PC/WI: Most of the Muslims in the Crusader states convert to Christianity?

Sea transportation simply tended to be cheaper, quicker and safer hence why virtually anyone from the XIIth century onward used it.

While I don't doubt that it was quicker and with Anatolia is Turk hands its was safer but for someone without the cash to pay for it I doubt it was cheaper. Not when you can walk, sleep rough and catch or scrounge food along the way.
 
While I don't doubt that it was quicker and with Anatolia is Turk hands its was safer but for someone without the cash to pay for it I doubt it was cheaper. Not when you can walk, sleep rough and catch or scrounge food along the way.
And yet, all description of land journeys by Crusaders describe a particularily important cost, would it be because "scrounging food along the way" wasn't nearly enough : you had to either buy it, or to plunder. It's why Crusade's leaders carried a lot of money and precious item with them; or why even small groups as the Fourth Crusade elected a naval transportation.
It was a bit different, of course, for some Imperial crusaders and Hungarians; but because the land road took more time for most of the others (not mentioning the pretty much real issues of diversions and desertions) : most of the pre-crusade pilgrimages (that didn't gathered more than thousands, safe exceptions)

Comparativly, a naval transportation of settlers (as it systematically happened after the immediate first wave of settlement, in the wake of the First Crusade) was cheaper because while you had to pay for the journey, you didn't have the maintaince cost of a long trip (food, escort, tolls, etc.), keeping in mind you still had to pay for crossing in Constantinople.
 
So, are we looking at the Spanish model here? Specifically, Muslims initially only nominally converting to Christianity (in order to improve their life and life prospects) and then having their descendants gradually take Christianity more seriously?

this is how islam took over the middle east as before them the middle east was Christianity heartland just different sects they were more of them their than in europe at that time it took along time for islam become the most dominate one plus as it grew isis style persecution grew more and more common. thing is it took centuries for this to happen even today in Egypt 10 percent are still christian. it was often easy to wipe out the population this made Christianity growth so amazing it only 1900 century and its nastiness that ripped up society and reformed so violently that weakened it so much
 
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it took along time for islam become the most dominate one plus as it grew isis style persecution grew more and more common.
Wat.
Most of religious radicalism in Arabo-Islamic middle-ages was directed mostly on other Muslims (especially in the case of most radical kharawji) and even in places were ethno-religious values were exacerbated as in al-Andalus, you didn't really have a growing religious persecution (altough you could argue that you had a greater religious differenciation without exageration).

Another minor point, but eastern Romania ceased to be the core of Christianity as a whole with the christianization of western societies in the period between the IVth and the VIth centuries : if anything, eastern regions as Syria of Egypt tended to be more excentred and peripherical when it came to the idea of Christiendom (that until the VIIth, was largely paralleled with the Roman Empire and western kingdoms, and as such Chalcedonian orthodoxy).
Not to say the loss wasn't real, especially as emperors tried to mend the gaps (without stellar success, that said),but it's precisely because they weren't the main part of Christianity that it could blossom still with the lost of eastern and southern Mediteranean basin (which was extremely gradual, except in most of Africa, religiously-wise).
 
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Aren't we assuming that the Latin states are quite more successful than they were IOTL?

Yes but they don't necessary need to be that much successful, a Crusader conquest of Damascus and Central Anatolia will not place that many extra Muslims under Christian rule. But it will split the centre of the Muslim world. It could be pretty interesting to focus on the cultural consequences.

We have here a Greater "Syria" dominated by Crusaders, a Anatolia/Caucasus split between Greeks in the West, Armenian and Georgians in the East and likely a German Crusader settler colony in the Anatolian highland.

We have Persia, Mesopotania and the Persian Gulf split from the Egypt and Hejaz. Likely pushing a East-West split in Islam too.
 
Yes but they don't necessary need to be that much successful, a Crusader conquest of Damascus and Central Anatolia will not place that many extra Muslims under Christian rule. But it will split the centre of the Muslim world. It could be pretty interesting to focus on the cultural consequences.

We have here a Greater "Syria" dominated by Crusaders, a Anatolia/Caucasus split between Greeks in the West, Armenian and Georgians in the East and likely a German Crusader settler colony in the Anatolian highland.

We have Persia, Mesopotania and the Persian Gulf split from the Egypt and Hejaz. Likely pushing a East-West split in Islam too.
Not sure about a split like that, I mean how would that split even work? Shia in African and Sunni in East? I find that hard to believe, because the Red Sea and the Indian ocean can still connect the 2 worlds and is not like the Muslims can't figure some deal with the Christians if the 2 are to coexist in the region in a given Christian controlled Levant.
 
Not sure about a split like that, I mean how would that split even work? Shia in African and Sunni in East? I find that hard to believe, because the Red Sea and the Indian ocean can still connect the 2 worlds and is not like the Muslims can't figure some deal with the Christians if the 2 are to coexist in the region in a given Christian controlled Levant.

I'm not sure the split necessarywill be Shia/Sunni, it may just be a clearer split in schools. But I think the split will not be because of lack of contact, but because the East will be completely dominated by Persia and the West completely dominated by Egypt. But as they're unlikely to have conflict, I think both will have a friendly relationship with each others.
 
@Warlord D Thoran

It is almost certain that the region of Gaul had a larger population of Christians than the entire Abbasid throne. By 1200, the Holy Roman Empire surpassed all nations in terms of Christians. Holy Roman populations would also be larger than any Islamic nation in the high Middle Ages except the Islamic states of northern India. France, Holy Roman Empire and parte of Italy were population juggernauts, the Mid East, not so much.

Though, I do see your point. The loss of Alexandria and Antioch was a great loss for the possibility of Mare Nostrum and thus, Christendom. Which christendom to a large degree was the former Roman economic sphere plus areas such as Scandinavia. However, the loss of Egypt and the Levant was only a loss of a much smaller section of Christendom. Just a section with a large amount of importance psychologically for Christendom.

@LSCatilina

I am not sure what sir @Warlord D Thoran referred to in regards to ISIS or what period he speaks of. However, there was certainly terror placed upon non Muslim communities during the Abbasid period and in states following it. The Abbasid throne promoted a societal and organic assault on various communities to both show the dominance of Islam and put the weaker in their place. This included defacing statues, buildings, icons, lynchings, etc...

Some examples include the culture of desecration in Iran against Zoroastrians. Often, young Muslim converts or Arabs/Iranians (from Muslim backgrounds) would desecrate Zoroastrian sites and buildings and statues. The law of the land defended these activities as it was the duty of a Muslim to destroy idols and symbols of worship given to one other than Allah. The only exception is to those whom the ummah has a security pact with. Zoroastrians often were excluded from this pact... The most famous examples is the desecration of Cteshipon, Zoroastrians burials, Sassanid artwork, Buddhist statues. Al-Afshin himself was executed for a conspiracy he was supposedly apart of, his words were nullified due to witnesses that claim he stopped desecration of Zoroastrian idols.

Ya'qub al-Safar famously destroyed the idols of the Zun and Buddhists in Afghanistan. He did so not for loot, but to prove the night of Islam and all scholars and chroniclers agree to this. The same can be said for the Abbasid supported state of the Ghaznavid and Ghurid. Both of which captured thousands of slaves and idols, idols sent back to Baghdad where they were mocked and destroyed in front of the populace. These sort of traits and actions though, are not unique to Islam, it derives directly from the ancient Mid East, Akkad, Assyria, etc...

Also small point, the Khawarij revolt of the 860s, were perhaps the greatest threat and destroyer of Iraqi Christians until the reign of Timur. Khawarij forces actively targeted Christians, not for religious reasons though. But for loot, Syriac communities often were unprepared for war and relied upon their Abbasid overlords for protection. That sort of foe, is an open target.

Though what you say, is true to a great extent. Abbasid period and following Muslim states in the Mid East focused on battling other Muslim claimants than they did hounding the Christian communities.
 
However, there was certainly terror placed upon non Muslim communities during the Abbasid period and in states following it. The Abbasid throne promoted a societal and organic assault on various communities to both show the dominance of Islam and put the weaker in their place. This included defacing statues, buildings, icons, lynchings, etc...
While you certainly had, as you said, a "culture of desecration" in the key period of the IXth and Xth centuries (and not just from Abbasids, North African States and statelets seems to have pulled something roughly similar, if maybe more limited*) it never really went the way of "convert or die" and more in the spirit of a border region blostered by political-religious values (especially as you pointed for Khawariji), Christians were generally, among others, spared the worst of the humiliating policies, in no small part because they were in more stabilized regions.

Rather than an "ISIS-like" persecution, which is litterally genocidal should it be remembered, Abbasids practices (at least until the Caliphate imploded territorialy-wise) were harsh, relatively decentralized, and interested (it really makes me think about what attempted Almoravids in their time) and targeted at Islamization (would it be relatively superficial, tough) especially as Abassids were representative, so to speak, of Islamized Farsi that had no real interest tolerating Zoroastrian or Zoroastrian-derivated ensemble, at the contray (as most of recent convertees, eventually). But let's say that harsh, violent and humiliating oppositions to Zoroastrians wasn't that widely successful : you still had significant communities by the XIth century after centuries of persecution, including in Abassid core regions.

I think your comparison with ancient Near and Middle-East are particularily interesting : eventually, and that's a genuine question, how much of the self-promoted political and religious actions there weren't partially posturing by Abassids as their old antecessors did?

*Al-Andalus seems to have more gone trough paranoia about crypto-Christianism from muladi, when it comes to religious stress, tough. That some revoltees leaders seems to have converted back to Christianity as Ibn Hafsun didn't helped. Ethnic strife tended to be much more marked in Al-Andalus than strict religious difference among Muslims, admittedly.
 
While you certainly had, as you said, a "culture of desecration" in the key period of the IXth and Xth centuries (and not just from Abbasids, North African States and statelets seems to have pulled something roughly similar, if maybe more limited*) it never really went the way of "convert or die" and more in the spirit of a border region blostered by political-religious values (especially as you pointed for Khawariji), Christians were generally, among others, spared the worst of the humiliating policies, in no small part because they were in more stabilized regions.

Rather than an "ISIS-like" persecution, which is litterally genocidal should it be remembered, Abbasids practices (at least until the Caliphate imploded territorialy-wise) were harsh, relatively decentralized, and interested (it really makes me think about what attempted Almoravids in their time) and targeted at Islamization (would it be relatively superficial, tough) especially as Abassids were representative, so to speak, of Islamized Farsi that had no real interest tolerating Zoroastrian or Zoroastrian-derivated ensemble, at the contray (as most of recent convertees, eventually). But let's say that harsh, violent and humiliating oppositions to Zoroastrians wasn't that widely successful : you still had significant communities by the XIth century after centuries of persecution, including in Abassid core regions.

I think your comparison with ancient Near and Middle-East are particularily interesting : eventually, and that's a genuine question, how much of the self-promoted political and religious actions there weren't partially posturing by Abassids as their old antecessors did?

*Al-Andalus seems to have more gone trough paranoia about crypto-Christianism from muladi, when it comes to religious stress, tough. That some revoltees leaders seems to have converted back to Christianity as Ibn Hafsun didn't helped. Ethnic strife tended to be much more marked in Al-Andalus than strict religious difference among Muslims, admittedly.

I disagree highly. The Zoroastrians lost everything due to this policy. Had there not been this culture of desecration and constant societal pressure on Iran, Persian nobility would have been crypto Zoroastrians, just as al-Afshin was or Mayzar Babanavid. The possibility of reversion to at least a syncretic Islam-Zoroastrianism would be possible. However, near every symbol of actual Zoroastrianism was purged and humiliated to a degree where I cannot imagine a revived Sassanid esque empire.

It is a wholly modern concept that numbers in terms of religion matter. No, it is religious prestige and societal positions that matter. There are exceptions to this of course, however, Zoroastrianism in particular is tied to prestige and nobility. It thus, is my assertion that by the XI century the Zoroastrian religion, while dominant in rural society, was dead in Iran. It lost all its ruling class and crypto Zoroastrians were non existent as they were in the early Abbasid period.

In terms of forced conversion, the Abbasid practiced this against other Muslim. However, they had no reason to do this to Christians in their lands. The Christians had no prestige and thus not a danger. Any classical Muslim state is more likely to forcibly convert a group such as Armenians as opposed to the Syriacs.

Though, Zoroastrians are only one example. Manichaeans were particularly decimated by the Abbasid period, despite some Mu'Tazilah being crypto Manichaeans. This is nothing to say of Shi'i, Khawarij, Mu'Tazilah, etc whose persecution and genocidal tendencies went both way. The Qarmatians for instance were the some of the most devastating in Islamic history or even the more infamous Hashashin.

On the part about ancient Mid East, can you rephrase what you are asking? I am sorry, but I do not understand what you are asking.
 
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The Zoroastrians lost everything due to this policy.
Still, you had Zoroastrian communities remaining from this harsh period : significantly damaged and unable to play a main political or social role in Persian civilization, but that was the fate of most non-Islamic communities.
Not to say Abassid policies didn't represented a huge blow, of course, but Zyiarid's tentative points that it still had some reserves.

Had there not been this culture of desecration and constant societal pressure on Iran, Persian nobility would have been crypto Zoroastrians, just as al-Aragon was or Mayzar Babanavid.
I'm sorry if I misunderstood you there (I don't really see who is Mayzar Babanavid, he's part of the , but did you argue that Pyrennean muladi were crypto-Christian?

There's nothing to really proove so : at the contrary, families as Banu Qasi did their best to islamize their demesne. Now, Muladi families kept a lot of tradition inherited from Gothic Spain, including Christian ones (such as the calendar, for instance, or familial names), but especially in Spain where religious identity was determining, Crypto-Christianism is largely unknown, no matter what half-paranoid assumptions from late Umayyad Caliphate.
Does that means you didn't have crypto-Christians? Maybe not, but the generally lax treatment of Christians up to the XIth century didn't really provoked this, and most of the people that wanted to cut with the Arabo-Berber power fled in the Carolingian marches in the VIIIth and IXth century (the Hispani, altough you probably had some Islamic or Islamized refugees too). Eventually, the extreme periphery of highland regions (and the incapacity of the Emiral/Caliphal power to do anything about it, would have wanted it so*

*Which they not really did the relation with Christian principalties was complex, but Cordoba needed them as mercenaries, justification/target of their rule (not totally unlike how the Triple Alliance kept foes at hand), etc.

The possibility of reversion to at least a syncretic Islam-Zoroastrianism would be possible.
I agree this much with you, as we could have seen some syncretic muladi Islamo-Persian culture emerging, with more of Sassanid legacy being preserved : I think, tough, that it would have been an essentially Islamized, unequal, syncretism rather than a real go at the restauration of a Zoroastrian ensemble (at least, as long Turks get Islamized and dominating Central Asia)

It thus, is my assertion that by the XI century the Zoroastrian religion, while dominant in rural society, was dead in Iran. It lost all its ruling class and crypto Zoroastrians were non existent as they were in the early Abbasid period
Ah, I think I get your point : if a community lost political influence, it doesn't exist anymore. It's a bit of an exageration IMO, but I don't know enough about classical medieval Zoroastrianism and its own clerical/social institutions to make a good counter-point there.

On the part about ancient Mid East, can you rephrase what you are asking? I am sorry, but I do not understand what you are asking.
Aren't some practices more a demonstration of power in words, and maybe not as much applied (or controlled) that Abassids in reality?
 
Still, you had Zoroastrian communities remaining from this harsh period : significantly damaged and unable to play a main political or social role in Persian civilization, but that was the fate of most non-Islamic communities.
Not to say Abassid policies didn't represented a huge blow, of course, but Zyiarid's tentative points that it still had some reserves.


I'm sorry if I misunderstood you there (I don't really see who is Mayzar Babanavid, he's part of the , but did you argue that Pyrennean muladi were crypto-Christian?

There's nothing to really proove so : at the contrary, families as Banu Qasi did their best to islamize their demesne. Now, Muladi families kept a lot of tradition inherited from Gothic Spain, including Christian ones (such as the calendar, for instance, or familial names), but especially in Spain where religious identity was determining, Crypto-Christianism is largely unknown, no matter what half-paranoid assumptions from late Umayyad Caliphate.
Does that means you didn't have crypto-Christians? Maybe not, but the generally lax treatment of Christians up to the XIth century didn't really provoked this, and most of the people that wanted to cut with the Arabo-Berber power fled in the Carolingian marches in the VIIIth and IXth century (the Hispani, altough you probably had some Islamic or Islamized refugees too). Eventually, the extreme periphery of highland regions (and the incapacity of the Emiral/Caliphal power to do anything about it, would have wanted it so*

*Which they not really did the relation with Christian principalties was complex, but Cordoba needed them as mercenaries, justification/target of their rule (not totally unlike how the Triple Alliance kept foes at hand), etc.


I agree this much with you, as we could have seen some syncretic muladi Islamo-Persian culture emerging, with more of Sassanid legacy being preserved : I think, tough, that it would have been an essentially Islamized, unequal, syncretism rather than a real go at the restauration of a Zoroastrian ensemble (at least, as long Turks get Islamized and dominating Central Asia)


Ah, I think I get your point : if a community lost political influence, it doesn't exist anymore. It's a bit of an exageration IMO, but I don't know enough about classical medieval Zoroastrianism and its own clerical/social institutions to make a good counter-point there.


Aren't some practices more a demonstration of power in words, and maybe not as much applied (or controlled) that Abassids in reality?

Forgive me, I meant to write al-Afshin, not Aragon. I rarely speak on Islamic Iberia, it is not my forte. Mayzar Qarinvand or Mayzar Babanavid was an Iranian emir who ruled Lafur and Mazandran. He led a conspiracy to conquer the Iranian plateau from his Abbasid benefactors in the reign of al-Mu'Tasim. Mayzar was betrayed by his bodyguards, whom I suspect were Abbasid spies. The investigation rapidly developed and Mayzar told Abbasid authorities that his main accomplice was al-Afshin. Despite al-Mu'Tasim's pleas to save al-Afshin, the court of public opinion demanded al-Afshin be reigned in. It was in that moment that the last of Zoroastrianism's prestige was destroyed as the court of the Abbasid throne exposed al-Afshin and claimed he refused to destroy Zoroastrian idols. With such evidence and public outrage, al-Mu'Tasim was forced to execute the greatest of his generals, a general who with an army of Iranians (many of whom had to of been Zoroastrian or at least crypto) defeated the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire in the famous Amorium campaign. At least, al-Afshin was simply left to die in a great white pillar of starvation or other means, whereas Mayzar was flayed alive as the Assyrians once did and hung along with the famous Neo Zoroastrian warlord Babak Khurramiyyah.

I suppose the Zoroastrians survived, however survival does not mean much. Sometimes, a community is better to transition than to survive. A religious community once the state religion and official ideology of one of the most ancient empires on earth, reduced to a religion of peasants, is certainly a terrible fate. Just imagine, in the XIII, Iranian Muslim saw Zoroastrians as backward peasants with outdated modes of life.... This conception is of a religion once considered the pinnacle of near eastern mysticism and state synthesis.

Well, to be fair, I doubt the Turks would have ruled Iran without the fall of al-Afshin. The culture of deconstructing Zoroastrian civilization is partly the point with which the Turks could enter where Arabs could or did not want to. Which, the classical Islamic view of conversion outside Iberia and Maghreb, was that of deconstructing the opposing society entirely. This was done to all communities the Islamic world east of Tunisia, with almost no exception until the Ottoman Empire. Some exceptions, would be the seemingly brutal conversion of Java to Islam, but that is a different story.

I would say so. Practices of deconstruction, desecration and to an extent, genocide, are actions of power relationships as old as humanity. The ancients understood things we have forgotten, namely, that the weak must follow the strong, at least until the weak become strong enough to murder their masters. States of the past often indulged this to a great degree and sought to humiliate opposing sides in demonstrations of brutal power or constant terror. The Abbasids were no exception to this rule and similarly to the Assyrians, met a particularly deadly situation as their demons came to haunt them once they were shown bare.
 
For my two cents, I think it is POSSIBLE, just not easy. Particularly because of the isolation aspect of Catholic Crusader States surrounded by various Muslim or Orthodox peoples.

Combine that with Catholicisms reverence for the Pope, and I think this OP is more acheivable, for Orthodox conversion. I.e. from Muslim to Orthodox.

My reasoning

1) Catholics in the Middle East would reasonably need a Patriarch - now, is it the Pope in Rome? The Patriarch of Jerusalem? The Patriarch of Antioch? There is no accepted order of things. If this was ever resolved IOTL, it'd the first I've heard of it. Even in the Levant, we have two major states, each with their own justifiable head of their church. Antioch with Antioch, and Jerusalem with Jerusalem. Even locally they'd be divided. Whilst there is the ostensible idea of Papal supremacy - its never really been something that was practised. It is why there was the Great Schism after all.

2) In contrast - the Supremacy (at least in the East) of Constantinople HAS been applied and practised. It is also closer, and has influence on the Roman Empire, you know, that big bad neighbour to the North. It also has more local resources, and it knows the lay of the land, or did at least. With Ducal and Royal (and I guess Imperial) permission, having them proselytise is possible - and gives them a single point of contact for the Orthodox communities in the Patriarch.

3) This also dodges the whole Schism anyway - the nobility serve Catholic Rome - but the people practice according to Orthodox tradition. As long as the rulers aren't intolerant, will probably work for a long time. The Crusader States aren't subservience to Constantinople politically (which makes the Pope happy), but the re-conversion of the Levant expands the soft power of Constantinople (keeping the Romans happy) - and Orthodox people joining the Crusader armies makes the local rulers happy.

4) The last, and really most obvious one. There are still Orthodox and near-Orthodox people in these territories, a significant plurality - unlike Catholics. Bringing them on side and working with them immediately makes the Crusader states stronger. Expecting them to convert when you're a minority of a minority in the local area, isn't likely. But empowering a plurality to convert another plurality, has more of a chance of achieving a majority status.

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The major issue with this policy (at least for the Pope), is that the rulers of these territories may decide that converting to Orthodoxy is a fine idea.
 
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