Greeks convert en mass to Islam in the 1500s

Commissar

Banned
How it occurs is not as important as the effects of this happening.

Thought it be a good thought experiment to see a Greek brand of Islam rise up.
 
I don't think thats possible. The greeks used their religion to set them apart from the turks, it was the one thing that united them as a people now that they didn't have a country. Asking them to convert would be like asking them to stop being greeks.
 
I don't think thats possible. The greeks used their religion to set them apart from the turks, it was the one thing that united them as a people now that they didn't have a country. Asking them to convert would be like asking them to stop being greeks.

And indeed, the considerable number who did convert (Crete was like half Muslim at one point), although retaining their language for some generations, generally Turkified as the hostility between the new Greek national movement and the Ottoman Empire increased.
 
Well, if the Greeks won't do it by choice there is always the possibility of forced conversion. That would create a whole lot of new problems for the Turks though.
 

Lusitania

Donor
What I meant by it, is I am less concerned over how it is done, so much by how the Greeks adapt Islam to their culture.

I do not think that you must take into consideration how it is done, if it is done like the Portuguese did in the 15 and 16 century where all Jews were forcibly converted. They just retained the Jewishnes secretly, so they allways identified themselves as secret Jews. Practicing thei true faith in hidding.

Then we may have the Islamic version of the Inquisition.

If it is done gradually over time, which did happen due to personal, ecomic reasons then you would get a more open greek islamic culture.

Which one is it?
 
Frankly I don't find this very possible without a large amount of violence and persecution. As it's been said, they used their religion to separate themselves from the Turks, as well it had a large part to do in the development of the Greek national identity. Even today for instance the Greek Orthodox faith is still recongnized as the "prevailing" religion of the country.
 

Commissar

Banned
I do not think that you must take into consideration how it is done, if it is done like the Portuguese did in the 15 and 16 century where all Jews were forcibly converted. They just retained the Jewishnes secretly, so they allways identified themselves as secret Jews. Practicing thei true faith in hidding.

Then we may have the Islamic version of the Inquisition.

If it is done gradually over time, which did happen due to personal, ecomic reasons then you would get a more open greek islamic culture.

Which one is it?

Pick one. This is more a brainstorming WI than a specific POD. I am mainly trying to see how Greek version of Islam would form even if they remained secret Christians.
 
Well, if the Greeks won't do it by choice there is always the possibility of forced conversion. That would create a whole lot of new problems for the Turks though.

For one thing, no longer being able to collect those people-of-the-book tax watchamacallums from the Greeks, which is one of the principal reasons why the Ottomans very rarely indulged in anything like forced conversion, and why Christian Balkan villages frequently decided to convert by themselves.
 
The Greeks who did convert generally lost their identity and often adopted Turkish or Arabic names. So I don't really see a specifically Greek form of Islam emerging, or even a particularly unique Greco-Islamic culture emerging. The closest you could get to that would be Ottoman culture, really, as they adapted many of the cultural institutions and artistic practices of the preceding Byzantine empire.
 
I don't think thats possible. The greeks used their religion to set them apart from the turks, it was the one thing that united them as a people now that they didn't have a country. Asking them to convert would be like asking them to stop being greeks.

I wish AHP was here to set you guys straight, but in the context of the 1500s this is wrong, wrong, WRONG!

The reason the Balkans, including Greece, stayed largely Christian is because the Ottomans decided to essentially ban proselytizing in Europe. It was somewhat heretical of them, but understandable, given the tax on Christians raised huge revenues which ran the state. Allowing Greeks to become Muslim could have bankrupted the empire. Conversions where they happened were when individuals chose to turn to Islam on their own.

Crete was not considered part of Europe by the Ottomans, thus missionary activities were allowable and commonplace. Ultimately around half of the population converted. They continued to speak Cretan Greek.

For the mass conversion of the Greeks, you'd need a different financial system for the Ottomans which makes proselytizing not so counterproductive. If this happened, it wouldn't be unsurprising if a large minority, even the majority, of Greeks became Muslims. However, similar to Albania and Bosnia, large Christian minorities would probably be interspaced throughout.
 
There was a similar thread discussing the possibility of more conversions to Islam if the Ottomans had abolished the Patriarchate instead of keeping it. Here it is, I hope it can help: https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=88552


Even if this thread connected to that other thread, I'll bump it anyway.

I think though, it depends on which "Greeks" we're talking about here. If it's Ottoman definition, then all Orthodox Christian Balkan people. If it is, yes the majority of them can be converted to Islam with the absence of Patriarch. If it's in our more common sense, aka the Greeks of Greece, then there will maybe, MAYBE, some problems here. Christianity has been such a central part of their identity which it's quite conceivable that even though had not the Patriarch been established, at least a sizable minority of them will prefer union with Rome instead, especially because compared to the Slavic Orthodox, the geography the country they live in is generally not as isolated, being exposed to the Med Sea.....
 
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