in that case, perhaps we should look at how Islam impacted different Old World peoples. what's the closest equivalent culture to the Amerindians as a whole? West African animists, perhaps?
Islamic colonization of the Americas; what about the Natives?
- Thread starter oshron
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Islam abhors "paganism" (i.e. non-Abrahamaic faiths and politeists in particular) as much as Christianity does. Just compare the number of Christians in the Middle East today and those of Zoroastrians. The only time you see Islam trying to get along with politeist faiths is when there are too many politeists for a forced conversion to work: India, China, etc.
In the New World you have peoples whose warfare is not up to par with the Old World by 3000 years, and that are going to drop of by 90% in the first generations after contact. Not exactly an India situation.
In the New World you have peoples whose warfare is not up to par with the Old World by 3000 years, and that are going to drop of by 90% in the first generations after contact. Not exactly an India situation.
For Andalucia and North Africa its actually probably the Spanish, for Mali it is West African Animists and for everyone else its really freaking hard to get anywhere near America.
Zoroastrians wheren't treated that differently from the other non-muslims in Iran, the big issue is that the various religious minorities in Iran where targeted by the nomadic conquerors in the region. The Ilkhanate and Timur absolutely devastated the significant Nestorian and Zoroastrian minorities.
Thats entirely dependent on what they plan on doing in these colonies, Al-Andalus in Mexico may end up treating the Nahua in a similar way to how they treated the Spanish since its a fairly urbanized society with the major difference being in the religion of the conquered. Course this also depends on what things have happened in the mainland of Al-Andalus, are they constantly on the defensive from the Iberian christian states or have they subjugated them centuries ago? Are they ruled by the Maghreb or are they run out of Cordoba/One of the Taifa kingdoms? Is it one of the later Berber Caliphates or something else? All of these and more will influence what their outlook on their colonies will be. Really without a thorough timeline of the events leading up to this we have no idea how it would work out.
If you can't tell I'm fairly skeptical of Mali's ability to colonise the America's successfuly without a lot of changes to their culture, government, and general way of running themselves.
This is true. But I think Christianity's history of aggressive war being called holy and a crusade leaves influences on the Western Christian nations that aren't present in Islam.
Look at the Baltic crusades, specifically. I'm reasonably sure there's not a Muslim equivalent.
The equivalent that comes to mind are arguably the Almoravids and particularly, the Almohads, in 12th Century Spain. Both brought an aggressive, religiously motivated war to the Iberian peninsula and very harsh treatment to non-believers.
If memory serves, those were after Christian advances into an area previously controlled by Muslims, though. Reactive rather than aggressive.
Except that these Berber warrior dynasties were coming fresh out of N.Africa. To me, it is to me very analogous to the 1st Crusade dynamics, particularly.
I always claimed there should be a CRITICAL appraisal and analysis of the entrance of Islam in AFrica, and it's consequences. There was good.. and less good ones.
And remember, Africa was an early source of slaves for the budding islamic empire(s) - there was a revolt of african slaves in modern irak in... 8th century, I think.
And Elfwine, in religious law back then, invading the House of Infidels is all okay if you have a casus belli. I am anti-eurocentrism and all that, but we should not whitewash Islam's past too eitheir.
As others have mentioned, I don't see how it would be any different than OTL colonization. The colonizers would still have a major biological and technological edge. The only major difference I can think of is with the whole Cortes-Quetzalcoatl thing (which in itself may not be entirely true), as an Arab or North African conqueror would not meet the "white skinned" part.
Still reacting to a Christian advance rather than an attack for the sake of land grabbing the way the Baltic crusades were (picked as an example intentionally).
The Ubbergeek: I don't think anyone is whitewashing Islam's past here. The problem is more people treating it as if the Muslims will inevitably and invariably attack the Mexica and such.
catboy637: Arabs (not as sure about Berbers) aren't necessarily going to have a less "white" skin color than Spaniards.