Effect of Non-Islamic Turks

[MNP]

From a Macro level it seems like Christianity and Islam were slowly coming to terms with each other in terms of parity or even some slight Christian gains--until the arrival of the Seljuks and later Turkish conquerors. They up-ended the applecart as it were and using the advantages of range and mobility inherent in horse archers and later strong organization, revitalized the expansion and power of Islam. People like Ap Arslan, Malik Shah, Osman, Mahmud of Ghazan, Zengi and Nuradin, Baybars, Timur, Babur and Akbar etc. all had ties to the Turks, Turkish or Turkicized warriors in their armies or bloodlines or in some other way.

So what happens if for whatever reason, the Turkic peoples of Central Asia never convert to Islam? I don't care if they become Buddhist, Nestorian, Zoroastrian or some other mix. Make the Turkish clans and warrior inaccessible and/or hostile to Islam.

What are the effects?

 

[Malta]

Chances are still likely they still overun most of the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

Chances are still likely they still overun most of the Middle East and Eastern Europe.

Well if the Turks would overrun Middle East then the Pagan Turkish ruler elites will eventually become Islamized anyway.

It depends on what the OP exactly wants, whether will it be about no presence of a single Turkic Muslim nation ever spring up, or something else ?

 

[MNP]

Well if the Turks would overrun Middle East then the Pagan Turkish ruler elites will eventually become Islamized anyway.

It depends on what the OP exactly wants, whether will it be about no presence of a single Turkic Muslim nation ever spring up, or something else ?

No mass migrations into Iran, the Caucasus or Anatolia. I understand these were driven by their use as mercenaries, slave-soldiers and several dry climate spells that made the livable area of the Asian Steppe smaller increasing competition plus just standard greed. What I'm looking for is for Turks to basically never enter the region except in tiny quantities so they remain inaccessible to evolution of the Islamic world on any kind of useful scale instead of the tremendous effect they had IOTL.

So perhaps this would require a stronger independent Persia?

 

[DuQuense]

I would love to see a TL with the Sophia H turned into a Buddhist Temple.
I think a Nestorian Constantinople would be almost as interesting.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

I would love to see a TL with the Sophia H turned into a Buddhist Temple.
I think a Nestorian Constantinople would be almost as interesting.

I really hate to tell you this, but I'm afraid that distance will make it to problematic for that to happen.....

That, and the religious formidability of the Rhomania, which if we would to break(in the Anatolia, at least) would almost certainly kill MNPundit's purpose here....

 

[Ridwan Asher]

No mass migrations into Iran, the Caucasus or Anatolia. I understand these were driven by their use as mercenaries, slave-soldiers and several dry climate spells that made the livable area of the Asian Steppe smaller increasing competition plus just standard greed. What I'm looking for is for Turks to basically never enter the region except in tiny quantities so they remain inaccessible to evolution of the Islamic world on any kind of useful scale instead of the tremendous effect they had IOTL.

So perhaps this would require a stronger independent Persia?

It does seem so to me.

But, with the Turks entering Persia as an entirely hostile people, to the religion of Islam nonetheless, if they would manage to conquer Persia won't it be possible to have at least an Ilkhanate analogue eventually without causing to much Turkic migration to the country ? But I presume this would require their advance to beyond Persia though.... but I do have hard time imagining this without the bit part where the Turks leave a visible number of their people in the country. Really, even if all the Turks will just bypass Persia, if they would go into Anatolia and do a Manzikert, it seems Islam will get the advantage in the long run here, if anything(as much as it will be fun indeed if we can get a Turkic non-Islamic Anatolia....). So.... India ?

 

[MNP]

It does seem so to me.

But, with the Turks entering Persia as an entirely hostile people, to the religion of Islam nonetheless, if they would manage to conquer Persia won't it be possible to have at least an Ilkhanate analogue eventually without causing to much Turkic migration to the country ? But I presume this would require their advance to beyond Persia though.... but I do have hard time imagining this without the bit part where the Turks leave a visible number of their people in the country. Really, even if all the Turks will just bypass Persia, if they would go into Anatolia and do a Manzikert, it seems Islam will get the advantage in the long run here, if anything(as much as it will be fun indeed if we can get a Turkic non-Islamic Anatolia....). So.... India ?

That's true. In RoS they did skip Persia but came right on south through the Caucasus and while most of them ended up north of the mountains, the Kipchaks ended up settling IN the Caucasus. The Kipchaks ended up mostly Christian through a variety of events (not he least, 200 years of hostility between them and the Sunni Persians) but conversion to Islam would have had Islamic Turks running rampant over the region which is what I'm trying to avoid here because that's what happened IOTL.

But say Persia is strong enough to hold them out of most of modern day Iran. The path of least resistance becomes the Pontic-Caspian steppe and Northern India. The south steppe is hospitable even during the dry spells, and India's riches are a constant lure so a situation like that could have the Turks skipping Persia and the ME entirely. Would the Turks of India convert to Hinduism if they are still mostly pagan?

 

[Iori]

I really hate to tell you this, but I'm afraid that distance will make it to problematic for that to happen.....

Distance I don't think would be a problem, I mean Kalmykia (Northern Caucasus) is majority Buddhist, and they got their in the 17th century.

Not to mention that, while in the classical era, Buddhism has been established in the area before.

 

[tormsen]

Distance I don't think would be a problem, I mean Kalmykia (Northern Caucasus) is majority Buddhist, and they got their in the 17th century.

Not to mention that, while in the classical era, Buddhism has been established in the area before.

I have to agree with this. If Jews and Nestorians can get to China, Islam can spread to the East Indias within a few centuries of existing, and Christianity can spread and maintain itself in Ethiopia even after isolation; I don't think distance alone makes it impossible.

Other factors might, though, or at least very difficult to pull off.

 

[Malta]

Why don't we just have the Turkic tribes with a more centralized and hierachical Tengrism religon, perhaps with a more Daoist set to it and just let them loose over the Middle East in the fashion that major religionshave gone about converting followers as they have always done (Example: Muslims to Sassanidid Persia)? It pretty much THE reliigon that all of the Nomadic Central Asian peoples did before converting to Christianity (Magyars, Huns, Bulgars), Islam (Uighurs, -Stans) Judaism (Khazers), and Buddhism (Mongolians).

 

[Iori]

Why don't we just have the Turkic tribes with a more centralized and hierachical Tengrism religon, perhaps with a more Daoist set to it and just let them loose over the Middle East in the fashion that major religionshave gone about converting followers as they have always done (Example: Muslims to Sassanidid Persia)? It pretty much THE reliigon that all of the Nomadic Central Asian peoples did before converting to Christianity (Magyars, Huns, Bulgars), Islam (Uighurs, -Stans) Judaism (Khazers), and Buddhism (Mongolians).

That would certainly be interesting.
I've always found it odd how what amounts to a major (native) religon like Tengriism was all but totally replaced.

 

[MNP]

That would certainly be interesting.
I've always found it odd how what amounts to a major (native) religon like Tengriism was all but totally replaced.

I'd say it was to make it easier to rule over the populous conquered peoples and then it was just exported back. Still a TL where Tengriism becomes a major religion would be very interesting.

 

[Ridwan Asher]

Distance I don't think would be a problem, I mean Kalmykia (Northern Caucasus) is majority Buddhist, and they got their in the 17th century.

Not to mention that, while in the classical era, Buddhism has been established in the area before.

I have to agree with this. If Jews and Nestorians can get to China, Islam can spread to the East Indias within a few centuries of existing, and Christianity can spread and maintain itself in Ethiopia even after isolation; I don't think distance alone makes it impossible.

Other factors might, though, or at least very difficult to pull off.

Sorry for not detailing enough back then. It's about what lies within the distance, and in this context primarily being the Islamic Persia.

Islam came to Indonesia through essentially barrierless sea, while Christians and Jews to China by Silk Road, within the background of multi-religious pre-Islamic Persian sphere.

It will be interesting indeed to see a Turkic but non-Islamic Anatolia, but even if they would do a Manzikert and replacing much of Greeks of Anatolian Plateau, I am not sure how to make the region into other than something that is basically either a) a vacant room that is to be filled by Islam eventually, or b) regained by Byzantines and will be thus Greco-Romanized eventually.......

 

[Paladin]

I would love to see a TL with the Sophia H turned into a Buddhist Temple.
I think a Nestorian Constantinople would be almost as interesting.

Somebody actually did a TL that resulted in a Buddhist Byzantine Empire. Of course, it also included Shaolin Vikings, so take it with a grain of salt.

 

[MNP]

Somebody actually did a TL that resulted in a Buddhist Byzantine Empire. Of course, it also included Shaolin Vikings, so take it with a grain of salt.

My problem with Buddhism expansion that way is that with the exception of Sri Lanka, I have never known a situation prior to our present era where Buddhism did not correlate with the loss of territory or decline of a state. Tibet's example is not that useful by its topography, but Bengal and Pagan are other examples. So you'd have to go with the militant Buddhism (coupled with anti-Tamil or anti-Chola stylings) of the Sri Lankans--and how likely is that?

 

[Lysandros Aikiedes]

That would certainly be interesting.
I've always found it odd how what amounts to a major (native) religon like Tengriism was all but totally replaced.

For a religion to become universal, it needs a full-time priesthood, and a defined set of laws and precepts that are written down. Christians made it big in Europe because they were regulated by a central hierarchy that made deals with local kings to act as scribes and bureaucrats. Pagan Germanic and Slavic societies, though they possessed the basis of an alphabet, did not have an actual literary profession, so foreign Christian priests filled out that role. Turkic tribes and Khaganates had fought for and against Islam since the rise of the First Caliphate.

The OTL Gokturks used the Orkhon Script which were written on wooden boards. Since they had something of a proto-bureaucracy, one of the Khagans, in hindsight, could have thought of commisioning a series of books detailing the ethnic faith of his empire, and sought inspiration from them in revising a new code of law for his people. In doing this, the laws, being inspired by the sacred tales, could give their authors an veneer of sanctity, as they and their successors would be well educated in them. The Turkic culture would become harder to seperate from their original religion.

 

[Malta]

That would certainly be interesting.
I've always found it odd how what amounts to a major (native) religon like Tengriism was all but totally replaced.

Damn it all I couldn't resist. I'm supposed to be working on several college papers

https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?p=3271613#post3271613

 

[Ridwan Asher]

But say Persia is strong enough to hold them out of most of modern day Iran. The path of least resistance becomes the Pontic-Caspian steppe and Northern India. The south steppe is hospitable even during the dry spells, and India's riches are a constant lure so a situation like that could have the Turks skipping Persia and the ME entirely. Would the Turks of India convert to Hinduism if they are still mostly pagan?

This is an interesting question. Certainly that the Turks will be Indianized one way or another due to how strong Indian culture was (and still is), I'd say they will certainly embrace Hinduism. But will they maintain aspects of their original Tengriism faith in one way or another ?

Also, will they be able to maintain their Turkish roots and language ? I personally think that both can be the basis of identity of their caste, but how do you think ?

 

[Malta]

Certainly the introduction of the Turks to the Gangetic Plains will have many social and politial swings for the I'Indians' per say. It could become the basis for a 'Gangestan'.