Recently i have been reading a whole lot about early Islam and am potentially interested in doing a TL with a very interesting, very dramatic, POD.
During the very beginning of Islam, the first Caliphate, now known as the Rashidun caliphate, spread very rapidly throughout Asia, North Africa, and up into Iberia.
They preyed off the weekend Byzantine and Sassanid empires, but payed little mind to conquering much of Byzantium besides small pockets of the middle east.
My question is, what if Islam ignored the N. African coast and focused on the European portion of the med. sea.
This could easily be done due to how over extended Byzantium was at this time, i just don't know a good POD
I feel like this could be interesting because Christianity would either die out, or hold on to a few small eastern and northern enclaves, countries of entirely new identities than those from OTL could appear after the eventual collapse of the Islamic Empire!
Thoughts?