Jewish Yemen

What would need to occur for a Jewish nation with a Jewish majority to be created in Yemen or anywhere else on the Arabian peninsula?
 
Democritus

I think you would need to butterfly Islam or at least cripple it as a military force given Muhammad's hostility to them. Christianity would also be a threat to a Jewish state but Yemen would be somewhat further removed from their centres of power.

Judaism was establishing a marked presence in Yemen, Mecca and other such places prior to the rise of Islam but that pretty much closed the door to any options near it.

Steve
 
Prevent the collapse of the Himyarite Kingdom, which occured about a century before Muhammad was born. A long-lasting Jewish state would probably convert most of the population at some point.

Of course, in order to secure Himyar's survival, you'll probably have to prevent the rise of Islam as well, or else have Muhammad be some kind of radical Jew (though one can argue this is OTL, Islam has a great many theological similarties to Judaism, much more than it shares with Christianity)
 
Prevent the collapse of the Himyarite Kingdom, which occured about a century before Muhammad was born. A long-lasting Jewish state would probably convert most of the population at some point.

Of course, in order to secure Himyar's survival, you'll probably have to prevent the rise of Islam as well, or else have Muhammad be some kind of radical Jew (though one can argue this is OTL, Islam has a great many theological similarties to Judaism, much more than it shares with Christianity)

It looks like the collapse of the Jewish Himyarite Kingdom was more due to beleaguered troops who didn't want to continue fighting so they overthrew the king and a pagan seized power. Theoretically if the Jewish king were less warlike would Islam need to be butterflied away or would they just conquer the kingdom and convert it as they did many other places?
 
After the Himyar king Abu-Kariba Assad converted to Judaism he went on a disasterous expedition north in an attempted attack on the Byzantines that ended in a disasterous seige of the ironically Jewish-majority city of Yathrib.

Keep Assad in his Kingdom, spreading his new religion (which he converted to as a balance between Christian Byzantium and Zoroastrian Persia rather than any religious fervor). He also needs to focus on strengthening the Marib Dam, a feat of engineering that had collapsed a few decades earlier and severely weakened the kingdom. If he can fix it permanently, to prevent more flooding in the following decade which would eventually lead to mass migrations, then he could hold together the kingdom while butterflying away Islam.
 
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