Which is against the tenants of the Quran: "There is no compulsion in religion".
WI: Ottoman Europe is Majority Muslim by 1600
- Thread starter LHB
- Start date
Which is against the tenants of the Quran: "There is no compulsion in religion".
Or they raised on converted people. It was why the Berber revolted in first place in the 740's. And what why even an higher jizya wouldn't push the non-Muslims to convert : if they are too many, the Islamic authorities would just apply the tax to every non-"old" Muslim.
This is pretty poor argument. I believe Quran forbids murder as well, but that didn't help many unfortunate Sultan sons (and Sultans).
In the 1600's? Lepantos was the best the "outside powers" did OTL and it was pretty useless when it came to "free the Balkans from Islamo-Turks so, unless you manage to get China involved, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be such a nuisance.
Not necessasrily, rather than converting the local population to get Muslim majorities an alternative might be to simply import Muslims from outside the region. Whilst nowadays we think of the Turks as Asia Minor based thanks to Turkey's Anatoloan heartlands, during the Ottoman Empire the Balkans were the centre of their empire as the richest and most heavily populated provinces - IIRC refering to someone as Turkish/Anatolian was the same as our refering to someone as a redneck or yokel. Perhaps there might be a way to get an Ottoman Sultan to transfer large numbers of Anatolian Turks to the Balkans to try and boost their income even higher whilst also securing their borderlands against the Christian powers?
They could possibly bring foreign Muslims to settle in their Christian lands, too. Obviously the reconquista states and the Ottoman Empire are very different, but the Iberian states during the Reconquista brought in foreigner Christians occasionally, like Sancho the Populator of Portugal.
But the main part of the population was still hispano-roman ( converted during the IX/X) with many cultural ties, when we're talking of very different populations there, culturally and "ethnically" speaking.
Furthermore the settlement in Iberia touched only some regions (Valencia, towns, ...) while the majority remained in more or less the same situation.
There is even more specific stuff about Christians to be protected if they pay the 'tribute'. A great deal of detailed jurisprudence was built on it, many law doctors would feel at least disturbed if forced conversion is massively enacted upon protected Book people. By the way, with rebel Book people or polytheist the matter was different.
There was kind of a minority view that the only Christian to be protected were to be the truly monotheistic ones, which from this perspective excludes the vast majority of Christians since they are mostly Trinitarian, which can be construed as polytheism from an Islamic theological point of view.
However, to my knowledge nobody really cared in this timeframe, Christians were considere People of the Book on the whole, period.
If half the local population is in armed revolt and the richest part of the state does not supply the Empire anymore, the Ottomans can be in trouble though. It maybe requires almost simultaneous attack on multiple sides.
Persia can see an opportunity too.
Jizya upon converts, to my knowledge, was abolished by the Abbasids shortly after 740 to never be reintroduced again in any Muslim place, however if anyone here has evidence of it sticking anywhere past the eight century I would be interested to know. Juridical works of Islamic Middle Ages I know explicitly say jizya is not due after conversion, and even discuss the cases according to the part of the year the fellow converts.
However, there was kharaj, that was a land tax (as opposed to a poll tax) that was originally paid by non-Muslims but stuck on them (or better, on their lands, regardless of whoever was actually there) after conversion.
The fiscal system in the OE was different but the basic ideas were still on the lines described above in theory, with some adds such as the timar thing.
Jizya upon converted was technically abolished since the beggining, and forbidden by the Umayyad caliphe Umar. With little effects.
Seeing how Abassids didn't managed to keep most of their peripherical aeras in control, I doubt they would have been able to apply all of their decisions.
For uses anywhere past the VIII :
-possible use in IX Al-Andalus, which would have caused the berber uprisings.
-Maybe in recently converted regions up to the XII.
But my point wasn't to say Ottoman could resurrect these abuses, just that Jiziya was hugely idealized.
Because there's no way that local governors, far from central power would EVER don't gave a fuck about juridic texts.
If it's their interest, they would apply it to anyone they want, and this would be the end of discussion.
And that's WHERE european state would fail. They were unable to do such simulataneous action, critically with France lurking to an agreement with the Sultan, Spain being busy with heretics and Germany looking like Challenger shuttle.
Not talking about their issue about project troops in Eastern Meditteranea without base.
Because there's no way that local governors, far from central power would EVER don't gave a fuck about juridic texts.
If it's their interest, they would apply it to anyone they want, and this would be the end of discussion.
Because we all know that all governors abuse the law as soon as they're out of reach of the capital, right?
I'm sure you'd see issues, and overmighty so-called subjects are likely to ignore any other laws that get in the way of their power, but no more than the sultan or caliph himself.
Or less, depending on how you want to word it.