Good point, it may not last forever. But for the purposes of delaying European colonization, the Marinids don't need to revive al-Andalus permanently, only long enough to change the fate of Portugal and Castile.I don't think the Marinids could have kept Al-Andalus alive for very long. Continued Muslim control of the Straits of Gibraltar would have led most of Western Europe to Crusade it into oblivion.
If the Iberians are busy conquering, resettling, and consolidating Andalusia and Algarve, their navigational voyages will be delayed by many years.
With larger, later European crusades in Iberia, the Iberian kingdoms may be focused on fighting off resulting French and English influence, or there may be more extensive wars between Portugal, Castile, and Aragon.
I think so. They could always follow the classic Eurasian-Indian Ocean trade route, through Egypt.How does that interact with the near rabid search by the Europeans for a quicker route to Asia and it's spices? You think these changes would counter that force enough to delay the discovery by that long?
Before the Ottoman conquest of Egypt, The Venetians participated in a strong economic partnership with the Mamluks for hundreds of years. In the later years of this trade, the Venetians planned on cooperating with the Mamluks to build a canal in the Suez.
Indeed, the Khalij (Grand Canal of Cairo) already existed connecting the Nile to the Red Sea during the Nile's seasonal floods. With further Venetian-Mamluk investment, a more permanent canal probably could have been dredged up, providing a direct connection to the Indian Ocean.
Some European powers, notwithstanding, would object to Venice's status as middleman between the European states and the Islamic world. But they need not go westward to bypass the Venetians. If trans-Atlantic exploration is delayed just 20-30 years, the Safavid Empire has revived the Silk Road, enabling a southern overland route; and the Tsardom of Russia has begun to conquer the steppe, permitting a northern overland and riverine route.
With direct routes to Asia, one sea-based and two land-based, and local silk production having emerged in France and Italy, only the countries most dedicated to exploration would bother to invest in new speculative routes in the Atlantic. But with Portugal being out of the game for about a century, England having forgotten the Hy-Brasil legend, and Castile and Aragon probably dedicated to Mediterranean crusades, chances are that the European discovery of the New World could be delayed by 150-200 years.