The Consequences of a World Without Islam?
- Thread starter Huehuecoyotl
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Because, it's absolutly NO CHANCES AT ALL, that someone travel in Americas, EVER.
If it were so simple
There will always be a market for spices, silk, jade
Whenever there is a market, people will become traders.
Can you go on from this?
If you want to mix up the history of the second millennium and re-order in a way you like better erasing Islam is far from enough.
By the same token, I might build up a TL where Europeans arrive earlier than they did in the Indian ocean and the Americas
But how many of those are separate from the Church?
Eliminate that, and who does it instead?
I think someone else certainly could - but I'm not sure who.
This could be interesting with a group without that attitude. But it would probably not meaningfully alter what gets preserved, as preserving ancient plays and such would be hard work to do in full - and probably undesired for the same reason we don't try to preserve every single album every modern musician puts out.
Barbarossa Rotbart said:
And how is this from the Islamic conquests again? I'm pretty sure Charlemagne would have done the same to the Saxons whatever was happening in the south.
Not sure on the second part, as that was a response to Islam - but the crusades against pagans indicate it evolving to be just anti-pagan wouldn't be impossible.
Under Islam, the Arabic Empire fractured anyway. Within nearly two hundred years of its foundation. But that is besides the point I was making. The theology of Islam had nothing whatsoever to do the innovations made by individual men, just because they lived in a society which had Islam as its ideology. It is the scientists and engineers that DESERVE the credit for the fruits of their labour, not Islam, anymore than Greek Polytheism deserves the credit for the work done by Archimedes, Galen or Euclid.
Yes, I know what science is. And again, an imperial ideology does not do nearly as well as basic demand or geo-political situations to harness technological innovation.
Do you SERIOUSLY believe that Europe was a backwater between 400-1400 CE?
Hell, was it even a backwater before the Roman era?
Was it a backwater to the millions of people who fucking lived there?
It's likely Arabia will end-up either predominantly or a mixture of Christian, Jewish and an indigenous religion (probably monotheistic), as all three had believers among the various Arab tribes.
In Central Asia, well it's anyones guess, however I feel I should note that Tengriism, while not codified as a full religion, was highly prevelant for quite along time (their's still a minority of practioners in Central Asia and Siberia), so you might end-up with a Central Asia split between Buddhism, Christianity and Tengriism.
In Central Asia, well it's anyones guess, however I feel I should note that Tengriism, while not codified as a full religion, was highly prevelant for quite along time (their's still a minority of practioners in Central Asia and Siberia), so you might end-up with a Central Asia split between Buddhism, Christianity and Tengriism.
My thoughts:
400-800 AD: Mostly, yes. 800-1200. Not so much. 1200+: No. Less advanced than the most advanced, but 1200-1400 sees aspects of which shot Europe ahead of everyone else already growing.
But this has almost nothing to do with Islam or even pagans and everything to do with how advanced the other major civilization centers are by comparison - Europe is behind early on.
Before the Roman era? I'm not sure.
Was it a backwater to the people living there? What does whether nor not the inhabitants knew how they stood relative to the rest of the world have to do with where they stood relative the rest of the world?
Go tell it to the Saxons, and the Vendians and in general all the people of the Baltic (and the Avars and the Hungars: it was an equal opportunity conversion)
Again the Baltic Pagans, the Albigensians and the Bogomils will be quite happy to know this
What's this?
History of the World 101, the Age of Discoveries?
The route to India was never blocked: there were tolls and dues to be paid, but that would happen even if the Islamic ME were populated with green aliens from Pluto. The circumnavigation of Africa is there to be taken, sooner or later someone will do.
Gee, that cliché on Islam too..
There is quite a few peoples who converted freely and without force to Islam, too. Like Malays if I am right, it came from traders and while there was personal interests to convert, there was NO pression to do it. At start, at damn least.
There is quite a few peoples who converted freely and without force to Islam, too. Like Malays if I am right, it came from traders and while there was personal interests to convert, there was NO pression to do it. At start, at damn least.
And explain me why the fact it's inside the Church is bad, by essence? The church was the scientific center of Middle-Ages, and you have to accept this reality.
In antiquity, a science separated from philosophy was unthinkable. And unthought. The same in Middle-Ages, where philosophy (under the form of religion) was linked to science. Essentially, you don't have a change.
In fact, the scientific progress during Middle-Ages was more quick, more protected than the stagnation present during Roman Times.
So, please, say me why mixing science and christian philosophy is worst than mixing it with pagan philosophy? Both in Latin Europe, in Byzantium or in Arabo-Islamic world, it never prevented scientist to do better.
Not really : Charlemagne conquered the Saxons to protect and expand the northern tradeways and because the southern ones, still really actives, were under an Arabo-Islamic monopole.
To point how the southern centers were still important during the carolingian era, the carolingian denarii followed almost exactly the valor of an andalusian dinar.
Without Arabs in Mediterranea (and no monopole, no piracy to ravage the coast), expanding his demesne into the southern and more valuable centers would have been the obvious choice.
Not really, again. You could have an equivalent, of course but certainly less religious. The crusades were the answer to revival of jihad in Spain (thanks to the sack of Compostella by Almanzor), in Syria (Al-Hakim) or in Byzantium. At the contrary of the first Arab conquest it happened when Europe was both with a powerful pape (powerful papacy inherited from post-Carolingians, already butterflied by POD) and economic revival.
With such early POD it's likely all of that would be butterflied, and at the exemple of Byzantium or OTL Church condamnation of Charlemagne's policy toward Saxons...It would be harder, less religious and more decentralized.
*SIGH*
Were Arabo-Islamic most brillant? Yes.
Was Byzantium most brillant? Debatable, but let's admit.
Now, is less brillant a synonymous for backyards? No. Not only such words are extremly relative to our situation, and were over-used by colonial powers to qualify China's history by exemple. I hate to repeat myself, but not only it preserved the essence of antic legacy at the level of developpment of these territories, not the idealized urban version inherited from romans.
In order to make me quite clear. You can only have some regions less brillants that others (depending of course from the referential), as Papuasia compared to USa by exemple. Backyards means that the targeted region/culture/country etc. is not able to progress as it's...you know backyards. And considering how much our western civilisation had inherited from 400-800 period...
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You forgot the social pressure : someone that converted himself was assured to upgrade socially. Slave to freeman, local noble to court one,etc.
Not counting the fiscal one : conversion meant often less taxes to pay.
Of course, it's not a forced conversion, but almost no one praticed these at a large scale up to the 1300/1400.
It wasn't only for the message, though.
John Fredrick Parker
Donor
OK, why then did the Turkic peoples pick Islam over Buddhism, and is it possible they might have gone Christian sans the former?
Oh aye. That's exactly the problem - do away with Christianity, you do away with the Church infrastructure.
I seem to have stumbled into appearing to argue something I'm not. I'm trying to say that these guys did what they did - but they were churchmen, which wouldn't exist (in the same form at least) without the Church. Not at all that Christianity was a bad influence for science - if anything, I'm trying to say that because of the Church we see as much preserved and continued as was preserved and continued in the West (Byzantium developing secular institutions of learning faster).
But this is a matter of Arabs, not Muslims. That is, Charlemagne did what he did because of the political situation, not because of Islam's example.
I'm not sure I agree here, but its a better argument than I have the other direction. Did not know that about the Church condemning Charlemagne's policy towards the Saxons (didn't know how it felt one way or another).
Then we need a term that doesn't stir up this argument for areas that on the scale of development are lower on the list, but still progressing - which is the only sense of backward or backwater I'd use to describe Europe as. The less developed region, but still one of the developed regions, and developing, definitely not stagnating.
Also, I think we owe more to 800-1200 than 400-800, although you could argue (and I'd accept the point) that the former relied on the foundations from the latter.
Even with a non-Islamic rise of Arabs (the point is interesting, and would need a specialized thread, in my opinion), the more likely is to have a christian, maybe monophysit Arabic empire. Without the ideological and legitimizing need of conversion, you'll have certainly less pressure to conquest. Regarding the difficulties of conquest of Africa, how much the spanish conquest was hard to maintain (OTL, it was even debated about abandoning the province, in the 720's), I think more likely to have no Al-Andalus, and probably not arabic western mediterranea.
Not talking about the capacity of Islam to unite, not only the Arabs, but the people they conquered by using the religion as a way of social progression. With a population already christianized, it's impossible to do that and to create quickly reinforcement bases for new conquests.
It's one of the reasons (the other being the total inefficiency of harsh repression) that forced Charlemagne to tolerate the existance of a Saxon nobility that would keep their lands in exchange of christianisation and inclusion into the carolingian system.
The word, brilliant civilization or influent already exists. It's no matter about discussing the influence of Byzantium or Al-Andalus in western Europe up to 900 or even 1000, because we have enough proof about it.
The words "retarded", "backwards" and co. have the problem to be judgmental visions. We know the use that was made of these words in the story of XIX and XX centuries. Brillance, influence at the contrary insist on the fact some regions were able to radiate outside their core and even outside their temporal location.
An amusing, but exhausting, little game would be to list every thing we owe to an era. Of course, the more recent would be likely to win, as new features (physical or not) always destroy the old ones. It's why we would never be able to compare the Visigothic palace of Tolosa with the Carolingian palace of Aachen.
True enough. But do you think Charlemagne would have acted any differently in an equal situation where the southern territories were held by "heretical" Christians of equal power and unity (or pagans, for that matter)?
Interesting.
Yeah. We do need a term for the areas that were outside these . . . um . . . especially bright points.
The Byzantines took much less from the example of the Franks (if anything) than vice-versa.
In this era (pre 1000), at least.
Yeah. Can we agree for discussion's sake that the two periods are responsible for the modern (post 1500) world being what it is, for Europe at least?
Without disputing which of 400-800 or 800-1200 was more important, that is. The whole 400-1200 period was anything but stagnant, dark, or whatever - parts of it, yes, but at certainly the term dark for any but a portion of that era is grossly misleading beyond all doubt.
The question is, what do you mean by 'turks' exactly?It's a complex question. I am serious there.
Uyghurs by example are a turkic people of the east, and where buddhists if I am correct.