Thoughts on how would a muslim colonization of Americas look like.

The Spanish missionaries were as zealous as anyone can get and yet none of the native societies became particularly fanatical converts nor did they even convert completely really. I see no reason the Muslims would be much more successful in getting everyone to become Muslim fanatics when burning "heretics" alive in droves wasn't enough to create a society of crusaders.

Well, it's less about the Muslims being more capable and more thinking of how those who adopted Islam voluntarily often were fanatics early on.

But yeah, in terms of spreading the word in the first place, I'm not sure how Islam has an edge here. Besides possibly a more attractive message - and that's more how it's presented than Islam Is Better.
 
However you can't expect the situation in Asia and Africa to repeat in America, it's a different society. Converting to Islam would pretty much be political suicide for a Maya lord. The ones who converted to Christianity IOTL before the conquest finished did so to get Spanish support or because they were forced, and when the Spanish couldn't prop them up they found themselves very dead very often. It's the same reason you wouldn't see many European monarchs to convert like that. Religion was a major part of Mesoamerican society and converting to Islam would entail a lot of things they just weren't prepared to do. It's the reason that Catholicism in OTL rural Mexico and Central America is essentially disguised native beliefs.
 
However you can't expect the situation in Asia and Africa to repeat in America, it's a different society. Converting to Islam would pretty much be political suicide for a Maya lord. The ones who converted to Christianity IOTL before the conquest finished did so to get Spanish support or because they were forced, and when the Spanish couldn't prop them up they found themselves very dead very often. It's the same reason you wouldn't see many European monarchs to convert like that. Religion was a major part of Mesoamerican society and converting to Islam would entail a lot of things they just weren't prepared to do. It's the reason that Catholicism in OTL rural Mexico and Central America is essentially disguised native beliefs.

Is this as true outside Mesoamerica, though?

Not going to argue with you on what happens within it, but it would be interesting if the Comanche (or whatever groups form there) are converted but the sedentary natives stay pagan - initially, at least (and beyond that, it would depend on what happens in this world).
 
However you can't expect the situation in Asia and Africa to repeat in America, it's a different society. Converting to Islam would pretty much be political suicide for a Maya lord. The ones who converted to Christianity IOTL before the conquest finished did so to get Spanish support or because they were forced, and when the Spanish couldn't prop them up they found themselves very dead very often. It's the same reason you wouldn't see many European monarchs to convert like that. Religion was a major part of Mesoamerican society and converting to Islam would entail a lot of things they just weren't prepared to do. It's the reason that Catholicism in OTL rural Mexico and Central America is essentially disguised native beliefs.


A couple thoughts.

First, I think this makes the Mesoamericans into unique peoples, to whom plenty of OTL examples don't apply. Religion was a major part of Norse culture, pre-Islamic Indonesian culture, etc. These peoples all converted without foreign conquest.

Second, I think it's a bit unfair to call mesoamerican Catholics practiicioners of "disguised native beliefs." It's certainly not Italian Catholicism, but this doesn't mean the people practicing it don't perceive themselves as Catholic...
 
A couple thoughts.

First, I think this makes the Mesoamericans into unique peoples, to whom plenty of OTL examples don't apply. Religion was a major part of Norse culture, pre-Islamic Indonesian culture, etc. These peoples all converted without foreign conquest.
I don't know nothing 'bout Indonesia but the Norse certainly had a lot of "convert or I'm gonna shove a sword through you" going on. Having a king or two who converts because of politics and all that who then starts a civil war to get the rest of his people to think the same way as him is just about as violent a process as the other one.

As for the other point, while I tend to use a fair bit of hyperbole it'd be a stretch to call the Spanish missionaries' attempt at conversion a complete success when you still have plenty of people performing rain rituals and worshiping this sneaky guy among other things.
 
One difficulty for the Almohads is unlike the Portuguese they might not have the rest of Europe to trade with. After all the Portuguese were only really able to make their voyages because they brought such huge profits. Besides great sailors they also had Factors in Italy and Amsterdam to handle their trade. What this requires though is for Islamic Iberia to have open trade with Europe to make as profit driven an empire.

Not to mention I think that countries like England and France would have greater reason to contest the new world earlier.

I'm not convinced about this. While I admittedly recognize the fair merit of the possibility of the muslims only planting colonies in the new world in reaction to christian planting ones first, I'd rather find assumption that Andalusians will block the christians the way Ottomans did IOTL to be sketchily-based, and thus the French and English having parable reason for New World expansion to OTL Spaniards or even OTL French and English. There are the whole geopolitical differences resulted from more then 2 centuries of difference between Las Navas de Tolosa and Ottoman conquest of Constantinople to consider here.
 
As for the other point, while I tend to use a fair bit of hyperbole it'd be a stretch to call the Spanish missionaries' attempt at conversion a complete success when you still have plenty of people performing rain rituals and worshiping this sneaky guy among other things.

The Hausans were only sort-of-Orthodoxified by the Fulani conquest in early 19th century, and the Malians were only Islamified even later. As for the Mayans, I'd see either Islamified Nahuans, if not the Old Worlders themselves, will convert them by conquest or they will eventually cow in to the broader socio-economic trends that pressure for conversion to Islam, which will take longer time. Seeing how the current Malians and Hausans retaining much of their pre-Islamic traditions, so will the Mayans here, likely more then the OTL Catholicized Mayans.
 
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I don't know nothing 'bout Indonesia but the Norse certainly had a lot of "convert or I'm gonna shove a sword through you" going on. Having a king or two who converts because of politics and all that who then starts a civil war to get the rest of his people to think the same way as him is just about as violent a process as the other one.

But this is a bit different than saying it's "political suicide."

As for the other point, while I tend to use a fair bit of hyperbole it'd be a stretch to call the Spanish missionaries' attempt at conversion a complete success when you still have plenty of people performing rain rituals and worshiping

Hey, you still have Catholics in Italy who worry about the Evil eye, and Christians in Carolignian France who believed in magic...
 
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