WI Major World Religion founded after Islam?

Could a religion which was founded after Islam become widespread across the world, with it having between 10 and 20 percent of the world's population follow it by 1900? What are the likeliest candidates and where could they take hold?
 
My vote's for Sikhism! With the right POD, could've become more widespread on the Subcontinent, then after the onset of the Raj, spread throughout the British Empire...
 
10 to 20 percent is a big ask. But still, like all "world religion" questions, this hinges fundamentally on the definition of "religion". Is Ahmadiyya, for example, a distinct "religion" from Islam? In that case, you could have an analogous Mahdi claimant relatively early on just sweep half of Islam off its feet and then wank that sect to the stars. Are the various Hindu sects distinct "religions"? In that case, a relatively small change in Indian history around the time of the Mughals / early colonisation could bring about a novel Hindu sect that manages to gather a majority of Hindus as adherents. Could a semi-egalitarian, stripped-down, proselytising variety of Zoroastrianism have picked up in a post-Sassanid, non-Muslim Persia, and converted the Turkic peoples who were to define so much of medieval Middle Eastern and South Asian history? Sure, but you might as well just call that "Zoroastrianism", right?

If you go by the most stringent definition (a religion as wholly distinct from its influences as Islam), honestly, I think 10-20% is a bit too tall of an order. Islam filled in a very wide gap: a unifying set of uncompromising principles and a community among the Arab people, whose population and social inequality had gradually grown to an unsustainable point. After Islam's rise, there really wasn't a place on Earth where the conditions that give rise to a viable proselytising religion would exist up all the way until industrialisation, IMO. The Subcontinent is a possible exception, but it seems to have given rise to sects like Sikhism and Lingayatism that take off on a flying start and then peter out within a particular region. And East Asia, to be honest, is just right out. The Confucian state did not tolerate challenges to its self-preservation as such, so while a bunch of sects more or less distinct from Buddhism and unorganised local tradition have arisen there, none have gathered the momentum to approach state-level power, let alone a significant percentage of the world's population.
 
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Religions founded after Islam, with approximate number of adherents in 1900.

Baha'i100,000
Mormons285,000
Sikhs3 million
Protestants133 million

So, out of a 1900 AD world population of 1.6 billion, the closest to the mark is Protestant Christianity at 8%, with the next runner-up being the Sikhs at 0.2%.

Edit: removed religions founded after 1900.
 
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I had a discussion on one of the threads with some other members about how to make Sikhism a much bigger religion. Part of it would have to mean that a good succession plan for the Gurus is put in place and another would be that they are able to defend themselves from the massacres that happened OTL. Lastly, they would have to take over the Indus river valley region as well as Punjab region and convert most of the Hindus/Muslims living there to Sikhism.

Even if British Raj does happen, Sikhism is still considered as one of the main religions of Indian subcontinent and is able to form their own nation of Khalistan.
 
10 to 20 percent is a big ask. But still, like all "world religion" questions, this hinges fundamentally on the definition of "religion". Is Ahmadiyya, for example, a distinct "religion" from Islam? In that case, you could have an analogous Mahdi claimant relatively early on just sweep half of Islam off its feet and then wank that sect to the stars. Are the various Hindu sects distinct "religions"? In that case, a relatively small change in Indian history around the time of the Mughals / early colonisation could bring about a novel Hindu sect that manages to gather a majority of Hindus as adherents. Could a semi-egalitarian, stripped-down, proselytising variety of Zoroastrianism have picked up in a post-Sassanid, non-Muslim Persia, and converted the Turkic peoples who were to define so much of medieval Middle Eastern and South Asian history? Sure, but you might as well just call that "Zoroastrianism", right?

If you go by the most stringent definition (a religion as wholly distinct from its influences as Islam), honestly, I think 10-20% is a bit too tall of an order. Islam filled in a very wide gap: a unifying set of uncompromising principles and a community among the Arab people, whose population and social inequality had gradually grown to an unsustainable point. After Islam's rise, there really wasn't a place on Earth where the conditions that give rise to a viable proselytising religion would exist up all the way until industrialisation, IMO. The Subcontinent is a possible exception, but it seems to have given rise to sects like Sikhism and Lingayatism that take off on a flying start and then peter out within a particular region. And East Asia, to be honest, is just right out. The Confucian state did not tolerate challenges to its self-preservation as such, so while a bunch of sects more or less distinct from Buddhism and unorganised local tradition have arisen there, none have gathered the momentum to approach state-level power, let alone a significant percentage of the world's population.

What about something evolving from pre-contact American religions like the Aztec or Inca pantheons?
 
What about something evolving from pre-contact American religions like the Aztec or Inca pantheons?

Any American pre-Colombian religion has much of doing even survive from colonialism. It is going to happen eventually, no matter what.
 
I had a discussion on one of the threads with some other members about how to make Sikhism a much bigger religion. Part of it would have to mean that a good succession plan for the Gurus is put in place and another would be that they are able to defend themselves from the massacres that happened OTL. Lastly, they would have to take over the Indus river valley region as well as Punjab region and convert most of the Hindus/Muslims living there to Sikhism.

Even if British Raj does happen, Sikhism is still considered as one of the main religions of Indian subcontinent and is able to form their own nation of Khalistan.
Yeah, southward down the Indus, sticking to the west of the Thar seems like a good strategy for expansion with an early enough POD. Could even lead to a seaport, which would mean possible opportunities for overseas expansion via missionary activity, Raj or no Raj...
 
What about something evolving from pre-contact American religions like the Aztec or Inca pantheons?

To 10-20%? Not very likely. The absolute best-case scenario for indigenous Americans (as a whole) is that Columbus sinks, Cabot or Cabral discover America via Newfoundland or Brazil respectively, and Europe takes a lot longer to become familiar with the riches of the Caribbean, Central America, and the Andes - hence much less colonising fever, and a more gradual growth of European interest in the New World. I really don't want to get into another Jared Diamond-based flamewar here, so all I'll say is that in my opinion this would give Indigenous societies a far better chance than they had IOTL. An Inca survival is eminently plausible, but the Aztecs were doomed to collapse within a century; the precolombian Mesoamerican social system would become just spectacularly obsolete with the arrival of pack animals. Still, you might manage to hold onto an indigenous successor state in Mexico, but where would that get you? What incentive will anyone else in the world have to convert to a religion from a society that recently underwent a total collapse, let alone a society whose favourite pastime only a century or so ago was ripping out human hearts? And what incentive would there be for indigenous Mexicans to develop a proselytising religion in the first place? Peruvians, meanwhile, have a relatively stable state - albeit one that's had to adjust dramatically to changing conditions - that also has no incentive whatsoever to export its faith. It's like trying to get Moroccans to convert to Shintoism or Sweden to adopt Juche; however the religion develops, it will develop in response to Mesoamerican or Andean conditions, and won't make any sense elsewhere.

And even then, if you jump all those hurdles, there's absolutely no way in hell you can manage to get 10% of the world's population to convert to this inexplicably appealing American faith. Where would it even go? The population of the entirety of the Americas only squeaks past 13% of the world's IOTL, so you'd have to assume (1) that indigenous Americans manage to remain in situ throughout the entire supercontinent, (2) that they multiply so prolifically as to match OTL's American population, and (3) that they all convert to Neo-Mesoamerican religion for some reason. All three are ASB, unfortunately.

On the other hand, a religion derived from the Mesoamerican pantheon with a similar role and social standing to, say, Haitian Vodou would be an absolutely fascinating premise for a TL.
 
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I think with the right circumstances, Zabbateans could form a distinct and successful religion. The Rosicrusians in particular could serve as sponsors given that a Kaballistic messiah would be right up their alley.
 
It could be possible that a Mughal emperor would convert to Sikhism, in fact the state religion of the empire (with an Islamic influence on it) and start spreading his faith in the rest of India, Indochina and Persia?
 
Fun Fact -During the Waning years of Norse Paganism, it was starting to grow more evangelical, with more written records of myths and legends, and the Uppsala Temple becoming even more important, and the pagan writers were clearly trying to find a way to create their own 'Caliph' or 'Pope' to give it legitimacy, most probably seated in Uppsala.

Make this Succeed, and you have a 'Reformed Norse Religion' which may succeed. Emphasis on May. This may also lead to the survival of the Slavic Faith adn the Romuva's?
 
India kinda feels way too crowded and competitive for a new religion to gain prominence....
 
An early colonization might work. Have a Christian, Buddhist, Shinto, Pagan or Islamic colony set up somewhere in the Americas then lose contact with the Old World. New trade partners have to be found among the natives, which in turn begins a process of mutual influence that builds a Syncretic religion that deviates enough from its predecessors that it is considered a new sect/religion. A religion that developed this way could have a century to conquer/proselytize before getting serious challenges from other colonizers or technologically advanced natives.
 
If the Arabs do not overrun the Sassanids and the two end up in a decades/centuries long slog, I could imagine for conditions to be met for a religion from the Persian religious tradition to arise, which, borrowing aspects from Islam/Christianity, goes evangelical and spreads to East Africa/Central Asia.
 
1. The Kenmu Restoration succeeds, with Nichiren proselytisers reaching north and east eventually reaching Alaska before continuing south and merging with Big Head/Kuksu Cult in California. Said faith spreads throughout the length of the Pacific coast eventually encompassing all of the Americas.

2. The Mongols are far more successful than OTL and take the entirety of Asia, for whatever reason one of the Khans attempt to merge all the faiths of their subjects under a new unified faith. Said faith gets some adherents in Siberia and Mongolia but most justly annoys everyone, Mongol China adopts this new faith as the state religion and begins to favour it at the expense of China's native faiths. Mongol China does not last very long in such a scenario though.
 
Religions founded after Islam, with approximate number of adherents in 1900.

Baha'i100,000
Mormons285,000
Sikhs3 million
Protestants133 million

So, out of a 1900 AD world population of 1.6 billion, the closest to the mark is Protestant Christianity at 8%, with the next runner-up being the Sikhs at 0.2%.

Edit: removed religions founded after 1900.
Rastafari
 
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