Plausibilty Check: Fatimids conquer Baghdad

Nikephoros

Banned
What is the plausibility of the Fatimids taking Baghdad and sucessfully integrating Iraq into their state. I realize that there is intervening desert between the Levant and Mesopotamia, so I can see how it can't happen.

But is it at all possible, and if it is, what are the repercutions for the Islamic world and Byzantium?
 
I think that the Islamic World if reunified by the Fatimids around 1000ish will be spared the Turkish invasions; but will it stagnate after that? I'm not sure. I can see the early eleventh century following Basil II's death being a major headache for the Romans, and I think that the Macedonian Dynasty will be overthrown shortly after the death of Constantine VIII, in favour of a more millitarily minded line of Emperors who will attempt to hold out against this new Caliphate. Perhaps George Maniakes will gain and hold the throne ITTL?

The new Caliphate and the Roman Empire will be far more evenly matched in the eleventh century than they were in the eighth. Here, Constantinople has just wiped out its Bulgarian nemesis, has stablised the situation in Italy, and is booming agriculturally, in stark contrast to the exhausted and divided state the Caliphs conquered in the seventh and eighth centuries. I think that Syria and northern Iraq will become the scene for a wearying series of on-off campaigns for decades, until either Byzantium or the Fatimids finally collapse.
 

Nikephoros

Banned
But as for the original question, can the Fatimids make it to the city? The Byzantines under Tzimisces got pretty close, so can the Fatimids top that?

(I can't wait until I can get full access to internet. Hopefully sooner than I thought, but things aren't too likely. That way I can get some modding tools and learn how to mod. I've had an idea for an Islamic-World mod for M2TW, and I want to start by making accurate units. Sorta like a CBUR but for Muslim factions. Broken Crescent is my inspiration, but I want to go more historical than even them. I can't stand the abomination that is Muslim factions in most M2TW mods. No one seems to want accurate Muslims, besides a few. Damn TWC nationalists!)
 

Philip

Donor
I think that Syria and northern Iraq will become the scene for a wearying series of on-off campaigns for decades, until either Byzantium or the Fatimids finally collapse.

A situation not too removed from the Byzantine-Sassanid Wars. Could we see and ending similar to the earlier one? The two great empires beat one another senseless until the new kid displaces both?
 
A situation not too removed from the Byzantine-Sassanid Wars. Could we see and ending similar to the earlier one? The two great empires beat one another senseless until the new kid displaces both?
Which ITTL would probably be the Turks. Under the Seljuks in OTL they expanded through Persia into the Levant and Anatolia. And ITTL, with the much weaker Fatimid state, the Turks could also conquer Egypt.
 
The Sunni Muslims of the Abbassid Caliphate might be difficult to subdue by the Shi'ite Fatamids. Didn't most of the Shi'ites emigrate to North Africa as the Sunnis couldn't stand them?
 
The Sunni Muslims of the Abbassid Caliphate might be difficult to subdue by the Shi'ite Fatamids. Didn't most of the Shi'ites emigrate to North Africa as the Sunnis couldn't stand them?
No, the Shiites were in Africa because of spirited missionary work by Ubayd Allah al-Mahdi and (even more crucially) Abu Abdullah al-Shi'i.
 
But after the Abbassids ousted the Umayyads, didn't they later turn against their former Shi'ite supporters, compelling many of them to travel west, where the Idrisids of Morroco and the Fatamids would rise to power?! I think there was even a massacre of Shi'ites in Mecca in 786 CE.
 
But after the Abbassids ousted the Umayyads, didn't they later turn against their former Shi'ite supporters, compelling many of them to travel west, where the Idrisids of Morroco and the Fatamids would rise to power?! I think there was even a massacre of Shi'ites in Mecca in 786 CE.
That is my understanding. Idris and Idris II built up the Islamic infrastructure of the Maghreb after that massacre in Mecca (Idris fled west after a related battle). Before them there were Shia and Khajirites (spelling on that last one). So that's when it really took off there.
 
That is my understanding. Idris and Idris II built up the Islamic infrastructure of the Maghreb after that massacre in Mecca (Idris fled west after a related battle). Before them there were Shia and Khajirites (spelling on that last one). So that's when it really took off there.
I was thinking mainly of Ismaili Shiism, which was brought to the Maghreb by al-Mahdi and al-Shi'i. You and Lysandros are correct about the earlier origin of the Kharijites in North Africa.
 
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