Interesting and where exactly?)
 
OOC: re Skallagrim's first post well this one went off the rails quickly. IOTL the Ottomans did become Hellenized pretty much (Turkey is a Greek-Persian fusion) except of course for Islam.
 
(OOC- Part of England Germanised during the Roman Period? Interesting and where exactly?)

OOC - it's an argument I've seen made on this board from Time to time (usually by posters who seem, and maybe I'm being unfair, to explain the de-Romanization of Britain which runs against their belief that Roman culture was so exceptional and advanced that it could never be rolled back). Personally, I don't know how much credence to give it. However there WERE Saxon mercenaries serving along Hadrian's Wall and elsewhere. So it's likely there were Germanic communities in Roman Britain. What impact they had on the Germanization after the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons I cannot say though. I find that era of history absolutely fascinating, but I'm not a specialist I fear.
 
OOC: re Skallagrim's first post well this one went off the rails quickly. IOTL the Ottomans did become Hellenized pretty much (Turkey is a Greek-Persian fusion) except of course for Islam.
True but they didn't really bother to be a continuation state beyond the trappings and kept a lot of Turkish concepts like harems so they were less hellenized than most other states that had Greek contact.
 
True but they didn't really bother to be a continuation state beyond the trappings and kept a lot of Turkish concepts like harems so they were less hellenized than most other states that had Greek contact.


The Ottomans still valued the importance of Persian culture even after embracing the trappings of Hellenic culture. The Ottomans are Greco-Persian in culture rather than purely Persianate or Turkic culture. The Ottomans adopted Greek music, science, language, philosophy, art, and cuisine. Yet, traces of Persian culture remain. Ask an Ottoman who their favorite poet is -- It's Rumi. Second favorite - Homer!.

The Ottomans were actually even more obsessed with the philosophy, culture, and aesthetics of Classical Antiquity even more so than the Byzantines.


But in terms of daily life, much hasn't changed for the average Ottoman man or woman. The difference is they speak Greek rather than Turkic. The nomadic warrior lifestyle of their ancestors is still preserved in Central and Eastern Anatolia.

So material culture has changed quite a bit, but "mundane" culture is still fundamentally Turkic. I mean people still identify themselves with their Turkic ancestral tribes. They do not consider themselves Hellenes one bit. Hellenes are highly respected in Ottoman society but are still second to the Greek-speaking Turk or Greek-speaking Muslims of any ethnicity(Kurds, Circassians, Arabs, Berbers) because they aren't Muslim.


OOC: Ottomans are somewhat to their OTL counterparts similar in that they are Muslims, but revere Classical Greek culture minus the paganism plus Persianate Islam. The ruling class is a mixture of Circassian, Turk, Arab, Berber, Hellene, Kurd, and Persian ethnicities as the Ottomans accept any Greek speaking Muslim as one of their own. While respecting other languages within the Empire, the elite requires fluency in both Classical Greek and Persian to considered a true "Ottoman". The language of most people, however, is a dialect of Greek that evolved from Medieval Greek with some mild Turkic and Persian influence. The Greco-Persian synthesis ITTL was far different and more focused on inheriting the legacy of Roman and Greek culture while preserving the Islam of the Greater Persian speaking world.
 
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