WI: No Reconquista?

And that depopulated land became the economic center of Spain for 700 years.Mid size towns and small towns were more numerous in the christian kingdoms than in the south.Again I don't know why you keep ignoring this point time and time and time again.Cordoba might have had 300k people in the X century but how is that even relevant for discussing overall population density in the XI century? You are making less sense every single post. As I told you when the Castillian king conquered the south he found 3 big cities and a bunch of empty land who he had to split in huge states and set tones of colonies for it to be viable.Even Charles the III in the XVIII had to bring German and Flemish colonists to repopulate some regions of Andalucia.
I'm not going to continue engaging with you if you're going to hurl personal insults every time you're confronted with facts that disagree with your assertions.

You're arguing from a completely different period in Iberian history and trying to apply it anachronistically to the totality of al-Andalus. In fact, towards the end - post-Almohads - there were imams out there issuing fatwas calling on the Muslim faithful to leave al-Andalus. The demographics of the Emirate of Granada in the 15th century are not the same thing as the demographics of the Caliphate of Cordoba in the 10th.
 
One thing you could do is screw the Franks. In his time Charlemagne fought a lot of wars during which he could have died. Depending on when he died he could have left anywhere between 0-3 heirs, not including his nephews, all of which is a recipe for civil war within the Frankish Empire. Keep it up long enough, with the Franks taken out of the picture, the Umayyads may be in a more secure position to finish off the Christian remnants in the north and possibly even make incursions across the Pyrenees. Maybe even further if you wanted to screw Christianity.
 
I'm not going to continue engaging with you if you're going to hurl personal insults every time you're confronted with facts that disagree with your assertions.

You're arguing from a completely different period in Iberian history and trying to apply it anachronistically to the totality of al-Andalus. In fact, towards the end - post-Almohads - there were imams out there issuing fatwas calling on the Muslim faithful to leave al-Andalus. The demographics of the Emirate of Granada in the 15th century are not the same thing as the demographics of the Caliphate of Cordoba in the 10th.
When did I insult you? You are free to highlight it.
And that depopulated land became the economic center of Spain for 700 years.Mid size towns and small towns were more numerous in the christian kingdoms than in the south.Again I don't know why you keep ignoring this point time and time and time again.Cordoba might have had 300k people in the X century but how is that even relevant for discussing overall population density in the XI century? You are making less sense every single post. As I told you when the Castillian king conquered the south he found 3 big cities and a bunch of empty land who he had to split in huge states and set tones of colonies for it to be viable.Even Charles the III in the XVIII had to bring German and Flemish colonists to repopulate some regions of Andalucia.
Now to the serious discussion.Granada was overpopulated and hosted most of the muslim population in Spain after the conquest of Ferdinand the III of Castile.And there are no records of a massive exodus to north Africa after the conquest (unlike the massive exodus of muslims to North Africa after the conquest of Granada).Most muslims moved to Granada which is what most records and historians agree with.
The muslim population was always way smaller than the caliphs would like to agree and after the decree of expulsion of christians and jews the south of Spain became a really depopulated area which just shows that the supposed 5.5 million muslims never existed to begin with and their numbers at their peak were closer to 1,3 million or 2 million people and at the time of the conquest of Andalucia around 500-650k muslims in all of Spain
 
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When did I insult you? You are free to highlight it.

Now to the serious discussion.Granada was overpopulated and hosted most of the muslim population in Spain after the conquest of Ferdinand the III of Castile.And there are no records of a massive exodus to north Africa after the conquest (unlike the massive exodus of muslims to North Africa after the conquest of Granada).Most muslims moved to Granada which is what most records and historians agree with.
The muslim population was always way smaller than the caliphs would like to agree and after the decree of expulsion of christians and muslims the south of Spain became a really depopulated area which just shows that the supposed 5.5 million muslims never existed to begin with and their numbers at their peak were closer to 1,3 million or 2 million people and at the time of the conquest of Andalucia around 500-650k muslims in all of Spain
Serious scholars disagree with you strongly and I'm going to side with serious scholars over some guy who has spent the afternoon repeatedly insulting me by calling me "delusional, "dumb" and "low-knowledge" while telling me to "not speak."
 
Serious scholars disagree with you strongly and I'm going to side with serious scholars over some guy who has spent the afternoon repeatedly insulting me by calling me "delusional, "dumb" and "low-knowledge" while telling me to "not speak."
"Scholars" is a wide term and most disagree about a lot of stuff.The Taifas nor the caliphate recorded any demographic data so the only way we can speculate about their population is looking at migratory movements,natural population growth comparing it with the rest of Europe and repopulations and looking at all of that is pretty save to assume that muslims were never that numerous.If there were 5.5 million muslims in Spain in the XI century when the entire peninsula had 8 million people then things like the depopulation of the south after the expulsion decree of christian and jews and even the reconquista wouldn't be viable at all.If most of iberians were muslims why there were so few muslim rebellions in the land conquered by the christian king? Genocide? Doubtful we have a lot of details in how the conquest was and massive executions were not common.Migrations to other Taifas? We know that this happened but the population of the south remained mostly the same and when the christians conquered it, it was mostly depopulated. There are only 2 explanations then.Or christians were more numerous than muslims what made the reconquista mostly a smooth process until Granada (which holded a real muslim majority) or that muslims massively converted to christianity when they were conquered which despite conversions being common the kings never put much emphasis into it until the conquest of Granada. At the end of the day or 4 million muslims magically dissapeared in 300 years or they were never there to begin with
 
Because if you assume Las Navas de Tolosa to be the latest point at which al-Andalus can be saved, it's decades before the Ottomans really became a thing. Butterflies alone would change the course of history. That is, Osman will almost certainly never be born. There may be some Turkish empire which topples the Byzantine Empire at some point, sure - that's fairly likely given the dynamics in Anatolia at the time. But it will not be the Ottomans and it will not be the same people.

With PODs before Las Navas de Tolosa, the Seljuks may no-show completely, or some other Turkic group may show up. (Pecheneg Constantinople?)
Turkic invasions of the West are unavoidable, the butterflies of a muslim spain will not affect the situation of contemporary Northern China fast enough.
 
"Scholars" is a wide term and most disagree about a lot of stuff.The Taifas nor the caliphate recorded any demographic data so the only way we can speculate about their population is looking at migratory movements,natural population growth comparing it with the rest of Europe and repopulations and looking at all of that is pretty save to assume that muslims were never that numerous.If there were 5.5 million muslims in Spain in the XI century when the entire peninsula had 8 million people then things like the depopulation of the south after the expulsion decree of christian and jews and even the reconquista wouldn't be viable at all.If most of iberians were muslims why there were so few muslim rebellions in the land conquered by the christian king? Genocide? Doubtful we have a lot of details in how the conquest was and massive executions were not common.Migrations to other Taifas? We know that this happened but the population of the south remained mostly the same and when the christians conquered it, it was mostly depopulated. There are only 2 explanations then.Or christians were more numerous than muslims what made the reconquista mostly a smooth process until Granada (which holded a real muslim majority) or that muslims massively converted to christianity when they were conquered which despite conversions being common the kings never put much emphasis into it until the conquest of Granada. At the end of the day or 4 million muslims magically dissapeared in 300 years or they were never there to begin with
A million Moriscos didn't just appear out of thin air in 1492. Certainly there doesn't have to be a royal decree for Muslims to convert to Christianity.
 
A million Moriscos didn't just appear out of thin air in 1492. Certainly there doesn't have to be a royal decree for Muslims to convert to Christianity.
There were 350k moriscos.If you add up with muslims that never converted you will probably get the numbers that I am claiming.Around 650k when the final push was done and at its peak not much more than 1.2 million muslims.Islam was never the majority religion in the peninsula, but Spain is not a weird case.Egypt was majority christian as well in the XIII century and so on.
 
There were 350k moriscos.If you add up with muslims that never converted you will probably get the numbers that I am claiming.Around 650k when the final push was done and at its peak not much more than 1.2 million muslims.Islam was never the majority religion in the peninsula, but Spain is not a weird case.Egypt was majority christian as well in the XIII century and so on.
The facts tell a different story and that is all I will say on this subject.
 
The facts tell a different story and that is all I will say on this subject.
What fact? You haven't come up with one yet.350k moriscos comes from the expulsion made by Phillip the III which is the only data that we have about the moriscos.This also takes into account the population growth of Spain in the XVI century so the original morisco population was probably a bit smaller than that.If you also take into account old converts+ the people that fled to north Africa after Granada was conquered you probably have a pretty close number to the original number of muslims in Spain if you adjust it to population growth/decline.Claiming that most of the people living in the peninsula were muslims and then 200 years later muslims are not even 1/5th of the entire population seems pretty far fetch without some kind of genocide or huge migratory moves that we have no real records of.This conversation has become pointless so I don't think I will keep arguing with you.Enjoy your day
 
Warning
What fact? You haven't come up with one yet.350k moriscos comes from the expulsion made by Phillip the III which is the only data that we have about the moriscos.This also takes into account the population growth of Spain in the XVI century so the original morisco population was probably a bit smaller than that.If you also take into account old converts+ the people that fled to north Africa after Granada was conquered you probably have a pretty close number to the original number of muslims in Spain if you adjust it to population growth/decline.Claiming that most of the people living in the peninsula were muslims and then 200 years later muslims are not even 1/5th of the entire population seems pretty far fetch without some kind of genocide or huge migratory moves that we have no real records of.This conversation has become pointless so I don't think I will keep arguing with you.Enjoy your day
Actually, I've been reviewing sources before every response I've made.

It's not an argument when you argue in bad faith, which you've done consistently throughout this discussion. But it might be better to just end this encounter before I go on a scholarly-source bender.
 
Actually, I've been reviewing sources before every response I've made.

It's not an argument when you argue in bad faith, which you've done consistently throughout this discussion. But it might be better to just end this encounter before I go on a scholarly-source bender.

I'm issuing you an official warning for abusing the report function by reporting every post disagreeing with you for various spurious reasons.
 
But Islam reached the majority side of the conversion curve well before the Umayyad emirate/caliphate lost control of most of the peninsula - in fact, it would have started to crest to about 2.8 million during the reign of Abdullah ibn Muhammad - probably about a third of Iberia - then exploded during the reign of Abd ar-Rahman III and kept on climbing to hit about 5.6 million Muslims by 1100, during the Almoravid interlude.

The southern part of Andalusia was actually significantly more urbanized and productive than the north, with much greater economic development and purchasing power - the real hurdle being the refusal of the Umayyads to entrust military power to Muladies and the tendency of the Mozarabs and conversos to be in a constant state of low-level rebellion. By contrast, the north was actually quite poorly-developed and largely agrarian even by the beginning of the 11th century, though Galicia was somewhat better off in that respect. The reversal came when the south lost its economic advantage - the Banu Hilal, for ex, came through and disrupted the trade through Tunisia and forced Andalusia to compete directly with Genoa and Pisa in the trade with Egypt, and the complex economic network around Córdoba was pretty well ruined by the civil war unleashed by the actions of Sanchuelo. The north got to kick around the taifas at just the time when the Cluniac monks were beginning to operate up that way and the Santiago pilgrimage route was bringing more economic attention and French culture to cities along the road. Add to that the fact that the northern kingdoms kicked around quite a few weakened taifas and carried home a lot of gold to fund their war machines in the process.

Also worth noting that the Franks did not always have the northern kingdoms' back - see also Hugh Capet not getting around to backing up the Count of Barcelona against Almanzor's predations in the 980s. France was populous, sure. But it was also extremely decentralized and internally divided until the Capets started getting big, and even in the early Capetian period, the King of France was something of a joke, with the real power lying with - and I'll use the word that should be used - warlords.

Your characterization of al-Andalus as a doomed punching bag with no actual Muslims is just not factually supported.



EDIT: I'm not sure some of your claims about Egypt stand up to scrutiny.

That part is based on absolutely nothing. If the Copts were genocided Egypt would not have 10-15% Copt up until today. Up until the late Middle Ages Copts still formed about 30-40% of Egypt.
 
I find myself between Planet Hats and Fernando positions, I think Andalus had definitely a chance but you would have to change the Taifa period from the very start or butterfly it. As I see it, the second the Berber dynasties become the only alternative to Christian annexation, Andalus was doomed in the long term, those dynasties reacted to the decline in power in the most counterproductive way possible by acting intolerant towards Jews and Christians alike(ironically the Christian kingdoms where the safe haven at this point in time)

I'd also argue that both figures presented here are a bit exaggerated, I find it impossible to even imagine that Muslims were 80% of the whole Iberian population(are we sure we are not talking about the Muslim controlled territory specifically? It would make sense then considering the population exchanges that happened at the time and the reduce size of those territories compared to all of Iberia).
But at the same time saying that only the already "heretic" nobility converts and Arab/Berber migrants composed the muslim community seems as absurd to me.
 
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