The Ummayads win the siege of Constantinople (674-678). What can they realistically conquer?

Aside from the issue of the siege actually taking place in 667–9, not the 670s, Islam would be unrecognizable. Hell, it might not even form as a proper religion independent from Christianity.
I imagine a Islam more influenced by the orthodox church. Maybe the Islam in long term absorb the orthodox christian structure with priest, monks and etc (I don't, know more names of christian clerigy in English). Certainly the Greek like the Persian was adopted by the Byzantine islamics, principaly after the Arab-Greek chism. I don,t cred the orthodox Byzantines survives more time in Carthage, possibly they are conquested by Arabian, Berber, Greek islamics or, with a good look and division with Arabians and greeks, the normans.

In more long term I don,t know how time the Byzantine Caliphate resists. The Turks, converted by Arabian Islam, are a one great possibly of the conquest and destruction of the empire. Maybe de varangian/Rus islamics(or Jews or orthodox) or slavs enacting like the Turks in abassid Caliphate. "A Saqaliba Basileos of the Rum."

About Spain, are two possiblys: 1) the islamics not invaded because they are concentrate in conquest the Balkans;
2)the Arab/Berber invaded the Spain because they no are more relation with the greek campaign. I personally prefer the second option: two Muslim empires on the Mediterranean. Maybe together a Greek crisis (bulgarian, Rus, varangian, Turks invaded, Frank crusades, etc.) more Greek emigrate to Al Andalus.


*I don,t speak English very well, but don't exists a good page of alternate history in my language.
I hate when people sell short my faith i can imagine ortodhox becoming the ITTL shias and being more greeks and the sunnis did having some greek influence but mostly the same as they were..here i can see a mostly Sunni Iran now
 
True except for .The northern crusades part since by the time of the Rus convertion poland had converted

Again what geopolitical advantage do the rus get if they covert support? If the magyars don't follow their branch of Islam they won't support them .
thand Poland and hre( who defeated the magyars and became the dominant power in the region )
won't be happy with another Islamic state
It's not geopolitically good unless the Hungarians also follow the same branch of Islam as the Rus
The best case for Islam would be that the south becomes Islamic and the north Catholic

The Rus were oriented towards the Black Sea and the Volga trade routes, that made them convert to Orthodoxy in our timeline and would make them convert to Islam in this timeline, read https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/ahc-muslim-russia.296008/#post-8345626.
 
Aside from the issue of the siege actually taking place in 667–9, not the 670s, Islam would be unrecognizable. Hell, it might not even form as a proper religion independent from Christianity.

I imagine a Islam more influenced by the orthodox church. Maybe the Islam in long term absorb the orthodox christian structure with priest, monks and etc (I don't, know more names of christian clerigy in English). Certainly the Greek like the Persian was adopted by the Byzantine islamics, principaly after the Arab-Greek chism. I don,t cred the orthodox Byzantines survives more time in Carthage, possibly they are conquested by Arabian, Berber, Greek islamics or, with a good look and division with Arabians and greeks, the normans.

However, I am interested in what the ramifications are on Islam. Islam as we know it today was relatively identifiable from 692, after the defeat of Ibn al-Zubayr and the construction of the Dome of the Rock, onwards, albeit to differing degrees depending on the Caliphate in question and their policies in regards to legal and religious authority versus the Islamic Scholars of the time. The butterflies here are enormous. You have added tens of millions of non-Muslims to an existing massive empire where Muslims are already a tiny minority at the time. How do their polices change as a result? The constant tension between Arab tribes in the garrison towns might lessen, as they realize they have the potential to be utterly swamped. My assumption is that the process of Muwalladun assimilation speeds up rapidly as some of the requirements are lifted, but this is bound to cause heterodox religious practices to multiply.

Several people have brought up this basic point, and I would like to see it elaborated further. Is the implication that Islam will eventually settle into being an utterly normal branch of Christianity (or even just Chalcedonian/Orthodox Christianity as it existed before, but with slightly different leadership), with Muhammad being retroactively understood as merely an important religious figure, even one of the great evangelists of Christianity? That it will sublimate into Christianity, but perpetually viewed by the Franks and other Western Europeans as a heretical sect akin to the Arians as a result of some substantially different teachings? Or would it syncretize into something entirely distinct from either Christianity or Islam as we know them?
 
True except for .The northern crusades part since by the time of the Rus convertion poland had converted

Again what geopolitical advantage do the rus get if they covert support? If the magyars don't follow their branch of Islam they won't support them .
thand Poland and hre( who defeated the magyars and became the dominant power in the region )
won't be happy with another Islamic state
It's not geopolitically good unless the Hungarians also follow the same branch of Islam as the Rus
The best case for Islam would be that the south bwcomes Islamic and the north Catholic

The Rus (population) began to convert in the middle of the 9th century, with Vladimir being the completion of this conversion, not to mention that as i said, it depends more on which branch of the Rus is affiliated (Shia or Sunni), if Sunni, they are likely to receive support from the caliphate and the steppe tribes (which would be Sunni independently), in Islam, branches (in this case they would be schools) do not matter very much as long as they are not contrary to one another, what always prevails is whether they are Sunnis or Shiites
 
The vOlga Bulgars where composeed of sttepes tribes this does not apply for the Rus
The nother parts of the where even had different climates to the stteppe

Regarding alcohol, I'll repeat, the alcoholic drink that most Rus consumed was mead, that has a fairly mild alcoholic content and could easily be tolerated by the Islamic authorities, like the Nomadic Turkic tribes' kumiss was, read https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...n-rus-converts-to-islam.401096/#post-13395652. The same applies to the alcohol that the Rus used to preserve the food.

I did but like I said it just does not seem like the best geopolitical option due to the steppe tribes

No offense but I don't think you understand what we are talking about.
 
Regarding alcohol, I'll repeat, the alcoholic drink that most Rus consumed was mead, that has a fairly mild alcoholic content and could easily be tolerated by the Islamic authorities, like the Nomadic Turkic tribes' kumiss was, read https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...n-rus-converts-to-islam.401096/#post-13395652. The same applies to the alcohol that the Rus used to preserve the food.



No offense but I don't think you understand what we are talking about.
None taken I will clarify myself during this time the Rus where facing invasions and constant raids from sttepe tribes
These tribes most likely are not convert to islam
Unless the Rus have the same brach of Islam as them
Converting to Islam gives no real benefits
 
Several people have brought up this basic point, and I would like to see it elaborated further. Is the implication that Islam will eventually settle into being an utterly normal branch of Christianity (or even just Chalcedonian/Orthodox Christianity as it existed before, but with slightly different leadership), with Muhammad being retroactively understood as merely an important religious figure, even one of the great evangelists of Christianity? That it will sublimate into Christianity, but perpetually viewed by the Franks and other Western Europeans as a heretical sect akin to the Arians as a result of some substantially different teachings? Or would it syncretize into something entirely distinct from either Christianity or Islam as we know them?
And I hate as people sell short the faith, very short, specially in this forum, we were in the era of the four great caliphs and islam was already codify as absolute monotheist and very far different all the school of europe and middle east
 

Deleted member 67076

At least the Balkans south of the Balkan mountains, probably much of Italy for a century, and the rest of Ifriqiya. If everything goes well and the Berber Revolt is delayed or rerouted, Hispania as well. Taking Constantinople means Carthage falls soon after. It was just too surrounded and demoralized to last. Don't know enough about the conquest of Afghanistan to see how that front is maintained.

The Arabs would shift most of their raiding energies to Italy and the Balkans but its likely most of the Caliphate's energies that went to Spain would be stuck in the Balkans, forming another front like Afghanistan. Now Im of the opinion the Bulgars would be conquered after a few decades worth of fighting as the Arabs would concentrate most of their frontier colonies in Macedonia or the Greek cities (this is not implying assimilation, but merely the strategic situation) and can throw more men at the situation.

The Second Fitna is likely butterflied away as well as the plunder from Constantinople and its major PR victory would allow for paying off rivals and directing further energies of various tribesmen outward. At this point the Caliphate was still "Shark like"- i.e, it has to keep moving forward and eating or it will collapse. Not as much as it was before Muawiya, but memories of raiding and tribal days are still too fresh. Opening up to weaker and more varied targets all over Italy and Southern Gaul are a great excuse (and a hell of a lot easier on the logistics) to keep the momentum going for at least a few more decades.

You will inevitably get some sort of Abbasid Revolution- but how it goes is hard to say. The Arabs are stretched much more thin here but also can pay people off more. Your average Roman would see taxes decrease and quality of life improve, particularly as the Caliphate's (near) Free Trade Zone encompasses them, bringing them new technologies, crops, and luxury imports for the elites and middle classes. After nearly 70 years of non stop war, the Anatolian Romans were very much exhausted and traumatized and would likely be complacent for a few short decades.
 

raharris1973

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Assuming the Ummayad Arabs have Thrace, their open frontier in Europe will be with Slavs, Bulgars, and later on Magyars. This is much like how their frontier in Persia was with Turkic peoples. Many Turks were purchased as slave soldiers, and ended up becoming rulers eventually. Could we see Slavic and Bulgarian or Vlach or Magyar slave-soldier dynasties?

I figure Slavs, Bulgars and Magyars would all want to trade with the rich Caliphate for luxury items or for grain in lean times. And the main thing they would have to offer in return would be slaves. These pagan slaves could be easily converted to Islam.

I see Greek and Vlach slave-soldiers as less likely because those populations were already Christian at the time I think.
 
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