What would a Muslim Britain be like?
- Thread starter The Vet
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archaeogeek
Banned
You're not so much offensive as non sequitur.
That said; more sheep early, and given the Andalusians and Ottomans had little difficulty with wine in some areas, I suspect it would actually be hard to turn the rest of Europe into teetotallers. Distillation, after all, comes from Al-Andalus.
Thande
Donor
When this sort of thing is raised I always tend to think that a Muslim Britain (or France, or Germany, or whatever) would come up with some extremely creative interpretation of halal that comes down to 'you're not allowed to eat pork or drink alcohol apart from these pigs and these drinks'.
archaeogeek
Banned
Given that's what happened in Spain for wine (but not pork) I wouldn't be surprised.
"Wine is only harram if you're drunk for prayer time" and the like. The first cordoban caliphs realized just how much the wine trade was worth.
Also it's a) too early for tea and b) also too early for gin, a dutch import made using a distillation process discovered a few centuries later in muslim Spain.
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archaeogeek
Banned
Weren't they still pagan at the time? They'd probably become muslim if they converted in these circumstances.
Mead & Mongols...
IIRC, though it may be urban legend, Mead, made from *honey*, being neither grape nor grain, escaped such strictures...
Uh, vodka from spuds might draw a fatwah...
IMHO, a lot depends on whether Sunni or Shia factions are at top of hierarchy: One's dynastic, the other elected-- Or vice versa...
IIRC, the original Muslim equivalent of 'Pope' was murdered by Mongols, and there was (and is ?) no internationally accepted successor...
From Wiki-- ( Care: YMMV ;- )
Shadow Caliphate, 13th–16th centuries
1258 saw the conquest of Baghdad and the execution of Abbasid caliph al-Musta'sim by Mongol forces under Hulagu Khan.
IIRC, though it may be urban legend, Mead, made from *honey*, being neither grape nor grain, escaped such strictures...
Uh, vodka from spuds might draw a fatwah...
IMHO, a lot depends on whether Sunni or Shia factions are at top of hierarchy: One's dynastic, the other elected-- Or vice versa...
IIRC, the original Muslim equivalent of 'Pope' was murdered by Mongols, and there was (and is ?) no internationally accepted successor...
From Wiki-- ( Care: YMMV ;- )
Shadow Caliphate, 13th–16th centuries
1258 saw the conquest of Baghdad and the execution of Abbasid caliph al-Musta'sim by Mongol forces under Hulagu Khan.
Perhaps, but my point was they'd just be burning down mosques instead of abbeys until then. But if Constantinople remains Orthodox, then it could spread to the Vikings via the lands in the east.
Possibly, but the impetus for the conversion of Denmark and Norway didn't come from Istanbul.
archaeogeek
Banned
What I remember excludes mead yeah. Then again, alcohol consumption varies wildly depending on region and sect of islam.
Valdemar II
Banned
Muslim Britain would quite likely be majority Christian, the ban on pork and alcohol, would mean that among the poorest there would be a higher infant survival rate among Christians than Muslims, which would keep the Christian population stable even with the loss to conversion*. Ironic this would likely be a benefit for Muslim Britain, in the Middle East the tax system collapse with the conversion of Christians, here the state's income can be upkept creating a much more stable state.
*Poor Christian also had a lower infant survival rate thanks to loss of resources to Jizya, which are why the surviving Christian minorities of the Middle East to large extent either are middle class (whom could afford the loss of resources) or fill niches which are considered unclean by Muslims**.
**A example are the gabbage men of Egypt, whom to large extent are Christians, because they feed their pigs with the gabbage.
*Poor Christian also had a lower infant survival rate thanks to loss of resources to Jizya, which are why the surviving Christian minorities of the Middle East to large extent either are middle class (whom could afford the loss of resources) or fill niches which are considered unclean by Muslims**.
**A example are the gabbage men of Egypt, whom to large extent are Christians, because they feed their pigs with the gabbage.
Yeah, agreed.
Actually, IIRC when the koran speaks of no alcohol isn't it just saying wine?....poor muslim France but Britain I doubt would be too concerned.
Pork...Britain can live without pork. We're not as devoted to it as the Scandinavians or Poles. Nonetheless yeah we would come up with some excuse.
Coffee has a higher possibility than tea, as it was the main drink till it was unable to be grown in india, and tea replaced it.
A minor nit, but it's also too early for potatoes.
(To add something more useful) Being part of the Muslim world would give France and Britain (whatever they would be called) a lot greater early intellectual development. Catholicism would be drastically weakened, possibly to the point that Eastern Orthodoxy becomes the default Christianity.
Hrmm, is there any evidence for this? It sounds plausible, but I don't think people claim that Gaul became Romanized because of lower tax rates on Romans than Gauls.
Valdemar II
Banned
Honestly I doubt there are any hard statistic on it, but such are lacking for most historical explanations of demographic changes. I have read these things, through I can't remember the sources and most was in non-English.