WI Islam didn't have any dietary or alcohol restrictions.

As the title states. Would an Islamic world that openly eats pork and consumes alcohol have a better perception in the West?
 
As the title states. Would an Islamic world that openly eats pork and consumes alcohol have a better perception in the West?

Lol no. Some hints:

- Jews have much stricter dietary restrictions, and have positive perception in most Western countries.
- Muslims have very poor perception in Israel. Israeli Jews don't even drink much alcohol.
- Blacks have no dietary restrictions, and have negative perception in white America.
- Roma have no dietary restrictions, and have negative perception in Europe - on surveys, they report being discriminated against more often than Muslims.
- Hindus don't eat beef, which is a more important staple food in the US than pork (though not in Northern Europe), and have mostly positive perception in the US. Asians generally drink very little by Western standards.
 
Well that comes under the assumption that with a 7th century POD you would still get very OTL based concept of the "West", considering infinite butterflies that would occur in that time. An Islam that has slightly different rules could easily butterfly away the first Fitna, which butterflies away the Umayyad expansion, which butterflies away the idea of Christendom as a European phenomenon, and the concept of the "West" doesn't exist in the same sense as OTL. Maybe North Africa and the Levant stay Christian and defend against early Arab enroachments, or conversely maybe the expansion of the Caliphate goes so well that both Constantinople and France fall and Europe is majority Muslim. These are just some examples of the changes that could occur with this POD.

Either way, it's very bold to assume the concept of the "West" existing with a POD so far back.
 
I don't know about current perception but back in the day Islam ruined the indigenous wine industries in the Middle East. Without the general prohibition on alcohol (I know there are many exceptions) the indigenous ME varietals would most lkely still flourish and might even be rival to French varietals today.
 
Islam would be the state religion of Russia, possibly. "Drink is the joy of the Russian" after all...:D


I believe you are joking, but dietary laws likely had little to do with it. More to do with the fact that rulers had to submit to the Caliph as his master under Allah. This practice would continue until after the Buyid era.
 
It might help Islam's spread into Europe somehow, although that would basically be an Islam wank.

But no, Western perceptions of Islam have nothing to do with diet or alcohol. I'd argue their clothing probably has a greater impact on their perception than diet. Lots of people in the West don't drink alcohol (for health or personal reasons) or eat pork (for health or personal reasons), after all.

I don't know about current perception but back in the day Islam ruined the indigenous wine industries in the Middle East. Without the general prohibition on alcohol (I know there are many exceptions) the indigenous ME varietals would most lkely still flourish and might even be rival to French varietals today.

I've always been very interested to see the sort of alcohol and wine the Middle East and North Africa might have produced without Islam. Apparently Persia in particular had very good wine (which is probably part of the reason why the Syrah grape is also known as Shiraz). It would also have produced a much larger market globally for wine to make up for the increased production of wine in Islamic countries.
 
There would be more and faster conversions, I assume, both in areas ruled and OTL slowly converted by them, and in Africa and the Steppes among pagans. An islamic Hungarian invasion of the Carpathian basin or converts among the Norse would quickly make this the problem of Western Europe, especially if they go on to raid as OTL. From there, I guess it would either lead to conflict (DEUS VULT centuries before it was cool) or coexistence, but either way there'd be a lot of butterflies.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but as far as I remember there were some very valid reasons for the ban on pork: in the warmer climate, wasn't there a parasitic worm that was particularly deadly?

Regarding the alcohol, I believe it's a doctrinal matter, some doctrines saying you can drink but not get drunk. That would be in line with a lot of the puritan christian doctrines.

Same for a lot of Islamic precepts, there is massive overlap between puritan islam and puritan christianity (including the veil worn out of modesty).

I think saying Islam didn't spread further because of wine and pork is a little simplistic. The Church of Europe at the time had a very good implementation that mixed with local folklore and made it hard to unroot.


I've always been very interested to see the sort of alcohol and wine the Middle East and North Africa might have produced without Islam. Apparently Persia in particular had very good wine (which is probably part of the reason why the Syrah grape is also known as Shiraz). It would also have produced a much larger market globally for wine to make up for the increased production of wine in Islamic countries.
Algerian wine was quite reknowned under French rule.
 

PhilippeO

Banned
Seconded Tanc.

Mormons now have millions of worshippers in America, despite ban on alcohol and tea. have more stringent requirement will help faith spread, while more wishy-washy faith would not atttract anyone. successful faith need to make demand on their worshipper, create camaderie and making distinction with outsider. special dietary requirement cause faithful to eat together, creating connection inside and discourage connection with disbeliever, it also force worshipper to make worldly sacrifice and cause admiration from outsiders.
 
Seconded Tanc.

Mormons now have millions of worshippers in America, despite ban on alcohol and tea. have more stringent requirement will help faith spread, while more wishy-washy faith would not atttract anyone. successful faith need to make demand on their worshipper, create camaderie and making distinction with outsider. special dietary requirement cause faithful to eat together, creating connection inside and discourage connection with disbeliever, it also force worshipper to make worldly sacrifice and cause admiration from outsiders.

Then again, depends on the type of requirement. Requiring circumcision to convert to Christianity was almost immediately thrown out the window.
 
Then again, depends on the type of requirement. Requiring circumcision to convert to Christianity was almost immediately thrown out the window.

The Christian church however has proved super adaptable. Christians are supposed to not eat meat on Friday and to observe lent, which is like the easy version of Ramadan.
Yet you can not observe lent and gorge down on bacon every Friday and still consider oneself a Christian.

The Christian church has adapted as well to local folklore (respect of Confucius and swallowing of ancestors/sky cults in SE Asia) not even mentioning Christmas and St John which very conveniently fall on old pagan dates.

I know Islam less well but I know there are tons of different currents and school of thoughts. Hell, the fact that the same religion is represented by the Maurs in Spain, the philosophy schools of the Middle East, Indonesia on one side and Saudi Arabia/IS on the other side shows how plastic it can be. More often than not, religion is a face people put on to legitimise their action. If Islam had made the actions of European rulers more legitimate than Christianity, they probably would have converted.
Just to precise, this is not an atheist rant, just a reminder that people tend to interprate their various dogma however they see feat.
 
Regarding alcohol, I know the ME has a long tradition of producing alcoholic drinks. For example Arak is an indigenous drink and the Safavids promoted the wine industry in Iran.
 
- Jews have much stricter dietary restrictions, and have positive perception in most Western countries.

Uh, sorry, but this is patently untrue. It's definitely not because of kosher law, but Jews face widespread persecution throughout the West, to this day.
 

Yuelang

Banned
And believe it or not, pre late 20th century Muslims actually regularly ate pork and drink beer OUTSIDE Arabia (and even some inside).

Blame someone who back religious nuts in Saudi against Arab Socialism...
 
Every religion has rules, and there are few rules which haven't been broken. It was common for Muslims in Al-Andalus to drink alcohol, at least amongst the upper class, without any sort of stigma, I'm not sure if they had some sort of legitimisation using an interpretation of Hadith or Qu'ran, or the rules were simply not enforced strictly, but alcohol consumption was a regular cultural norm. You can also find similar trends amongst the Ottoman and Mughal empires, especially amongst the artisans such as Poets, the 19th century Urdu poet Ghalib being a notorious example who actually prided himself on a decadent (according to most modern Muslims) lifestyle.
 
Uh, sorry, but this is patently untrue. It's definitely not because of kosher law, but Jews face widespread persecution throughout the West, to this day.

Jews face widespread persecution in parts of the West, which with one major exception (hi Paris, kindly fuck yourself) have very few Jews. The fact that some barely-employed asshole in Kansas dislikes Jews has marginally more effect on the average American Jew than the fact that someone who believes in sun people and ice people categorizes Jews as ice people. In the US, job discrimination is nonexistent and incomes are high; in Europe it's more uneven, but the basic picture ("Jews are a subset of white people") holds.
 
In the US, job discrimination is nonexistent and incomes are high; in Europe it's more uneven, but the basic picture ("Jews are a subset of white people") holds.

It's weird how this has been the case for so long in European history. You'd think there would have been some sort of strife, but it's been smooth sailing.
 
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