Islamic Greece

There were the Vallahades, historically, Muslim Greeks who were very divergent from the local Turkish standard. A Muslim Greece, especially one dominated by Muslim Greek elites instead of Turks, might resemble them culturally.

All of 10-20,000 of them IMS. While I have incorporated them in a TL myself I don't think they are numerous enough to offer a good example. Pontian Muslims and Turkocretans may offer better examples.
 
Ottomans get Hellenized is an option. As a Greek Empire. I mean, a lot of the Sultans mothers were Greek. Kosem being the most famous until the very last in the 18th century Emetullah Sultan.

For the Greek speakers to be Islamic... Maybe no restoration of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Active Missionaries among Greeks and a little unethical but possible... Expulsion of the Christian Nobles and Clergy. As far as I know that was the case with Albania. Adding the Greeks to the Janissary Corps is also an option.

Now this can be as early as the Rashiduns not experiencing the Fitna as late as the early 1800s. Afterwards it is hard if not impossible.

The West will still view Ancient Greece as the craddle of Western Civilisations. The Muslims will possibly be seen as 'Turks' while the remaining Greeks as the 'Original Greeks'.

For the Islamic World... I can't tell. Maybe it will have enough influence to challenge the Persian Influence in the Islamic World in this case among the Mediterranean Muslim States.

OK would really like to see your POD for early 19th century mass conversion of the Greek population... which also stays distinctly Greek. :angel:
 
All of 10-20,000 of them IMS. While I have incorporated them in a TL myself I don't think they are numerous enough to offer a good example. Pontian Muslims and Turkocretans may offer better examples.

I just brought them up because they were very much not Turkish—IIRC the Turkocretans and such assimilated linguistically and culturally more. Or was that only after the population exchanges?
 
AHC: Have the a majority of Greek speakers become muslim
AHC: Have the Byzantines be succeded by a Islamic Greek speaking empire(ATL Greek Ottomans)

How would Greece becoming Islamic affect the perception of ancient Greece in the West, the Islamic world and beyond?

OK two main PODs I'd think. One as already mentioned is Constantinople going down during the second Arab siege, which if the mess before Leo III's takeover goes on. The other Greek Ottomans has to happen very early on, probably at the time of Osman, with the Ottoman beylic still manageably small for the Byzantines it absorbed in the ruling group to be just a tad bit more than in OTL...
 
AHC: Have the a majority of Greek speakers become muslim
AHC: Have the Byzantines be succeded by a Islamic Greek speaking empire(ATL Greek Ottomans)

How would Greece becoming Islamic affect the perception of ancient Greece in the West, the Islamic world and beyond?

I am not sure if these two are meant to be in the same timeline? Also, in the heading, you write "Greece", although in the text you talk about Greek speakers in general. How do you define "Greece". Remember, until the wars between Greece and Turkey after WW1, a lot of Greeks lived in Anatolia and Istanbul/Constantinople, so I assume that in the ATL you are looking for, "Greece" means a larger area than the current state of Greece. If so, a majority of Greek-speaking muslims do not necessarily have to mean a majority of them speaking Greek in the areas that in OTL are currently parts of Greece.

So, how could a majority of Greek-speakers become Muslims?

Hellenization of the Ottoman elite, followed by a gradual change of language among the Turkish population would increase the Greek-speaking population.

With an early Arab conquest of Constantinople, Islam might even develop differently, if it falls under the influence of Greek philiosophy.

Islamic Greece happens if the Ottomans don't conquer Egypt in the 16th century. Up to that point the Ottoman state was Anatolia and Rumelia. It was the conquest of Arab lands that spread the empire too thin to absorb the Greeks fully. In Anatolia though the majority did convert over the centuries.

Although large parts of Anatolia were conquered by Turks centuries before they conquered the areas that are currently parts of Greece. Besides, before WW1 and the expulsion/genocide against Armenians and Greeks, the non-Muslim population of Anatolia was much larger than today. Large parts of the coast were Greek-speaking (which in most cases probably meant that they were Christians).
 
With an early Arab conquest of Constantinople, Islam might even develop differently, if it falls under the influence of Greek philiosophy.

This happened OTL anyway. In the 8th and 9th centuries, Greek rationalist philosophy became hugely powerful and popular in the Abbasid caliphate. The supporters of Greek philosophy who attempted to combine Greek rationalism with Islam were called the Mutazila. The caliph al Mamun made Mutazilism the official religion of the Abbasid empire. Greek rationalism became the dominant philosophy in the Abbasid court.

In the long run though al Mamun's persecution of the orthodox ulama caused a backlash, and over the course of the centuries the Mutazila lost out to the Asharite school of theology which opposed the Greek influence. However, Greek Neoplatonist ideas remained deeply influential in the Shia branch of Islam, especially the Nizaris. The influence of this Greek rationalism is still found in Shia Islam today, in particular the way ijtihad- independent reasoning and original thinking- is still used to solve legal questions.
 

Maoistic

Banned
I never understood why Christianity was somehow more "Greek" than Islam. Other than the use of the Greek language, Christianity was no more Hellenic than Islam, and it's not like Muslims couldn't have adopted Greek as a spoken language anyway.
 
I never understood why Christianity was somehow more "Greek" than Islam. Other than the use of the Greek language, Christianity was no more Hellenic than Islam, and it's not like Muslims couldn't have adopted Greek as a spoken language anyway.

It’s because from the Greek perspective Islam was the religion of foreign invaders with drastically different lifestyles. If Islam had spread peacefully, maybe through trade, the Greeks might have adopted it, but IMO that was impossible as soon as it was written, “Verily you shall conquer Constantinople!”
 
I never understood why Christianity was somehow more "Greek" than Islam. Other than the use of the Greek language, Christianity was no more Hellenic than Islam, and it's not like Muslims couldn't have adopted Greek as a spoken language anyway.
I think it's more than that. The idea of a mortal woman bearing the child of a god is very Hellenic.
 

Maoistic

Banned
It’s because from the Greek perspective Islam was the religion of foreign invaders with drastically different lifestyles. If Islam had spread peacefully, maybe through trade, the Greeks might have adopted it, but IMO that was impossible as soon as it was written, “Verily you shall conquer Constantinople!”
I mean, from that perspective, so are the Romans vanquished by the Ottomans, who came to Greece by brutal conquest.

I think it's more than that. The idea of a mortal woman bearing the child of a god is very Hellenic.

So is the idea of prophets, actually. See Homer, Hesiod, Orpheus, Tiresias or the Pythia.
 
I mean, from that perspective, so are the Romans vanquished by the Ottomans, who came to Greece by brutal conquest.

Well, yeah, but by the time of the Turkish invasions the Greeks identified themselves as Romans completely. Maybe if the Ottomans had switched over to the Greek language and culture the Greeks might have culturally syncretized with them as well—it’s what the Romans in Greece did originally.

There’s also the drastic lifestyle differences—the Turks were largely nomadic and brought that way of life to the Anatolian interior, pushing the more urbanite Greeks to the coast. There was a real divide there that there wasn’t with the original Roman invaders AFAIK.
 
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