What was the difference when it came to Islam between Palestine and Espania?

[mattep74]

We all know about the Islamic expansion and the reconquista. My question is, why did different part change fast to Islam and some parts did not.

Souther part of the Spanish peninsula was under Islamic controll for 800 years and other parts of Spain for 4-600 years. 400 years after the expansion of Islam the crusades happened. When the crusaders came to Syria and Palestine most people had converted to Islam and it was Islamic territory. Compare that to the situation in Spain were there were lots of Christians remaining in parts that were muslim as long as Syria and Palestine, but people remained Christian.

The situation is even more strange in Persia were they had a unified religion for thousands of years before Islam and Persia coverted quick.

 

[Ilúphatar]

When the crusaders came to Syria and Palestine most people had converted to Islam and it was Islamic territory

My understanding is that the local population in Palestine was actually still majority Christian at the time of the First Crusade, at least in the countryside. The precise demographics of the region at the time remain disputed by historians.

 

[Nivek]

We all know about the Islamic expansion and the reconquista. My question is, why did different part change fast to Islam and some parts did not.

Souther part of the Spanish peninsula was under Islamic controll for 800 years and other parts of Spain for 4-600 years. 400 years after the expansion of Islam the crusades happened. When the crusaders came to Syria and Palestine most people had converted to Islam and it was Islamic territory. Compare that to the situation in Spain were there were lots of Christians remaining in parts that were muslim as long as Syria and Palestine, but people remained Christian.

The situation is even more strange in Persia were they had a unified religion for thousands of years before Islam and Persia coverted quick.

The ummayds vs Abbasid,the ummayds were very happy to take the jyzia money over pushing conversions

 

[Madhukar_Shah]

Compare that to the situation in Spain were there were lots of Christians remaining in parts that were muslim as long as Syria and Palestine, but people remained Christian.

I also understand that in Spain, the proportion of Christians in new territory decreased as time went on- in the early phases, the Muslim population could simply move south, leaving mostly Christians behind, while the final conquest of Granada was of a pretty thoroughly Muslim place. For what it's worth there doesn't seem to have been any significant Latin scholarship in Al Andalus after the 9th century, and Christian leaders complain about how quickly the youth is arabising.

 

[Metempsychosis]

There were different policies in place across time and places.

 

[Evil Crusader]

As has been said, each place has its nuances.
On Persia, it definitely didn't convert quick; it still took three to five centuries for Zoroastrism to become a minority, and by then Persianisation gave a separate stimulus to Islamisation by offering a way to preserve one's culture and way of life while adopting the religion of the élites.

 

[TheKutKu]

My understanding was that Córdoba became Muslim majority between 850 and 950, I haven’t read historians who don’t say that the Umayyad weren’t solidly Muslim majority by year 1000. 150-250 years to become a majority is actually slightly quicker than the average for the Muslim world, although it’s probably made easier by the large depopulation and population transfer.
Now christian minorities stayed and continued to write and be attested in the 11th century in both Andalusia and the Maghreb, largely the definitive disparition to me seems to be because of the Almoravid (in iberia, especially after the 1125 aragonese deep expedition) and especially the Almohads, although in Africa isolated communities survived the latter

Islamisation was quicker in the Center and east of andalus , average in the northern march and Islamic Portugal, and slower in Andalusia proper/Baetic, which had the most enduring Christian structures