What Would an Islamic Europe Look Like?

I'm really amazed at the way how everyone is seriously discussing what to do with alcohol and pork, as if Muslims are alien organisms that melt when exposed to either. (Also, don't let them eat after 12, especially during Ramadan!)

The Ottoman Empire already had an answer to this - the heterodox and liberal Bektashi order was mostly made up of ex-christian citizens, and they had no problem with eating pork or drinking alcohol. Actually, Muslims in the Balkans are all generally open to these practices, yet they are still comfortable with their Muslim identity.

IMHO, an Islamic Europe would be composed of people more or less like Balkan Muslims or Bektashis today, only even more open-minded. I'm guessing an Islamic Europe can maintain the unity of the Roman world better than what happened in OTL, taking full advantage of the "Islamic golden ages."

There would be a split later on, roughly along the Ottoman/Byzantine border, if one half of this world chose dogmatism over an approach based on reason and logic, later on.

What do you mean by "open-minded" ? Do you actually mean "acculturative" ?

There is simply no reason to say Islamic Europe will be inevitably more logical thinking than other Islamic region. Not to say that it can't happen, but mind to not operate your thinking based on baseless assumption that Europe is the default starting point for liberalism to take off in any TL. Egalitarianism is not the monopoly of certain Germanic groups only, you know....

Certainly that naturalization of Islam will occur in Europe if it goes Islam. Much like Indonesia, the European muslims will generally retain rather many of their pre-Islam traditions and cultures, and heterodoxies will spring up indeed. If in some cases would include retaining pork for diet than that's what will happen. At least most of the regions though that have alternative to pork available will replace pork with it. Note that in almost everywhere in, if not virtually all of muslim parts of Indonesia, pork has been abandoned.

There is more than just diet problem to deal with in order to keep Islamization advancing though. The main thing is to provide economic incentive to convert to Islam. And on this particular thing the patterns of spreading of Islam will be determined with. The more a certain European region depended on trade with muslims to maintain their wealth and prestige, the more susceptible it will be for Islamization. Muslims simply have to gain largely uncontested dominance over the important veins of European trade network to smoothening Islamization in Europe. Done with it, and diet is not a problem anymore.....
 
Maybe we would see a race to centralise and spread between Islamic Byzantium and Christian Rome? With Islam spreading via the Balkans and Eastern Europe up through north Germany to the Low Countries, and a centralised Christianity spreading up through France and the Alpine areas? With an Islamic "pope" emperor versus Christian Pope.

Isn't the OP looking for at least overwhelmingly majority Europe Islamic ?

Also, just to nitpick. Caliphs are no popes, period. But a Caliph can also be a Caesar. Muslim Turks could, so why wouldn't muslim Hellens be able to as well ?
 
Isn't the OP looking for at least overwhelmingly majority Europe Islamic ?

Also, just to nitpick. Caliphs are no popes, period. But a Caliph can also be a Caesar. Muslim Turks could, so why wouldn't muslim Hellens be able to as well ?

I'm showing one way in which that might happen:confused: Of course I did not go into great detail about how that would end up, just laying the possible groundwork - it goes without saying that a possible outcome of what I posted would be that Islam would win, by out converting enough societies eventually.

No Caliphs are not popes but that's not what I said.
 
I'm showing one way in which that might happen:confused: Of course I did not go into great detail about how that would end up, just laying the possible groundwork - it goes without saying that a possible outcome of what I posted would be that Islam would win, by out converting enough societies eventually.

No Caliphs are not popes but that's not what I said.

Sorry, I wasn't to patient apparently.... :eek: But personally it's rather a pet peeve of mine to see anything resembling suggestion that there is a default equivalent of Pope in Islam.... So, I was at fault as well....:eek: Still, never really like seeing any unit being viewed by the mindset "color" of that of other unit's, unless it is deliberately to speculate the said other unit's subjective interpretation of the former....
 
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