Moonlight in a Jar: An Al-Andalus Timeline
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My brain just produced the phrase "huacas of the Nine Saints" for some reason...
And yes, the discussion of the southwest seems fascinating, with state formation happening there. A stimulus-diffusion syllabary seems interesting here. And kudos for making a crop shift a major AH plot point-that's the kind of thing that doesn't get enough love.
And yes, the discussion of the southwest seems fascinating, with state formation happening there. A stimulus-diffusion syllabary seems interesting here. And kudos for making a crop shift a major AH plot point-that's the kind of thing that doesn't get enough love.
After a long time, I've finally caught up on this amazing TL. This is probably one of the best TLs I've seen, especially considering it's a Middle Ages POD which basically means you have to handle way more butterflies with way less reliable sources. This is an idea I've had for a while but is so hard to do because of a lack of English sources. So, props to you!
Anyways, baseless speculation time! It seems Andalus will adopt a parliament at some point, and it seems the current Hajib system will disappear, but the Caliph is a big question mark. In any case, something akin to liberalism seems to have developed, though its unclear how ballsy this form is irt religion. The fact that al-Mustakshif is a "sore point" in East-West relations indicates that there will be plenty of indigenous states in the Algarves, as otherwise why would Alt-Mestizos care so much? A Quechua state of some form has basically been confirmed, probably a republic.
Anyways, baseless speculation time! It seems Andalus will adopt a parliament at some point, and it seems the current Hajib system will disappear, but the Caliph is a big question mark. In any case, something akin to liberalism seems to have developed, though its unclear how ballsy this form is irt religion. The fact that al-Mustakshif is a "sore point" in East-West relations indicates that there will be plenty of indigenous states in the Algarves, as otherwise why would Alt-Mestizos care so much? A Quechua state of some form has basically been confirmed, probably a republic.
The Caliph would be the Governor/High Minister(i can't recall the old arab term for president if that exist, or just Head of the board) remembering there not separation of church and state, the Ummah is both and every muslim is expected to spread the ummah and defended it. In a way both are the same, meaning candidates would be heavily illustrated in religious afffair(both Coranic and the sunnah)
I'm not entirely sure about this though. The Caliph is already a mainly ceremonial position, and western Christian states also lacked separation of Church and State, and were also expected to spread Christianity, but the French Revolution was still fiercely anti-clerical. Even if they retain the Caliph as an official head of state, it's hard to imagine them giving the Caliph *more* power, and the position might very well be purely ceremonial, meaning that candidates wouldn't really have to be super knowledgeable about religious affairs. In fact, the only way I can see the Caliph surviving as at least officially having secular power is if the Caliph doesn't ever retake it. If somehow there was a Meiji restoration and the Hajib was deposed, the angers of whatever is this timeline's enlightenment thinkers and liberal revolutionaries wouldn't just disappear, it might simply be redirected against the Caliph, as he's no longer just a harmless religious figurehead, but he is *in charge* of the government, which any future republican revolutionaries would be rising up against.
That is the very complex things, the other way is not caliph and the goverment just 'sponsor' all the religious schools in the Sunni branches...and that is other socio-cultura implication too
I've been looking through some of the older posts, and the fact that Seville's Alcazar and Lisbon's Great Mosque seem to primarily function as tourist sites probably doesn't bode well for the modern Caliphs.
At the minimum I can see the Caliph having a kind of chairman position in the government committees regulating religious schools, waqf administration, and the like. These agencies might even be considered entirely separate from the "secular state," which might at most wield the power of the purse over the Caliph's agencies (though the Caliph could probably survive a period of tension with the secular state by drawing on waqf income and donations from ideological followers). However, if the Caliph is seen as the guardian of conventional morality/the Deen/etc. he could end up adopting the power of judicial review of the legislature's activities. It doesn't even have to be an official power-- the Caliph can simply comment on the passage of a controversial law saying "Well, I can't directly stop this from happening but I sure don't like it" in a scholarly opinion citing all necessary precedents, and now the governing party's gotta start worrying about the next elections.
Song China being the world's leading society for a few centuries really throws a wrench into politics predictions, especially depending on whether the mildly libertarian-Confucian sentiment of Su Dongpo or the reformist absolutism of Wang Anshi wins out in the long term (or some other ideology, China has enough to draw from). Imagine a group of Andalusi absolutist thinkers arguing that the Umayyad realms ought to constitute a "Celestial Empire" of their own, or a European king modeling his reign on Tang Taizong's...
At the minimum I can see the Caliph having a kind of chairman position in the government committees regulating religious schools, waqf administration, and the like. These agencies might even be considered entirely separate from the "secular state," which might at most wield the power of the purse over the Caliph's agencies (though the Caliph could probably survive a period of tension with the secular state by drawing on waqf income and donations from ideological followers). However, if the Caliph is seen as the guardian of conventional morality/the Deen/etc. he could end up adopting the power of judicial review of the legislature's activities. It doesn't even have to be an official power-- the Caliph can simply comment on the passage of a controversial law saying "Well, I can't directly stop this from happening but I sure don't like it" in a scholarly opinion citing all necessary precedents, and now the governing party's gotta start worrying about the next elections.
Song China being the world's leading society for a few centuries really throws a wrench into politics predictions, especially depending on whether the mildly libertarian-Confucian sentiment of Su Dongpo or the reformist absolutism of Wang Anshi wins out in the long term (or some other ideology, China has enough to draw from). Imagine a group of Andalusi absolutist thinkers arguing that the Umayyad realms ought to constitute a "Celestial Empire" of their own, or a European king modeling his reign on Tang Taizong's...
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The question of how ideologies develop will be an interesting one. I think many of the ideologies will, for lack of a better word, "rhyme", but they won't be precisely similar. Since it looks like the Industrial Revolution is going to happen, then because of the rise of a new industrial working class, ideologies will develop and gain prominence that in some way advocate for the betterment of that class. So we will almost definitely see something that kind of looks like what we'd consider socialism, communism, and social democracy today, but it probably won't look exactly alike.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it also seems like Andalus doesn't really have much of an aristocracy anymore, do they? There are influential and wealthy muladi families, but they seem to be more mercantile in orientation, and also more urban. It seems like Andalus has developed a sort of plutocratic pseudo-monarchy.
And as for what LostInNewDelhi said, I can't really see the Caliph's power increasing anymore. I think that the sort of "judicial review" type thing might be, theoretically, part of a compromise Andalusi republicans make with the Ulema, but in reality it could likely be something that is never used.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it also seems like Andalus doesn't really have much of an aristocracy anymore, do they? There are influential and wealthy muladi families, but they seem to be more mercantile in orientation, and also more urban. It seems like Andalus has developed a sort of plutocratic pseudo-monarchy.
And as for what LostInNewDelhi said, I can't really see the Caliph's power increasing anymore. I think that the sort of "judicial review" type thing might be, theoretically, part of a compromise Andalusi republicans make with the Ulema, but in reality it could likely be something that is never used.
I wonder if Santiagonian 'crusaderism' or Algarvian nationalism will eventually become formalized actual things that survive to the present day. If Santiago and the other Northern Kingdoms in Iberia are finally subsumed, I can see religious warfare continue from Santiagonian exiles across the Pyrenees. I can see a form of militant Christian extremism brew in Southern Francia to the point where Andalus will have to fight a war with Francia with an unknown, but a definitively explosive outcome.
Secondly, many Native Algarvian cultures probably already resent people from the Old World for bringing warfare, bloodshed, and disease. As someone else had mentioned, I see many Native resistance religions being formed in opposition to Andalusian Islam or Christianity with its adherents wanting the Algarves for Algarvians only. With an earlier diffusion of gunpowder, horsemanship, Eurasian agriculture, and other important technologies, some Native polities stand a chance in actually causing some issues to any of the trading posts and or colonies in Gharb-Al-Aqsa.
Secondly, many Native Algarvian cultures probably already resent people from the Old World for bringing warfare, bloodshed, and disease. As someone else had mentioned, I see many Native resistance religions being formed in opposition to Andalusian Islam or Christianity with its adherents wanting the Algarves for Algarvians only. With an earlier diffusion of gunpowder, horsemanship, Eurasian agriculture, and other important technologies, some Native polities stand a chance in actually causing some issues to any of the trading posts and or colonies in Gharb-Al-Aqsa.
Caliph should realistically have power as thats its entire premise thats why monarchy suited the caliphate but putting that aside.
Why hasn't the fact muhammad being a merchant not been used politically? Surely the merchants would love to push cause muhammad was a merchant, its naturally right for merchants to lead.
Also do jewish merchant families have the same amount of power that muslim merchant families do?
Btw have big cats, mooses etc been finally been brought across the Atlantic.
Whats the biggest andalusian settlement in the Americas.
What is the andalusian name for the Atlantic?
Why hasn't the fact muhammad being a merchant not been used politically? Surely the merchants would love to push cause muhammad was a merchant, its naturally right for merchants to lead.
Also do jewish merchant families have the same amount of power that muslim merchant families do?
Btw have big cats, mooses etc been finally been brought across the Atlantic.
Whats the biggest andalusian settlement in the Americas.
What is the andalusian name for the Atlantic?
ACT VII Part XIII: Eastern Voyages, China, Cathay and the Circumnavigation
Planet of Hats
Donor
Excerpt: 14: The Century That Changed Everything - Christian Saldmare, Dragon's Hill Press, AD 2002
The reign of Muhammad ibn Husayn is mostly seen as a placeholder period in Hizamid history, but is remarkable for a particular encounter: The Andalusian embassies to China.
While not well-documented, it's reported that around 1373, Muhammad dispatched the learned man Abd al-Qadir ibn Sulayman al-Hafiz to bring tidings to the East. At the time, the Andalusian world was digesting its relatively recent understanding of the Eastern World from the Islands on towards China and Japan, and while contacts had likely been made at the level of merchant-to-merchant relationships, Al-Hafiz's relationship represents the first known official embassy from Al-Andalus to various Eastern courts.
It took Al-Hafiz and a flotilla of ships several years to complete their journey. He appears to have arrived first in Hindustan, where he stayed for about six months in Lanka, apparently converting a hundred people. From there Al-Hafiz continued on to the Dala Kingdom[1] and delivered indigo fabrics and fine oils to the rulers there, before departing after a few months to make landfall in the Aceh Sultanate. Al-Hafiz seems to have lingered there for another three months before setting sail for China.
Al-Hafiz arrived in China in about 1379 to find a divided realm.
The Song were one of China's most long-lasting and consequential imperial dynasties. However, by 1379, the Song had been beaten back from much of the north by the resurgent Khitans and their Tatar allies. The Song-Hei Wars left China divided between the Song in the south and the Hei in the north, with Song holdings in Gansu long since lost to the late Altai Taban Horde and its successor states. Al-Hafiz arrived to find not one but two imperial courts, with the Song ruled by the Leizong Emperor - a boy of just seven years old, holding court at Jiangning and operating under the thumb of his mother, Empress Xie.
Chinese sources have little to say about the arrival of the Andalusian delegation, noting mainly that "an emissary of the Da shi of Xihai[2]" arrived and brought a strong warhorse as tribute. The visit seems to have been little more than a curiosity, with Andalusian affairs simply passing beneath the notice of the very late Song. Hei sources do not report Al-Hafiz's visit at all, though an Andalusian source reports that the emissaries reached Yanjing in 1380 and brought gifts to the Khitan Emperor Ruizong.
The state of affairs in China would not remain so for very long: The Song had stagnated over the past several decades, and the loss of northern territories led to much chatter that the ruling dynasty had lost the Mandate of Heaven. Leizong himself would not live to his majority before being overthrown in a series of rebellions. By 1387, power would wind up in the hands of the Ru family, led by Ru Wenjun - the so-called Emperor Qingzu of the Wu Dynasty, and the progenitor of the dynasty which would lead China to become the first truly modern nation.
The other major achievement of Muhammad's rule is typically credited to Abd ar-Rahman the Mariner, as Muhammad himself did not live long enough to see it to completion: In 1378, he authorized funding for a mission by the mariner Uthman ibn Maymun al-Dani to sail to the Spice Islands, namely Nusantara, and chart the route for future sailors. The mission would go down in history for an entirely different reason. Ibn Maymun would become the first sailor to successfully circumnavigate the world.
Setting out from Qadis in April of 1378, Ibn Maymum and his six ships set sail for the Spice Islands, going by way of the Sudan. The ships rounded the continent easily enough and followed the monsoonal routes first to Hindustan, and from there on to the Aceh Sultanate, arriving not long after Al-Hafiz's departure from the region. However, despite ties of religious kinship to the regional Sultans, Ibn Maymun and his crew ran into trouble in the city of Temasik[3] when a member of his crew was accused of assaulting the wife of a local merchant leader.
The dispute resulted in outright brawling between Ibn Maymun's crew and the local authorities, there with the sanction of the Chinese Emperor even at this waning period in Song history - while the Aceh Sultans were Muslim, they ruled with the tacit approval of the Song and the support of a Chinese garrison there to ensure that Malacca would remain open to trade. The Andalusian crew got the worst of the encounter; the crewman was captured and one of Ibn Maymun's ships was scuttled, the other five escaping a jump ahead of the local authorities. Word was quickly handed down and spread throughout the Sultanate that Ibn Maymun and his crew were to be considered outlaws, to be rounded up and imprisoned should they show their faces in the Sultan's domain again.
With the routes through the Spice Islands poorly-charted, a western route home seemed out of the question. The demoralized sailors continued on to the east, eventually stopping on the island of Borneo, in the poorly-documented kingdom of Po-ni - a Chinese tributary, yet one distant from the waning authority of the Song. Accounts of the voyage make a note of reporting that Ibn Maymun and his crew converted about 25 people to Islam during a two-month retreat there, but they soon set sail again, heading not west, but east. The mariner, well-versed in travelers' tales from the Farthest West and well aware of the spherical nature of the Earth, surmised that the ships could avoid entanglements in Aceh by simply sailing across the seas east of the Spice Islands, no doubt encountering new islands along the way.
Continuing on from Po-ni, the ships landed at the pagan settlement of Samboangan,[4] a site of Chinese trade but not a core area. One of the ships was abandoned there, damaged in a storm, and much of the crew dispersed onto the other four ships before they set sail to the southeast. The ships narrowly missed spotting the island of Palau before continuing on to a vaguely-defined landing site on the northeastern coast of the large island of Papua.
The four remaining ships struggled to make headway against the westerly winds of the Great Sunset Ocean, eventually finding themselves forced southward into colder, emptier seas. They eventually made landfall on the island of Kanak[5] and made efforts to trade with the Kanak people there, coming back with native pottery and a few foodstuffs, most notably bananas. They also came back without several crew members after being attacked by locals during a second landing while taking on water. Without enough people to crew four ships, Ibn Maymun was forced to scuttle the most battered of his vessels; the shipwreck can be found off the southern coast of the island in shallow water, decayed to little more than a few remaining metal artifacts and some petrified wood.
The grueling eastward trek cost Ibn Maymun one more ship, lost off the coast of an uncertain island after being attacked by "twinned canoes" helmed by "the Canoe People." Few details are recorded, but the encounters mark Europe's first encounter with the Tu'i Tonga Empire, then in a stage of cultural flourishing across much of the Sunset Islands. Ibn Maymun, wounded in the leg by a spear, did not stay to make contact, instead continuing eastward into open ocean and encountering only vast stretches of water interspersed with a few water-scarce islands, many of them uninhabited.
Plagued by water shortages, the remaining Andalusian sailors struggled to survive as they sailed into the east. Eventually sentiments boiled over, and Ibn Maymun's crew mutinied and put him off the ship, leaving him among the natives of Te I'i.[6] However, the second ship eventually circled back and the crew picked up Ibn Maymun again, evidently having a change of heart. The crew lurched eastward, stopping on the island to water, soon rejoining the first ship and reconciling with the mutineers - though not before two more were thrown overboard.
By the time Ibn Maymun and his crew made landfall, making their way to Yucu Dzaa[7] among the lands of the Naysavi,[8] it was October of 1383 - but the surviving crew were able to cross the Isthmus to one of the Makzans, sailing back to Al-Andalus with charts and tales. To this day, the island chain in Te I'i is known as the Maymun Islands among Muslim sailors.
They did not return to find Muhammad. He was dead by 1379, succumbing to smallpox and clearing the way for Abd ar-Rahman the Seafarer to rise to the office of Hajib.
[1] In present-day Burma.
[2] "West Sea." The Chinese refer to the Andalusians as Da shi - "Arabs" - largely because they are ignorant and uncaring about the distinctions between Arabs, Berbers and Andalusians. They mostly think of them as "Those Arabs with the boats who came over the sea from somewhere on the really far edge of the really far continent." Broadly, however, Al-Andalus is a minor issue for China and not a place Empress Xie gives a damn about.
[3] Singapore.
[4] Zamboanga in the Philippines.
[5] New Caledonia.
[6] On Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands.
[7] Tututepec.
[8] The Mixtecs.
The reign of Muhammad ibn Husayn is mostly seen as a placeholder period in Hizamid history, but is remarkable for a particular encounter: The Andalusian embassies to China.
While not well-documented, it's reported that around 1373, Muhammad dispatched the learned man Abd al-Qadir ibn Sulayman al-Hafiz to bring tidings to the East. At the time, the Andalusian world was digesting its relatively recent understanding of the Eastern World from the Islands on towards China and Japan, and while contacts had likely been made at the level of merchant-to-merchant relationships, Al-Hafiz's relationship represents the first known official embassy from Al-Andalus to various Eastern courts.
It took Al-Hafiz and a flotilla of ships several years to complete their journey. He appears to have arrived first in Hindustan, where he stayed for about six months in Lanka, apparently converting a hundred people. From there Al-Hafiz continued on to the Dala Kingdom[1] and delivered indigo fabrics and fine oils to the rulers there, before departing after a few months to make landfall in the Aceh Sultanate. Al-Hafiz seems to have lingered there for another three months before setting sail for China.
Al-Hafiz arrived in China in about 1379 to find a divided realm.
The Song were one of China's most long-lasting and consequential imperial dynasties. However, by 1379, the Song had been beaten back from much of the north by the resurgent Khitans and their Tatar allies. The Song-Hei Wars left China divided between the Song in the south and the Hei in the north, with Song holdings in Gansu long since lost to the late Altai Taban Horde and its successor states. Al-Hafiz arrived to find not one but two imperial courts, with the Song ruled by the Leizong Emperor - a boy of just seven years old, holding court at Jiangning and operating under the thumb of his mother, Empress Xie.
Chinese sources have little to say about the arrival of the Andalusian delegation, noting mainly that "an emissary of the Da shi of Xihai[2]" arrived and brought a strong warhorse as tribute. The visit seems to have been little more than a curiosity, with Andalusian affairs simply passing beneath the notice of the very late Song. Hei sources do not report Al-Hafiz's visit at all, though an Andalusian source reports that the emissaries reached Yanjing in 1380 and brought gifts to the Khitan Emperor Ruizong.
The state of affairs in China would not remain so for very long: The Song had stagnated over the past several decades, and the loss of northern territories led to much chatter that the ruling dynasty had lost the Mandate of Heaven. Leizong himself would not live to his majority before being overthrown in a series of rebellions. By 1387, power would wind up in the hands of the Ru family, led by Ru Wenjun - the so-called Emperor Qingzu of the Wu Dynasty, and the progenitor of the dynasty which would lead China to become the first truly modern nation.
~
The other major achievement of Muhammad's rule is typically credited to Abd ar-Rahman the Mariner, as Muhammad himself did not live long enough to see it to completion: In 1378, he authorized funding for a mission by the mariner Uthman ibn Maymun al-Dani to sail to the Spice Islands, namely Nusantara, and chart the route for future sailors. The mission would go down in history for an entirely different reason. Ibn Maymun would become the first sailor to successfully circumnavigate the world.
Setting out from Qadis in April of 1378, Ibn Maymum and his six ships set sail for the Spice Islands, going by way of the Sudan. The ships rounded the continent easily enough and followed the monsoonal routes first to Hindustan, and from there on to the Aceh Sultanate, arriving not long after Al-Hafiz's departure from the region. However, despite ties of religious kinship to the regional Sultans, Ibn Maymun and his crew ran into trouble in the city of Temasik[3] when a member of his crew was accused of assaulting the wife of a local merchant leader.
The dispute resulted in outright brawling between Ibn Maymun's crew and the local authorities, there with the sanction of the Chinese Emperor even at this waning period in Song history - while the Aceh Sultans were Muslim, they ruled with the tacit approval of the Song and the support of a Chinese garrison there to ensure that Malacca would remain open to trade. The Andalusian crew got the worst of the encounter; the crewman was captured and one of Ibn Maymun's ships was scuttled, the other five escaping a jump ahead of the local authorities. Word was quickly handed down and spread throughout the Sultanate that Ibn Maymun and his crew were to be considered outlaws, to be rounded up and imprisoned should they show their faces in the Sultan's domain again.
With the routes through the Spice Islands poorly-charted, a western route home seemed out of the question. The demoralized sailors continued on to the east, eventually stopping on the island of Borneo, in the poorly-documented kingdom of Po-ni - a Chinese tributary, yet one distant from the waning authority of the Song. Accounts of the voyage make a note of reporting that Ibn Maymun and his crew converted about 25 people to Islam during a two-month retreat there, but they soon set sail again, heading not west, but east. The mariner, well-versed in travelers' tales from the Farthest West and well aware of the spherical nature of the Earth, surmised that the ships could avoid entanglements in Aceh by simply sailing across the seas east of the Spice Islands, no doubt encountering new islands along the way.
Continuing on from Po-ni, the ships landed at the pagan settlement of Samboangan,[4] a site of Chinese trade but not a core area. One of the ships was abandoned there, damaged in a storm, and much of the crew dispersed onto the other four ships before they set sail to the southeast. The ships narrowly missed spotting the island of Palau before continuing on to a vaguely-defined landing site on the northeastern coast of the large island of Papua.
The four remaining ships struggled to make headway against the westerly winds of the Great Sunset Ocean, eventually finding themselves forced southward into colder, emptier seas. They eventually made landfall on the island of Kanak[5] and made efforts to trade with the Kanak people there, coming back with native pottery and a few foodstuffs, most notably bananas. They also came back without several crew members after being attacked by locals during a second landing while taking on water. Without enough people to crew four ships, Ibn Maymun was forced to scuttle the most battered of his vessels; the shipwreck can be found off the southern coast of the island in shallow water, decayed to little more than a few remaining metal artifacts and some petrified wood.
The grueling eastward trek cost Ibn Maymun one more ship, lost off the coast of an uncertain island after being attacked by "twinned canoes" helmed by "the Canoe People." Few details are recorded, but the encounters mark Europe's first encounter with the Tu'i Tonga Empire, then in a stage of cultural flourishing across much of the Sunset Islands. Ibn Maymun, wounded in the leg by a spear, did not stay to make contact, instead continuing eastward into open ocean and encountering only vast stretches of water interspersed with a few water-scarce islands, many of them uninhabited.
Plagued by water shortages, the remaining Andalusian sailors struggled to survive as they sailed into the east. Eventually sentiments boiled over, and Ibn Maymun's crew mutinied and put him off the ship, leaving him among the natives of Te I'i.[6] However, the second ship eventually circled back and the crew picked up Ibn Maymun again, evidently having a change of heart. The crew lurched eastward, stopping on the island to water, soon rejoining the first ship and reconciling with the mutineers - though not before two more were thrown overboard.
By the time Ibn Maymun and his crew made landfall, making their way to Yucu Dzaa[7] among the lands of the Naysavi,[8] it was October of 1383 - but the surviving crew were able to cross the Isthmus to one of the Makzans, sailing back to Al-Andalus with charts and tales. To this day, the island chain in Te I'i is known as the Maymun Islands among Muslim sailors.
They did not return to find Muhammad. He was dead by 1379, succumbing to smallpox and clearing the way for Abd ar-Rahman the Seafarer to rise to the office of Hajib.
[1] In present-day Burma.
[2] "West Sea." The Chinese refer to the Andalusians as Da shi - "Arabs" - largely because they are ignorant and uncaring about the distinctions between Arabs, Berbers and Andalusians. They mostly think of them as "Those Arabs with the boats who came over the sea from somewhere on the really far edge of the really far continent." Broadly, however, Al-Andalus is a minor issue for China and not a place Empress Xie gives a damn about.
[3] Singapore.
[4] Zamboanga in the Philippines.
[5] New Caledonia.
[6] On Nuku Hiva in the Marquesas Islands.
[7] Tututepec.
[8] The Mixtecs.
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It's very interesting to hear more of China. Gao dynasty modernizing China makes it sound like we might have a Sinocentric modern world.
Also a fun alt-Magellan. Experiencing many of the same difficulties as Magellan himself, although Maymun manages to survive his voyage.
Also a fun alt-Magellan. Experiencing many of the same difficulties as Magellan himself, although Maymun manages to survive his voyage.
Is 高 the official name of the dynasty, because if so that would be a break with prior patterns. The tendency for all dynasties pre-Yuan was to name the dynasty after its place of origin, with that place represented by the old Zhou-dynasty feudal substate that once contained it. The first Sui served as "Duke of Sui" under the Xianbei northern dynasty, becoming emperor later on; the first Tang was the "Duke of Tang", etc. The Yuan mark the start of ideological dynasty names-- coming from a place outside the old Zhou feudal framework, they opted for an name reflecting their aspirations to universal governance; the Ming were the outgrowth of an esoteric religious movement.
If Gao is an ideological as opposed to a geographical name, then the fall of the Song will likely unfold in a very atypical manner-- not a simple coup, but something more revolutionary. Alternately, Gao might just be the family's own surname. If that is the case, then the official dynasty name should be different-- the surname was never used as the name for the state.
If Gao is an ideological as opposed to a geographical name, then the fall of the Song will likely unfold in a very atypical manner-- not a simple coup, but something more revolutionary. Alternately, Gao might just be the family's own surname. If that is the case, then the official dynasty name should be different-- the surname was never used as the name for the state.
Planet of Hats
Donor
Dynastic names are one of those things that vex me because of my lack of familiarity with the nuances of the language. I'd picked it out as an ideological name. The details of what happened here are somewhat glossed over, but the intention is that the Song are incredibly weak at this time and are ultimately overthrown in some fashion. The Ru in this case were prominent nobles from the south, based around Shanghai. Maybe "Shen" would work. Or "Hu."
Then Wu (吴) would be a fitting one. Shen (申) also makes sense.
How are Arab sailors percieved in Nusantara itself. Is their belligerent behavior part of a rowdy stereotype, or a shocking surprise?
Planet of Hats
Donor
Arab, Berber and Andalusi sailors are viewed a little more favourably in the Muslim-majority areas of Aceh and Malaya than in the rest of Nusantara, but they're seen as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, they tend to have good gold (they trade in West Africa and bring back gold via their stops in Senegambia) and worthwhile trade goods, and they'll pay well for spices. On the other hand, they're seen as troublemakers. Andalusian Muslims in particular are stereotyped as folks who enjoy their wine, on the down-low at home but more openly when they're at sea and away from the watchful eyes of their local imams, and the sailors will often look for a booze joint when they land, much to the surprise of those who expect them to be good Muslims. They're seen as pests, but pests with money.
Speaking of Aceh, I wonder if the sultanate shall undergo her OTL phase of enthroning female rulers. From 1641 to 1699, four women in succession ascended to the Acehnese throne (though the last one was somewhat controversial) and their reigns were regarded as relatively peaceful and prosperous, if albeit at the cost of hegemonic power being eroded from across Aceh to only the capital itself.
Given how altered the MiaJ-verse is, probably not. But then again, a neighboring sultanate could just as well undergo a similar process of having a woman installed as ruler, and it's not as if women rulers were an alien thing down there; even now-conservative Kelantan had their greatest ruler being a queen.
Given how altered the MiaJ-verse is, probably not. But then again, a neighboring sultanate could just as well undergo a similar process of having a woman installed as ruler, and it's not as if women rulers were an alien thing down there; even now-conservative Kelantan had their greatest ruler being a queen.
Planet of Hats
Donor
The spread of Nahuatl-based languages in general is much less at this point in time. The Tepanec dominion is very much restricted to the Valley of Mexico, and more contacts are being made directly with the local inhabitants rather than the Aztecs being there to slap a placename on everything (the Mexica remain nomadic and are counted among the Chichimeca). As such, you see more names in the Valley of Mexico being given in Otomi (others in Nahuatl if the altepetl in question is Nahuatl-majority) and other areas being given in indigenous languages, or Arabic kludges of the same - e.g. the Tarascan state is referred to as the Purepecha state, the Pirechecua Tzintzuntzani, and Tututepec is referred to as Yucu Dzaa.