WI Osman converts to Christianity

A long time ago, Abdul said 15% of the Turkic migrants into Asia Minor converted to Christianity.

Although the tribes were on paper Muslim, many of the tribesmen might have been Muslims only nominally. Many societies became "Christian" because the leaders converted, but that doesn't mean everyone was an actual Christian.

Furthermore, if the active Muslims weren't the fanatical types, they might not have cared about conversions to Christianity, especially if the ones who did it weren't that great of Muslims to start with.

I think Abdul said Islam among the Turks was much more heterodox and rigid than elsewhere in the Islamic world.

It's hard to tell. There is incredible genetic similarity between Greeks, Armenians, and Turks. A lot of "Armenians" are Christian Turks, and vice versa. Anatolia was never "Greek", it was Hellenized in the West, and to a much lesser degree in the interior, where there was a multitude of peoples, even including Celts. Aramaic was still widely around when the Turks arrived.

The situation is very confusing because of the lack of Central Asian genetic input in the modern population of Turkey - nobody's really sure what happened. Some of the admixture is due to the Byzantine "ethnic cleanising model", in which populations were moved around to mix them up and facilitate Hellenization and the destruction of local cultures, and some of it was due to the polyglot nature of the Ottoman Empire and the Balkans, where the Slavic element was strong in the Greeks, and Slavs were the primary contributors to the Devsirme system and thus the Ottoman military and ruling class in the formative years.

As for Islam, the Ottomans were at first very heterodox, until the Mameluk Empire was absorbed, when they became Orthodox Sunni. They were not at all rigid, with Sufi orders playing a large role in society, and as Hanefis, the Ottomans subscribed to the most liberal and flexible school of Sunni Islam.
 
I've heard that story before, although it was the Mongols, not Nestorian Christians.

Granted, Nestorianism was popular among the Mongols, but I don't think they were ever "officially" Nestorian.

A rival tribe nearby was, and was absorbed as Nestorian. Some have said
that Genghis' mother was, but I see little verification of this. Nestorianism
got a shot in the arm with the rise of the Mongols, but all religions except
lamanism were pretty much respected equally. Lamanism was the inner
circle's religion, and shamanism was Genghis's apparent religion.

"Many Mongols had been proselytized by Nestorian Christians since about the 7th century "

Getting back to the Turks, just about the only likely method would be
that the Muslim group inside the Turks overshoot and try a premature
coup. This fails, probably including an attempted near miss Osman
assassination attempt.

Historically, nothing seems to piss off leaders enough to do 180 degree
about face movements as a near miss failed assassination attempt.

Voila.
 
Anatolia was never "Greek", it was Hellenized in the West, and to a much lesser degree in the interior, where there was a multitude of peoples, even including Celts. Aramaic was still widely around when the Turks arrived.

Hum, but wasn't at least the coastals area, from the days of a certain mycean era city, very much settled by greeks?
 
Hum, but wasn't at least the coastals area, from the days of a certain mycean era city, very much settled by greeks?

What? The Mycenaeans conducted raids of the Anatolian coastline, inhabited by peoples completely foreign to them, and even they were not Dorians, the nomads which uprooted them. They never settled these areas. The only areas discernibly Greek is Pontus and the western Coasts. The rest is only hellenized.
 
What? The Mycenaeans conducted raids of the Anatolian coastline, inhabited by peoples completely foreign to them, and even they were not Dorians, the nomads which uprooted them. They never settled these areas. The only areas discernibly Greek is Pontus and the western Coasts. The rest is only hellenized.

greeks cities, colonies, etc... As you said, Pontus and the Coasts.
 
I read this as "WI Osama Converts to Christianity" :eek:

Cookies to anyone who reads that as "WI Obama converts to Christianity."

:D

Looking back at Anatolia to stay vaguely on topic: Did the term "Greek" have anything like an ethnic meaning in the Roman days? So far as settlement went, that is.
 
Cookies to anyone who reads that as "WI Obama converts to Christianity."

:D

Looking back at Anatolia to stay vaguely on topic: Did the term "Greek" have anything like an ethnic meaning in the Roman days? So far as settlement went, that is.

Greeks are one of the few peoples who kept their languages and customs after conquest and rule Rome and after it felt, so..
 
Greeks are one of the few peoples who kept their languages and customs after conquest and rule Rome and after it felt, so..

There's a difference between Greek culture meaning something and there being a recognized "ethnic Greeks" people scattered from southern Italy to who knows where.
 
Probably by the classical era, the culture was spread and glorious enough 'barbaric' neighboors like Macedonia started to really take in greek culture...

The Macedonians may have been close relatives (or even a branch) of the Dorian Greeks anyway.

But yes, a lot of the modern Turkish gene pool is Greek and Armenian in origin -- ironic considering how much bad blood exists between Turkey on one side and Armenian & Greece on the other. During Roman times Asia Minor had many different peoples in it, Greeks, Armenians, Phrygians (who may have been ethnically similar to Armenians), Galatians (A Celtic Tribe), Persians, Roman colonies, Assyrians, etc...

It's unclear how many of these groups were still distinct by the time the Seljuks (and then the Ottomans) came rolling through, though. Either way, before the Turkish invasion, most Anatolian peoples were speaking Greek and/or Armenian.

Also, the lines between Christianity and Islam were much more blurry in those days. The Greek Akritai (border fighters) and the Turkish raiders were relatively similar in fighting style and shared a lot of cultural similarities from close contact and even intermarriage during two and a half centuries. Many Byzantine leaders went Muslim and went over to the Turks, but up until the fall of Constantinople, that often happened in reverse, too. There were Christian Turks and Christian-friendly Turks, and even during the siege of 1453, an Ottoman pretender fought alongside the Byzantines.


This situation is actually very plausible. It could happen in a manner like this: Osman gets into a conflict with one of his neighboring Turkish Beys and loses. Rather than give up, he flees with his most trusted retainers to Constantinople and requests the Emperor's assistance. The Emperor's price: convert to Christianity and acknowledge the suzerainty of the Empire. A combined Ottoman/Byzantine force drives the local Turkish Beys out of Western Asia Minor, creating a drive for Christianity among the western-most Turks.
 
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