Keeping North Africa on an equal footing with Europe?

I agree that north africa had declined, but so had much of western europe.
what finally did in the area was the bedouin and the goats eating the tress and killing of many of the farmers which did in much of the agricultural infrastructure
 
Christian north africa would be more important and accepted in europe. Nothing would make for example tunisia less european or important to europe than italy or spain.

I agree that you would need a Christian North Africa for it to be looked upon as more European or brought on more into "European relations". By being Christian it avoids both being excluded by the Christian world and excluding itself out by wanting to be part of something else.

However in this case I can also see a larger cultural divide forming between the Northern and Mediterranean "Western World". Islam kinda allowed for all of it to be lumped as Europe but without Islam the sense of otherness might be easier to establish between the North (Germanic based) and Mediterranean (Greco/Roman) based West.
 
I wonder if a North Africa that remains Christian would remain closer to Europe and not slip so far into irrelevance. I mean, I know that such a scenario is dependent on so many variables that we can't simply imagine a world exactly like our own but with a Christian kings in the southern Mediterranean, but still speaking in the general sense, I wonder what relations would be like. Perhaps it would still be peripheral to Western European politics, like Russia in its early history, or Armenia and Georgia?

Well, a North Africa that remained Christian would be part of the same cultural sphere as the rest of the Europe. Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia at least would likely by Catholic, and thus tied to Rome. It would have universities; its elite would speak first Latin and then French. It would be part of European politics. Egypt would be less so since its Monophysite Church would be distinct from both Latin and Greek Christianities.

However, any North African countries would still likely be minor powers relative to the great powers of Europe. Egypt would have the population and key geographic location to be a major power for a very long time. The rest of North Africa not so much, although if there was some kind of mega-Berber state, it could have a lot of heft. North Africa simply has a lot more environmental limits placed on it, since it's hedged in by the Sahara. It'll be more prone to drought, lacks significant naval stores, and has less carrying capacity than Europe north of the Mediterranean. This isn't to say that North Africa is doomed to be inferior, just that it has more obstacles to overcome.

The farther you go back in history though, the more butterflies you have. Depending on which ones you select, you end up changing as much of Europe as you do of North Africa.
 
That would have made North Africa richer as the middle men in the trade from the south, Gold salt and slaves.
 
What about a combination of a stronger al-Andalus state, one which manages to hang on and hold at least southern Iberia (I rather suspect it would actually have to hold the whole peninsula though), and that regime getting strongly on the outs with the Ottomans? Perhaps for reasons of religious divergence, perhaps out of simple political conflict?

So it remains an Islamic-run nation and the Europeans give up on the idea of dislodging it, but being opposed to the Ottomans, it seeks diplomatic relations with the western Christian realms. And in this situation, Iberians are still the pioneers of Atlantic exploration and trade.

The upshot might be Western Christendom, in its own schismatic divisions, getting used to the idea of relating to this Muslim state as yet another player in the game of European politics, and the Iberians coming to think of themselves as part of that world too.

What this does for North Africa is, gives the local Islamic powers there choices--to submit to Ottoman hegemony, or to align instead with Iberia.

A distinct Western Med Islamic subsociety might result, one that is in closer communication with the Christian powers to the north as a result of ties mediated by their Iberian ally.

Meanwhile overseas the Iberians who trade with the Indian Ocean and beyond by going around Africa would have the advantage, relative to OTL Portuguese, of being Muslims and therefore less unwelcome in East Africa and less unfamiliar in India and the East Indies. Whereas once the Western Hemisphere lands are discovered, the Iberians might well seek territory and converts to Islam there, but the rest of the Europeans would not feel in the least bound to back off (not that the OTL Treaty of Tordesillas was much respected by other Europeans, certainly not by Protestant England and Netherlands but not by Catholic France either) and in fact might find the religious factor an additional spur to land-grabs in whatever the western continents would be named.

I'd guess it would be Iberians who find them first, probably the northeast tip of OTL Brazil, while attempting to follow the trade routes around Africa. But also that the news would leak and meanwhile English expeditions like that of Cabot would happen eventually due to the news of Breton fishing grounds and the old lore of Vinland plus the geography-inspired notion of a Great Circle northwest passage to China all conspiring to suggest an expedition in the old Viking direction might well pay off one way or another. Especially if there is murky word of Iberian discoveries to the southwest.

So then there'd be a rush to the west, and this might draw Iberia's North African allies in closer, with Iberia having such a strong hold on the mouth of the Mediterranean.

I can even vaguely see a possible Italian connection, with some major trading city-states like Venice probably kowtowing to Constantinople and their rivals, frozen out of eastern Med trade, seeking ties with Iberia and her Muslim north African associates. Perhaps, to give extra demographic oomph to land grabs in the west, the Muslims would go so far as to assign territories for the Italians (therefore Catholicism) to colonize, if these Italian colonies will assist their Muslim neighbors and allies against Northern European encroachments. The Catholic establishment in Rome thus sees the spectacle of two opposed sets of Unholy Alliances with Islamic powers, some Italian states aligning with the Ottomans, others with Iberia, and perforce both wings of the Muslim world are entangled with European politics and the whole thing--Catholic or schismatic-from-Catholic Western Christendom, Islamic Africa, Islamic Asia--all being drawn into one big political continuum, with far-flung theatres of exploration, trade, and settlement with a side of conflict in the Western Hemisphere and the far East.
 
I like this so far.
What about the dutch setting up a network of trading posts along the coasts some of which become the seeds for dutch colonies,a la Carthage, and some of which grow into hybrid Amerco/Dutch cultures?
 
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seems like N. Africa would kinda lose out in the Industrial revolution... not sure about the mineral resources of the area (coal? iron?) but there is a lack of water power outside of Egypt. I'd wonder if the place wouldn't be a target for the rapacious colonial powers of Europe...
 
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