Emirate of Angliettere (WI King John converted to Islam?)

- John accompanies his brother Richard on the Third Crusade. He is captured and spends significant amounts of time with Saladin, whose chivalry and faith leave a lasting impression upon him.
- Upon his release John is married to the widowed queen Isabella of Jerusalem and given Cyprus by his brother, who returns west.
- On Cyprus John rules over a diverse court in true Oriental splendour, surrounded by Greeks, Arabs, Turks and his fellow Englishmen.
- The death of the young King Arthur and the implosion of the assorted Angevin domains sees John impelled to return west in great haste, bringing his foreign councillors and ways with him.
- Defeating his enemies John introduces a number of reforms, showing leniency to both Jew and Saracen and limiting Papal authority. Finally he breaks with the church and seizes command of the church in his domains. Revolts, warfare, bloodshed. He allows Muslim nobles at his court and Muslim missionaries are present in the land. The Latin translation of the Quran is in circulation and Muhammed is viewed in a more benign light as a prophet and saint. John's piety stands in stark contrast with the dissolute ways of his predecessors. When the final break with Christianity comes, John spends the rest of his reign fighting rebellions and putting down his enemies. Jews from surrounding nations gather in his domains and he maintains friendly relations of exchange with other Muslim princes in Iberia and North Africa.
 
I've only skimmed this thread, so apologies if this has already been addressed, but this isn't how it works. Interdiction =/= excommunication, and is not a full on suspension of religious life. From wikipedia (which is basically consistent with what the Catholic Encylopaedia has to say on the subject, but using much simpler language) -

"A local interdict forbade in general the public celebration of sacred rites. Exceptions were made for the dying, and local interdicts were almost entirely suspended on five feasts of the year: Christmas Day, Easter Sunday, Pentecost, Corpus Christi and the feast of the Assumption of Mary. Besides, in the case of a general local interdict, it remained permissible to celebrate in the cathedral or the only church in a town, but without any solemnity such as the ringing of bells and the playing of music, Mass, baptism, confession, and marriage."

Interdiction is the church working to rule, not going on strike - basically doing the absolute minimum to minister to souls (except on the high holy days mentioned above), but putting a ban on the "fun" stuff - bells, music, and so on. Doubtless also any sermons that were delivered would also dwell heavily on the moral turpitude of the ruler who had brought this state of affairs about.

OTL, the English church mostly followed John's lead - one of the reasons why he was able to hold out for five years in the first place

Interdiction wasn't an attack on the rulers civil authority, it was an attempt to force him to recognise the church's spiritual authority. Any priest who attempted to raise a peasant's revolt would be treated as a traitor (unless the king had done something *really* counterproductive, like, well, convert to Islam).

I'll respond to this in more detail when I get some proper time, but basically what I'm trying to say is that the situation needed to already have a greater sense of radicalism. If someone in the church was acting outside of the ordinary conventions, and for some reason John couldn't just have them hung as a traitor (if it was the Pope, if nothing else), well then John acting more out of the ordinary is to be expected. No?

Call me a cynic if you like, but I wouldn't want to be the first Islamic missionary to tell the English they have to give up beer and bacon.

Islamic missionaries in Africa put up with open polytheism for generations. In China they got on better with ancestor worship than Christians ever did (Taiping notwithstanding). As has been said many times above, alcohol was drunk across the Middle East at the time. Bacon, not, but do you really think a few opportunists are going to care more about it in the brief period they'll be in Britain than their equivalents did about pantheons of pagan gods?
 
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