WI: Covert conversion of an European ruler to Islam?

[ennobee]

Just as a side thought: how ASB would it be for a Christian European ruler of the late middle ages/early Renaissance to Mary a Muslim princess as a kind of peace treaty between his country and the Ottomans or Eastern European/Levantine/Berber allies. Although the new queen would be asked to nominally convert to Christianity, she would still be largely steeped in Islam culture and eventually a good part of that would run off on her children, including the crown prince...

Again, the next in line would be nominally Christian, (or at least as Christian as his contemporaries who do not let their role as Royal Defender of the Faithful stand in their way of behaving pretty unchristlike in their private life,) but would adhere to many of the prescribed practices of Islam in private, as they were part of his upbringing. Most importantly he would be pretty open to marrying a Muslim princess himself. (Although he might frequently 'cheat' on her by secretly visiting certain bars to quell his craving for beer and pork sausages)

 

[Umbral]

I believe no less of an authority than Leo Caesius himself once wrote about John Lackland converting to Islam in search of allies.

 

[Remitonov]

Just as a side thought: how ASB would it be for a Christian European ruler of the late middle ages/early Renaissance to Mary a Muslim princess as a kind of peace treaty between his country and the Ottomans or Eastern European/Levantine/Berber allies. Although the new queen would be asked to nominally convert to Christianity, she would still be largely steeped in Islam culture and eventually a good part of that would run off on her children, including the crown prince...

Again, the next in line would be nominally Christian, (or at least as Christian as his contemporaries who do not let their role as Royal Defender of the Faithful stand in their way of behaving pretty unchristlike in their private life,) but would adhere to many of the prescribed practices of Islam in private, as they were part of his upbringing. Most importantly he would be pretty open to marrying a Muslim princess himself. (Although he might frequently 'cheat' on her by secretly visiting certain bars to quell his craving for beer and pork sausages)

Medieval Spain is no stranger to marriages between the Christian kingdoms and Muslim Taifas. Could look into that.

 

[Evil Crusader]

Just as a side thought: how ASB would it be for a Christian European ruler of the late middle ages/early Renaissance to Mary a Muslim princess as a kind of peace treaty between his country and the Ottomans or Eastern European/Levantine/Berber allies. Although the new queen would be asked to nominally convert to Christianity, she would still be largely steeped in Islam culture and eventually a good part of that would run off on her children, including the crown prince...

Again, the next in line would be nominally Christian, (or at least as Christian as his contemporaries who do not let their role as Royal Defender of the Faithful stand in their way of behaving pretty unchristlike in their private life,) but would adhere to many of the prescribed practices of Islam in private, as they were part of his upbringing. Most importantly he would be pretty open to marrying a Muslim princess himself. (Although he might frequently 'cheat' on her by secretly visiting certain bars to quell his craving for beer and pork sausages)

Eh, no.
It's like asking how ASB could it be to have a major party in a Western democracy be helmed by somebody who is married to somebody openly suspected to be a fan of constitutional revision enshrining sharia as the supreme moral law, and would fill said party with supporters of that?
Similar mechanics about very heavy pushback by other élites/parties, same likelihood of not succeeding. Not technically ASB, but requires so much perfect context and rolls that it might as well be.

 

[Qastiel]

He's welcome to try, but then everyone else in the Muslim world would brand him a heretic anyway, so what good will that do?

Eh. I don’t think it’s possible in the first place for a European Ruler to convert (even covertly) and make any meaningful changes but historically the rules for being Muslims were a lot looser. Half the time the Islamic powers all called each other heretics anyway, it didn’t really matter that much in the grand scheme of things because they did so primarily as an extension of geopolitical rivalries and were able to disregard such things when convenient.

Look at the Islamisation of Indonesia. For a long period of time (and even to a degree today) the faith there was very syncretic and one could say even heretical and many adventurers/travellers from the Islamic world would say as much yet the assorted sultans there still received support on and off from powers such as the Mughals and Ottomans.

To actually interact with the premise of the thread, perhaps a more dynamic Ottoman Empire accessible to the nobles of Europe would facilitate the greater interaction between Christianity and Islam needed.

My thinking would be if the Ottomans succeeded in their invasion of Otranto and maintained a grasp of Apula long term during the reign of Ferrante of Naples. Perhaps the Franco-Ottoman Alliance being used to enforce the Angevin inheritance for France. I don’t even think the Ottomans need to stick around that long but just long enough to be interacting with the Renaissance on a more personal level with the various Italian powers. Perhaps later being ejected in the Italian Wars.

The issue I come up with is that some sort of esoteric orientalised version of Islam could’ve become popular with the deistic/esoteric conman crowd of magician-charlatans whom arise during the 17th and 18th century which could’ve overtime become known enough to the bored nobles that they’d accept it as some sort of weird Enlightenment religious experience. But the Enlightenment generally is too late for any nation ruler to want to convert because the Reformation has already happened (everyone who would want to convert already has) and the Catholic Church has been defanged.

I guess as a stretch if the Ottomans stuck around on Italy and managed to get a significant amount of a Naples (or all of it idk) from King Ferrante of Naple then they’d be positioned to gain influence in Italy as a way to weaken to the Pope? Not necessarily having Italian city-states convert but creating a fluid religious frontier where people may go to the Muslims for religious services whenever they’re temporarily under interdict. Though even if feels a bit under explored and I’m not sure works timeline wise.

Yeah I can’t really think of any way for this to work.

 

[Byzantion]

What if the rulers of Muscowy under pressure of Golden Horde rule opted for conversion ?

 

[HyperMuscularDemon]

How about a Visgothic ruler in Iberia who converts under pressure to save his land? Or a Italian noble or ruler who converts to Islam in Sicily?

 

[iani]

For a good analogy, maybe look at Charles II of England -- he converted to Catholicism at some point, but since he ruled a strongly anti-Catholic nation, he kept this secret until he was on his deathbed.

Wasn't he originally Catholic but had to pretend to be CofE after his dad was decapitated?

 

[dcharles]

Eh, no.
It's like asking how ASB could it be to have a major party in a Western democracy be helmed by somebody who is married to somebody openly suspected to be a fan of constitutional revision enshrining sharia as the supreme moral law, and would fill said party with supporters of that?
Similar mechanics about very heavy pushback by other élites/parties, same likelihood of not succeeding. Not technically ASB, but requires so much perfect context and rolls that it might as well be.

It happened in the Turkish/Byzantine world and in the Iberian world. Very well attested. One of Orhan's consorts, Theodora, was a Byzantine princess.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09518967.2020.1741231#:~:text=Interfaith%20marriages%20were%20also%20a,Christian%20polities%20in%20medieval%20Iberia.

 

[Jan Olbracht]

Perhaps youngest son of some 19th century German duke serves in Ottoman army (it was not uncommon to find Europeans in Ottoman service at the time) and converts to Islam, then his older brothers die and suddenly German duchy is inherited by a Muslim.

 

[Euphemios]

Perhaps youngest son of some 19th century German duke serves in Ottoman army (it was not uncommon to find Europeans in Ottoman service at the time) and converts to Islam, then his older brothers die and suddenly German duchy is inherited by a Muslim.

I would be inclined to think they would pass him over due to his absence. Not only that, but the dominant opinion in sharia is that Muslims and others can not inherit anything from the other.

 

[Evil Crusader]

It happened in the Turkish/Byzantine world and in the Iberian world. Very well attested. One of Orhan's consorts, Theodora, was a Byzantine princess.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09518967.2020.1741231#:~:text=Interfaith%20marriages%20were%20also%20a,Christian%20polities%20in%20medieval%20Iberia.

Yes, it "happened" as something people explicitly marked as the exception to all rules, and promptly set about talking as little as possible as they could;. Theodora never was the main wife, wasn't made to convert, nor did her children play any role; for being the outlier, it still quite doesn't match the question posed.
The article mostly concerns itself with local communities, not rulers, so I don't think it really proves it could be really doable to have somebody manage to do a false conversion, actually wield significant political power, and groom their children in their traditional religion against everybody else around.

 

[dcharles]

Yes, it "happened" as something people explicitly marked as the exception to all rules, and promptly set about talking as little as possible as they could;. Theodora never was the main wife, wasn't made to convert, nor did her children play any role; for being the outlier, it still quite doesn't match the question posed.
The article mostly concerns itself with local communities, not rulers, so I don't think it really proves it could be really doable to have somebody manage to do a false conversion, actually wield significant political power, and groom their children in their traditional religion against everybody else around.

I don't understand how the fact that something that happened in public many times mitigates against it happening in private.

 

[Evil Crusader]

I don't understand how the fact that something that happened in public many times mitigates against it happening in private.

Because the question revolves around politically relevant private unions, and in the timeframe asked about that simply did not happen for a plethora of reasons.

 

[Ana Luciana II]

I objectively think John I of England would be the funniest choice just for how chaotic the result would be. Bonus points if it leaves behind an area of England with Islamic influences; Mosques on the Brecon Beacons, town names like Oxford Abbas, etc.

 

[Fabius Maximus]

Wasn't he originally Catholic but had to pretend to be CofE after his dad was decapitated?

No, he was raised Anglican (albeit the CofE under Charles I was more High-Church than most of his subjects wanted) and probably converted to Catholicism after being exposed to it during his exile.

 

[dcharles]

Because the question revolves around politically relevant private unions, and in the timeframe asked about that simply did not happen for a plethora of reasons.

"Nor was intermarriage a phenomenon limited to Andalusī military commanders, caliphs and emirs marrying women from Christian Spain. Interestingly, some Hispano-Muslim rulers in al-Andalus—under very unique and special circumstances—married their daughters to Christian nobles and kings as well. This was particularly notable in the case of the Hispano-Muslim family of the Banū Qasī in the Upper Marches. Among the examples of such a marriage was that of Uriyah, the daughter of Mūsa b. Mūsa b. Fortun b. Qasī, to the son of García, the King of Navarre; Mūsa b. García was a product of this union. Another example is Mūsa b. Mūsa marrying the daughter of his brother Lubb to a prominent Basque noble. Urraca, the daughter of ‘Abd Allāh b. Muḥammad b. Lubb b. Mūsa b. Mūsa, married Fruela (d. 925), the son of Alfonso III (d. 910), who was the King of Asturias and León, with whom she had two sons: Ramiro and Ordoño."

Intermarriage between Muslim and Christian Dynasties in Early Medieval Iberia (711-1100)

The following is my own summary translation of pp. 33 to 38 of Dr. ‘Abd al-‘Azīz Sālim’s book al-Jawānib al-Ijābiyah wal Silbīyah fī al-Zawāj al-Mukhtalaṭ fī al-Andalus (Rabat, 1994). Although it i…

ballandalus.wordpress.com

Obviously, this is the early Middle Ages and not the late Middle Ages. But there's plenty of precedent for intermarrying, and this continued right into the Crusader period. In the Ottoman world, Muslim rulers marrying Christians happened all the time.

So I don't see anything ASB about it, although the circumstances to make a marriage work in that late a timeframe would have to be particular, or the institutional calcification of the Church would have to be adjusted by an earlier POD.

 

[Evil Crusader]

So I don't see anything ASB about it, although the circumstances to make a marriage work in that late a timeframe would have to be particular, or the institutional calcification of the Church would have to be adjusted by an earlier POD.

I'll just quote the whole post, because I think you're not quite grasping how far the other poster went.

Just as a side thought: how ASB would it be for a Christian European ruler of the late middle ages/early Renaissance to Mary a Muslim princess as a kind of peace treaty between his country and the Ottomans or Eastern European/Levantine/Berber allies. Although the new queen would be asked to nominally convert to Christianity, she would still be largely steeped in Islam culture and eventually a good part of that would run off on her children, including the crown prince...

Again, the next in line would be nominally Christian, (or at least as Christian as his contemporaries who do not let their role as Royal Defender of the Faithful stand in their way of behaving pretty unchristlike in their private life,) but would adhere to many of the prescribed practices of Islam in private, as they were part of his upbringing. Most importantly he would be pretty open to marrying a Muslim princess himself. (Although he might frequently 'cheat' on her by secretly visiting certain bars to quell his craving for beer and pork sausages)

Yes, on rare occasions where Christians were objectively on the downswing they did have at times political marriages that crossed religious lines. As exceptions. Those still didn't entail secret conversions, political relevance for the new princess, let alone the chance to secretly groom the heir in the ways of Islam. That's the ASB part. Everything else is "merely" exceptional.

 

[dcharles]

As exceptions. Those still didn't entail secret conversions, political relevance for the new princess, let alone the chance to secretly groom the heir in the ways of Islam.

Well, I don't know how politically relevant Urraca was, but I don't see any references to political influence in the post you quoted. As far as "a good part" of the Muslim princess's Islamic culture "running off" onto her child--that can mean all kinds of things. Anything from saying "a wise man said that only fools drink alcohol and a pious man will pray five times a day," all the way to "secretly grooming the heir" to be a crypto-Muslim.

 

[Euphemios]

I shall again add that Islamic jurisprudence does not permit the marriage of a Muslim woman to anybody but a Muslim man, meaning that the meeting point of the Venn diagram bubbles of 'pious enough to educate child actively in faith' and 'does not know, or does not care about the marriage ban' will be infinitesimally small. Though, of course, there is also the possibility of a Muslim woman being forced to marry a Christian, which should fulfil our discussion point if the woman is in the former Venn bubble.