No Islam: What happens to Byzantium and Persia

All West African religions would likely survive for many centuries, unless you have a powerful state enforcing orthodoxy and repressing "paganism" and "idolatry" (imagine a Christian version of the Fulani Jihads, call it the "Fulani Crusades" or something). I doubt Christianity would be any different than Islam in that regard. Even though most West African rulers were Muslims, they generally showed a lot of tolerance to their non-Muslim subjects. Even if "suppressed" to the degree traditional European faiths are IOTL, there'd be a huge variety of rural and local traditions that would be directly inherited from pre-Christian times.

Ethiopia having influence in West Africa seems ASB due to the vast distances across swamps, rainforests, and the desert. Although there were Saharan trade routes with one end at Cyrenaica and Egypt, so you could have other sorts of Christianity enter into the region, especially if some equivalent of the Kanem Empire still exists, as Kanem would have the most contact with Oriental Orthodox states in Egypt and Sudan. So maybe Kanem(-Bornu) and the Hausa would be Oriental Orthodox of some nature, while the Songhai, Mande groups, Wolof, and other people to the west of them would be (nominally) Catholic.

I do think a native West African Christianity could easily develop. The Sahara (TTL probably called a word derived from a Berber term from the same root as Tuareg "Tiniri" meaning desert) is a huge barrier, and you could easily have some sort of heresy develop there which blends a lot of indigenous beliefs and customs or importing Berber interpretations of Christianity and further altering them. The Church in Rome would call it heresy, but they aren't really in a position to do anything about it since projecting power across the Sahara is very challenging and very expensive.

I would see that happening. My guess would be the West African Christianity would branch off from the Oriental Christianity, but still be considered an orthodox form of it with maybe patriarchs and such. And my influence, I would also mean in terms of writing and alphabet since that is also one big thing.
 
I would see that happening. My guess would be the West African Christianity would branch off from the Oriental Christianity, but still be considered an orthodox form of it with maybe patriarchs and such. And my influence, I would also mean in terms of writing and alphabet since that is also one big thing.

Yeah, but only on the eastern parts at most since the majority of trade with West Africa would be coming from the regions of Mauretania and Africa. And they'd probably use Coptic script rather than Ge'ez, as Nubia did. In time, they might derive their own alphabet from Coptic, which would work better for African languages than unmodified Coptic.
 
@metalinvader665 - do you not think it is plausible that West Africa could find itself 'Russia'ed by the Romans?

The way I see it is that the Romans will likely try and establish contact and diplomatic relations with the most powerful or rising powers in Africa - at which point a representative can be given the Constantinople treatment, specifically the Hagia Sofia which if I remember correctly has been referenced as a major reason the Kievan Rus' leadership converted.

I see little reason why that couldn't lead to an effectively autocephalous Church being set up (perhaps even invited) - Only later becoming officially autocephalous.
 

ar-pharazon

Banned
So how will this affect things in Nubia and Ethiopia.

It had contact with Constantinople and was Christian as well.

Could we see Nubia at least integrated into the Byzantine empire through conquest or marriage maybe?
 
Yeah, but only on the eastern parts at most since the majority of trade with West Africa would be coming from the regions of Mauretania and Africa. And they'd probably use Coptic script rather than Ge'ez, as Nubia did. In time, they might derive their own alphabet from Coptic, which would work better for African languages than unmodified Coptic.

Yeah, but as those areas grow, the information would make itself deeper into Africa and be adopted over time me thinks.
 

Marc

Donor
I think the most likely temporal model (a term I rather like better than timeline), is close to what Metalinvader665 suggested above. It's fairly safe to speculate that the geopolitical history of West Africa would be similar in broad respects to what actually occurred between the 7th and 14th centuries - specific but secondary details of course differing.
As for Christianity in West Africa? Going beyond the local response, that could vary quite a bit from normal history if you consider what could be the possible effects on Euro-Mediterranean culture without the impact of Islam, i.e. the structural and theological development of Christianity is not going to nearly follow the same path it did, with the absence of Islam and the Arab conquests. One simple example with far-reaching consequences: No Iconoclastic movement, or a much less significant one.
 
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@metalinvader665 - do you not think it is plausible that West Africa could find itself 'Russia'ed by the Romans?

The way I see it is that the Romans will likely try and establish contact and diplomatic relations with the most powerful or rising powers in Africa - at which point a representative can be given the Constantinople treatment, specifically the Hagia Sofia which if I remember correctly has been referenced as a major reason the Kievan Rus' leadership converted.

I see little reason why that couldn't lead to an effectively autocephalous Church being set up (perhaps even invited) - Only later becoming officially autocephalous.

Makes sense, although what goes on with a nation like *Kanem or *Mali is different than how Nubia would be dealt with.

So how will this affect things in Nubia and Ethiopia.

It had contact with Constantinople and was Christian as well.

Could we see Nubia at least integrated into the Byzantine empire through conquest or marriage maybe?

Depends how strong Byzantium is. Large segments of Nubia followed the Melkite Church instead of the Coptic Church, so if Byzantium is powerful, there's a good reason for Nubia not to be Coptic in faith.
 
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