How Could Islam Become A World Religion?

Your challenge is to have Islam became the religion of at least 90% of the world population by 2009, with a POD of at least 634.

Rules:

-No global or united Islamic state- there must be a variety of nations.
-Most Muslims must be fairly moderate or liberal.
-No genocide, pandemics, or/and global nuclear war.
 
I don't see this as possible. There's too much diversity of opinion for any religion to get that dominant naturally. Obviously various PODs could make it bigger than OTL, but 90% just seems ASB. The only way I can see something like this happening is for a country that is already 90%+ muslim to exterminate the rest of the world's population and conquer the world, which would have to be nuclear, thus violating all three criterion for this thread.
 
Your challenge is to have Islam became the religion of at least 90% of the world population by 2009, with a POD of at least 634.

Rules:

-No global or united Islamic state- there must be a variety of nations.
-Most Muslims must be fairly moderate or liberal.
-No genocide, pandemics, or/and global nuclear war.

Muslim wins at Tours and takes Constantinople early on. In a series of raids turned into conquest , ala on Visigoth Spain , Islamic rule soon stretches into Jutland and Germany by 800. The Turks convert to Islam earlier. Islam reaches the Mongols. A Chinese dynasty collapses. Islamic invaders conquer China in place of the Mongols and Manchus. A Confucian- Islamic Hybrid takes root in China . Muslims conquer India. A hindu -Islamic Syncretism Ala Sufism takes place. By the 21st century , all nations are majority muslim , with Muslims as liberal as those in OTL Malaysia in all wealthly nations.
 

Hashasheen

Banned
Your challenge is to have Islam became the religion of at least 90% of the world population by 2009, with a POD of at least 634.

Rules:

-No global or united Islamic state- there must be a variety of nations.
-Most Muslims must be fairly moderate or liberal.
-No genocide, pandemics, or/and global nuclear war.
I'm well on my way.;)
 
I don't see this as possible. There's too much diversity of opinion for any religion to get that dominant naturally. Obviously various PODs could make it bigger than OTL, but 90% just seems ASB. The only way I can see something like this happening is for a country that is already 90%+ muslim to exterminate the rest of the world's population and conquer the world, which would have to be nuclear, thus violating all three criterion for this thread.

I don't think it's that hard, actually. Just have a Muslim conquest of China at some point, and maybe longer Mughal rule in India. Stronger Ottomans leads to no late 19th c imperial carve-up of the world, so Africa becomes more Islamic than it is.
 
If this happens I see much more conflicts within Islam not just shiite's and sunni's. There may be several others thrown into the mix.

EDIT:

Also you could kind of cheat and have the Koran and other muslim groups to put ALOT of emphasis on making a lot of babies. That way you could have a huge population of people maybe in a geographically small area and they are all practicing muslims.
 
90% is a really unrealistic goal, I think. Right now, over 10% of the world is 'nonreligious', meaning you'd have to capture a small chunk of the nonbelievers alongside converting every single religious person.

What about 51%, though?
 
Your challenge is to have Islam became the religion of at least 90% of the world population by 2009, with a POD of at least 634.

Rules:

-No global or united Islamic state- there must be a variety of nations.
-Most Muslims must be fairly moderate or liberal.
-No genocide, pandemics, or/and global nuclear war.
Islam IS a world religion. It is one of the most followed religions in the world.

90% is ridiculous, by the way. Not even Christianity can go over 33%, and we all know how ubiquitous Christianity is. If even Christianity couldn't pull it off, Islam certainly isn't going to.
 
I think that 90% is pretty lofty. 70% would be better, with that 70% being numerous different Muslim sects, IE Shia, Sunni, Sufism, etc.
 

He wasn't being ignorant. Very few of those different schools conflict with the others - it's more like how some priests are Jesuits and some are Benedictines. For instance, at al-Azhar, all four Sunni madhabs are present. The only real conflict was between Sunnis and Shiites, and even that was mostly geopolitical concerns like the Ottoman-Safavid clash more than real doctrinal conflict, altough in an Islamic world, I'm sure those types of problems would come up.
 
Tours isn't going to switch much. It was the defeat of an over-sized raid, not of an invasion.

Now if Constantinople falls in the first century of Islam, then we're talking. With The City gone, the Balkans go with it. More to the point, the Muslims are at the peak of their momentum and the Western Christians haven't a single competent state between them. The faithful take the Roman roads into Italy and link up with Al Andalus through Provence, while the Franks periodically shout up a rabble of disorganized infantry to be slaughtered.

At that point Europe is turning Muslim. It just is. The most Christianity can hope for is a series of Ethiopia-like islands at the fringes of Dar al-Islam.

As AHP said, China is the real sticking point. Without outright Islamic conquest, you're already pretty much stuck.

A number like 90% is a bit ridiculous, but you can get a solid majority - say 75% - with just a few hurdles. An early fall of Mediterranean Europe would bring in the rest of the continent, and conquest of China is the only other serious challenge. At that point it's almost a given that the Americas and a hefty chunk of Africa will go over. You get healthy pockets of Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus here and there, but it's a world of Islam.

But how on Earth do the Muslims get China?
 
Tours isn't going to switch much. It was the defeat of an over-sized raid, not of an invasion.

Now if Constantinople falls in the first century of Islam, then we're talking. With The City gone, the Balkans go with it. More to the point, the Muslims are at the peak of their momentum and the Western Christians haven't a single competent state between them. The faithful take the Roman roads into Italy and link up with Al Andalus through Provence, while the Franks periodically shout up a rabble of disorganized infantry to be slaughtered.

At that point Europe is turning Muslim. It just is. The most Christianity can hope for is a series of Ethiopia-like islands at the fringes of Dar al-Islam.

As AHP said, China is the real sticking point. Without outright Islamic conquest, you're already pretty much stuck.

A number like 90% is a bit ridiculous, but you can get a solid majority - say 75% - with just a few hurdles. An early fall of Mediterranean Europe would bring in the rest of the continent, and conquest of China is the only other serious challenge. At that point it's almost a given that the Americas and a hefty chunk of Africa will go over. You get healthy pockets of Christians, Buddhists, and Hindus here and there, but it's a world of Islam.

But how on Earth do the Muslims get China?

It has to be the Mongols (or some equivalent, say the Jurchens). Think an Honored Deborah scenario (honored Fatima), and our *Ghengis Khan* here take's an Aurangzeb-style approach to religious issues, razing Buddhist temples and bringing conversion by the sword. Maybe even allow successful jihads against Japan and Vietnam.

I don't know whether Buddhism/Eastern folk tradition survive the way Zoroastrianism did in Iran or the way Hinduism did in India, but either way, I think Islam is pretty dominant in the Far East here.
 
Tours isn't going to switch much. It was the defeat of an over-sized raid, not of an invasion.
This is one of those overrated lines repeated ad naseum on this forum, usually with no evidence. The fact is, had Tours been a Muslim victory, there would have been more invasions. The conquest of Hispania began with raids, and ended with centuries of Muslim domination. At various points the Arabs were recognized in Aquitaine, so I think it is safe to say that at very least an Arab victory at Tours would lead to a Muslim Aquitaine. I could see Neustria falling as well, and maybe Burgundy in time.

Now if Constantinople falls in the first century of Islam, then we're talking. With The City gone, the Balkans go with it. More to the point, the Muslims are at the peak of their momentum and the Western Christians haven't a single competent state between them. The faithful take the Roman roads into Italy and link up with Al Andalus through Provence, while the Franks periodically shout up a rabble of disorganized infantry to be slaughtered.
You are discounting the Lombards, Bulgars, Slavs, Alemanni, Bavarians, Avars, etc. I don't see how the Arabs will be able to just sail through every single group of these peoples with no loses or setbacks. And the Franks would not be completely helpless against them. I wonder how Tours was won in OTL? Oh, wait. The Franks.

At that point Europe is turning Muslim. It just is. The most Christianity can hope for is a series of Ethiopia-like islands at the fringes of Dar al-Islam.
I think a better example is the pattern of conversion to Islam in Al-Andalus.

As AHP said, China is the real sticking point. Without outright Islamic conquest, you're already pretty much stuck.
It doesn't have to be conquest. Potentially a situation like Southern India could develop, where most Muslims were Arab immigrants and those they converted. If there is more trade through the Indian ocean, more Arabs might settle in China, and Islam might spread more than in OTL. Very unsure about this though.
 
Top