World without a Crescent - no-muslim TL

Not so long ago (yesterday to be honest) I posted up new thread: AH Challenge: butterfly away islam. Out of this discussion I've got a slight view on how might look the reasons and effects of lacking islam in the world. This would be such a great loss, knowing muslim role in OTL, but still worthy of seeing such a different world - where most of known history is butterflied away.

General assumptions:
-Muhammad never founds his own religion, islam, instead becoming Christian patriarch of Mekkah
-Eastern Christianity needs an enemy to stand together facing it, without islam it might fall into infights, but the new enemy emerges: zoroastrianism threatens eastern flanks of Christianity.

Here's the beginnings of the timeline - for the good start.

622 - Muhammad proposes few reforms to Christianity to the Bishop of Mekkah. Differently from OTL, Bishop agrees and begins reforms in his dioecese. When angered Patriarch of Antioch demands to stop the reform, Bishop defends his position and gets killed by opposition in his own dioecese. Muhammad is chosen as next Bishop and declares himself a Patriarch of Mekkah.

623 - Ghassanids are confronted by both Patriarch Muhammad and Patriarch of Antioch. Unable to find a good solution between two angry lions, Ghassanids calls for help of the Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius. Emperor demands truce between the patriarchs. The two unwillingly stops fighting and Muhammad begin forming his own tradition with patriarchate in Mekkah.

625 - Muhammad confronts chieftains of several Arab tribes and convinces them to join his cause. While slowly uniting the Arabic Peninsula, the Patriarch forms new theocratic country called Patriarchate of Arabia.

630 - Last Arabic tribes are converted to orthodox christianity in arabic traidition. Ghassanids pledge allegiance to Muhammad. The Patriarchate estabilish his stable position in the centre of trade routs between Byzantium, Africa and Asia.

632 - Patriarch Muhammad dies and gets replaced by ghassanid scholar, Akbar, who continues Muhammad's reforms and starts his reign by expelling overly zealous Muhammad's father-in-law, Abu Bakr.

That's for the start. Expect more soon. Awaiting suggestions and opinions.
 
Just a nitpick: the crescent (and star) was a Christian symbol first, it was on the flag of Constantinople. IIRC it was originally a pagan thing... so a no crescent world would actually be a world without Constantinople. :p

I don't think a theocratic patriarchate uniting all of Arabia makes that much sense though. More likely the tribes would stay disunited for a lot longer. Some would stay pagan, while most would convert to either Christianity or Judaism.
 

Philip

Donor
622 - Muhammad proposes few reforms to Christianity to the Bishop of Mekkah. Differently from OTL, Bishop agrees and begins reforms in his dioecese. When angered Patriarch of Antioch demands to stop the reform, Bishop defends his position and gets killed by opposition in his own dioecese. Muhammad is chosen as next Bishop and declares himself a Patriarch of Mekkah.

Question: Was the a Bishopric of Mekkah OTL?

Question/Observation: What are these reforms? Most of what Mohammad taught OTL is likely to be considered heresy by Christians.

Observation: Such a declaration is likely to draw condemnation (and probably excommunication) from the rest of Christianity. Declaring oneself a patriarch will not go well. It is a challenge to the authority of the other patriarchs.

623 - Ghassanids are confronted by both Patriarch Muhammad and Patriarch of Antioch. Unable to find a good solution between two angry lions, Ghassanids calls for help of the Byzantine Emperor, Heraclius.
Observation: If Arabia has not already been united, I doubt the Mekkans could do much more than raid Ghassanid territory from time to time. Nothing new.

Question/Observation: Aren't the Ghassanids already allied with the Romans? I seem to recall that the Romans used the Ghassanids as a buffer against other Arab tribes. Why would this change ITTL?


Emperor demands truce between the patriarchs. The two unwillingly stops fighting and Muhammad begin forming his own tradition with patriarchate in Mekkah.

Observation: Heraclius is not likely to view this as a dispute between two patriarchs. Rome, Constantiniople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem will be opposed to Mekka. Mekka is likely to be seen as schismatic or heretical.

625 - Muhammad confronts chieftains of several Arab tribes and convinces them to join his cause. While slowly uniting the Arabic Peninsula, the Patriarch forms new theocratic country called Patriarchate of Arabia.
Suggestion:This needs to happen first.

630 - Last Arabic tribes are converted to orthodox christianity in arabic traidition. Ghassanids pledge allegiance to Muhammad. The Patriarchate estabilish his stable position in the centre of trade routs between Byzantium, Africa and Asia.
Question: Why? What happened to the Sassanids? They have greater access to the Silk road and Asia. What happened to Roman Egypt and its access to Africa? And what is Axum doing while all this is going on?
 
Question: Was the a Bishopric of Mekkah OTL?

I heard so. There was a christian society in Mekkah already.

Observation: Such a declaration is likely to draw condemnation (and probably excommunication) from the rest of Christianity. Declaring oneself a patriarch will not go well. It is a challenge to the authority of the other patriarchs.

It was viewed as a heresy, it's why Patriarch of Antioch was confronting Muhammad.

Observation: If Arabia has not already been united, I doubt the Mekkans could do much more than raid Ghassanid territory from time to time. Nothing new.

Muhammad was uniting tribes at a time, just beginning to do his work, but Ghassanids feared he might succeed.

Question/Observation: Aren't the Ghassanids already allied with the Romans? I seem to recall that the Romans used the Ghassanids as a buffer against other Arab tribes. Why would this change ITTL?

Observation: Heraclius is not likely to view this as a dispute between two patriarchs. Rome, Constantiniople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem will be opposed to Mekka. Mekka is likely to be seen as schismatic or heretical.

This wasn't changed. I believe Heraclius just had internal problems at a time and it's why he hasn't reacted to Muhammad IOTL. And Mekkah is viewed as a schismatic, until Heraclius demanded a truce - he needed Mekkah to his cause (against the Sassanids) and Antioch at peace.

Suggestion:This needs to happen first.

This was already happening since years. This is actually the enddate of the process.

Question: Why? What happened to the Sassanids? They have greater access to the Silk road and Asia. What happened to Roman Egypt and its access to Africa? And what is Axum doing while all this is going on?

It would be explained in the next chapter. Axum and Sassanids are going to react to The Patriarchate, Egypt's position is still not undermined.
 

Philip

Donor
Muhammad was uniting tribes at a time, just beginning to do his work, but Ghassanids feared he might succeed.

Seems to me that such fear would drive the Ghassanids closer to the Romans.

This wasn't changed. I believe Heraclius just had internal problems at a time and it's why he hasn't reacted to Muhammad IOTL. And Mekkah is viewed as a schismatic, until Heraclius demanded a truce -

I don't see Heraclius having the power to do this. He was unable to convince the Church to accept Monothelitism. He presented it as a compromise between the Monophysites and Dyophysites. Both sides rejected it as heresy. These represent major factions of the Empire, and he was unable to bring them together. I fail to see why he would be able to succeed in getting Antioch to accept a heretical patriarch in Mekka. Mekka will not have the political power to force a compromise.

he needed Mekkah to his cause (against the Sassanids)

OTL, he didn't need them. His alliance with the Khazars was sufficient. By 625, the war with Persia was definitely going in the Roman's favor. In two years, they would march on Ctesiphon and force peace on the Sassanids. Even pressure from the Avars was lightening with the arrival of the Croats. I don't see what Heralcius has to gain by appeasing some Arab raiders by angering an integral part of his empire.

and Antioch at peace.

Forcing a truce on Antioch will not bring peace to it. Antioch was already chaffing from the Monophysite/Dyophysite split. Failing to support the True Faith from Antioch's point of view will only push Antioch (and probably Alexandria) further from Constantinople. Given Heraclius's efforts OTL to resolve the Monophysite/Dyophysite issue, I don't see him deliberately agitating Antioch.
 
Nobody said Muhammad's reforms became the same as in OTL. I would view him as much more Monophysitic Christian then he was originally. Main problem with him is here that he had proclaimed himself a Patriarch. But that could be dealt with by officialy appointing him such a position.

Well, here we have Khazars supporting Sassanids (oh, spoilering, but you forced me to do it), so he needed ally at south.

And Ghassanids were kinda forced to join Muhammad - I don't want to get into details, but Romans were not an option at this time, due to some minor (from our point) reasons.
 
Top