As we all know, the Uighurs formed a large empire in the 8th and 9th centuries which at it's height, reached from Silla (OOC: TTL's term for Korea) in the east to the shores of the Mediterranean in the west, controlling most of Zhongguo, Transoxiana, Persia, Bactria, Mesopotamia, and Syria at it's height in 865, but what if there was no Great Uighur Empire? Would Manichaeism still have become one of the world's great religions without Uighur patronage of the faith with some Uighur Khagans adhering to Manichaeism? How would Zhongguo, Bharat, Dar al-Islam, Persia, and Rhomania (they defeated the Uighurs in 857 when they tried to invade Rhomania) have been affected if the Uighurs hadn't become an Empire? Would the Tang Dynasty have fallen from within due to either peasant revolts or ambitious generals (or a combination of both) or would another group of nomads have overthrown the Tang Dynasty?
DBWI: No Great Uighur Empire
- Thread starter Whiteshore
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- dbwi empire khagan manichaeism uighurs
twovultures
Donor
I think someone wrote a timeline where the Uigher conquest fizzles, and Dar al-Islam becomes not just an ethnic religion for Arabians but a multi-ethnic evangelical religion, competing with Christianity the way Manichaeism did IOTL.
Personally I think it's a pretty silly timeline, I had trouble suspending my disbelief when Egypt converted from Christianity to 'Islam' en masse, and when Rhomania falls to Arabs (I might be misremembering, it might have been some Central Asian converts?) in 1453 I stopped reading because the author had clearly gone off the rails.
Personally I think it's a pretty silly timeline, I had trouble suspending my disbelief when Egypt converted from Christianity to 'Islam' en masse, and when Rhomania falls to Arabs (I might be misremembering, it might have been some Central Asian converts?) in 1453 I stopped reading because the author had clearly gone off the rails.
I wonder whether Manichaeism might actually be more successful without the Uighurs - the fact that this was the 'religion of the hordes' helped to unify and reform Christianity, and made it a much more cohesive faith in Europe and North Africa. If the Uighurs hadn't tried to spread the teachings of Mani, they may well have been accepted into the heavily schismatic Christian faith - there were already several similar elements, and it's not out of the question for some sects to have started becoming a bit more syncretist. As it was, anything vaguely associated with the Uighur religion was discredited, and the Papal Revolution helped to give fresh impetus and a new theological basis to Christianity.
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
Yeah, in order to keep the Muslims from being bottled up in the Arabian peninsula the author just posited some ridiculous scenario where a scouting party (!) raiding Egypt somehow caused Roman rule there to fall, and then for some reason all of North Africa and Spain fell too. I think he was going to have the Arabs completely replace the Roman Empire before common sense prevailed and he came up with a new Western Roman empire ruled by Alemanns or Saxons or something.
That was a weird timeline. Fun, though, if you're into that sort of implausible world domination stuff. My favourite bit was the whole Central Asian and Indian theatre, where some obscure Turkic tribes (some sort of Khwarezm stand-in, or something) converted to this Islam faith, and proceeded to invade Anatolia and India simultaneously. At least it wasn't just the Arabs the author was obsessed with...
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
It would be interesting to see Islam as a cosmopolitan faith instead of Arab ethno-religion. As a religion based on a sacred text and that is at least nominally pluralistic, there's no reason Central Asians and Spaniards or whoever else couldn't be Muslim. The only obstacle I can think of is the requirement that Muslims speak Arabic, since I recall from my World Religions course that the Muslim sacred book can't be translated.
Well, that scenario would clearly create an Arabic-wank, taking it outside the Arabic Peninsula.
ITTL, it seemed that Islam made its way as far east as the East Indies, which indicates a really wide reach. An Islamic East Indies instead of a mix of Hindu, Buddhist, or Manichaeism would be interesting...
ITTL, it seemed that Islam made its way as far east as the East Indies, which indicates a really wide reach. An Islamic East Indies instead of a mix of Hindu, Buddhist, or Manichaeism would be interesting...
I guess you wouldn't see a far more sinicized Jiaozhi.The invasion forced the Tang Imperial family and a lot of Chinese to flee to the province.
I guess the fact that the Tang Imperial family survived to this day has to thank the Uighur.Without the Uighur,the Tang Imperial Family wouldn't have been accepted by the Chinese as the one and only imperial family due them being seen as a symbol of resistance to foreign invaders.
I guess the fact that the Tang Imperial family survived to this day has to thank the Uighur.Without the Uighur,the Tang Imperial Family wouldn't have been accepted by the Chinese as the one and only imperial family due them being seen as a symbol of resistance to foreign invaders.
twovultures
Donor
Do you think that this would butterfly away the creation of Constitutional Government? IIRC the fact that the Tang Imperial Family was accepted as the "one true imperial family" is largely why they eventually ended up being relegated to a mostly ceremonial role but still could never be completely pushed aside, which in turn is what lead to the creation of Constitutional Government as a political philosophy, to balance the separate religious, bureaucratic and military powers in the Sinosphere and conflict arising from an Imperial family which had control over the first but little power over the other two.
OOC: For building off of this, let me add that "constitutional" does not mean "democratic"
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I reckon it's certainly possible - the Baha'i sect, which is sort of like a minor splinter group of Islam in Oman and in cities along the Indian Ocean coast, have managed to ignore that requirement. I think the timeline had a lot of Arab colonisation, but not sure how plausible that really is.
I wonder what the side-effects of such a POD would be on the Left Semiglobe (OOC: Western Hemisphere). Contact between the semiglobes would have to have occurred in a completely different fashion if the geopolitics of the Right Semiglobe were so drastically changed.
By the way, what do people think about the newly elected monarch of Uighuristan? All I know is that she is said to be the shortest monarch in Uighuric history, at least since the regime change brought about by the Yamato invasion.
By the way, what do people think about the newly elected monarch of Uighuristan? All I know is that she is said to be the shortest monarch in Uighuric history, at least since the regime change brought about by the Yamato invasion.
Most certainly,there wouldn't have been a rebound in the power of the aristocrats--who managed to regain power not seen since the days of Eastern Jin Dynasty*.Li Longji's misrule and the subsequent Anshi Rebellion which gave the Uighur the chance to conquer China showed that power should not be fully invested in one person.
*OOC:The Eastern Jin Dynasty was a regime where the power of the emperors was extremely weak and that the central government was largely dominated by several big aristocratic clans.
Maybe no Christian Mauretania to lead the discovery and trade with the Left Semiglobe. North Africa had to deal with Muslims and Arabs at one point, but could have they have subdued North Africa, even if it's more likely the Romans would've reconquered the place. And would either Muslims or the Romans be able to do the same?
Speaking of the Yamato, I mean they gained so much power because of their trade and semi-colonisation of the Left Semiglobe, if they didn't have that, where would they be?
twovultures
Donor
Man, that's weird. It's really hard to imagine an Africa without the second agricultural revolution occurring when the semiglobes contacted-it's what allowed Africa to bounce back as quickly as it did from the Black Death while Europe languished for a century and a half.
So, what PODs might have prevented the Uighurs from forming the "Great Uighur Empire"?
So, why do you think were the Uighurs so successful in their conquests? Was it due to their great leaders, sheer luck in facing empires weakened by internal strife, or a combination of both?
It was a combination of luck and religious zealotry.Manichaenism greatly boosted the morale and motivation for conquest.On the other hand,if it wasn't for the fact that the opponents were in a state of civil war and disunited,they couldn't have conquered much at all.
I'm of the opinion that the conquest of Zhongguo was facilitated by competent leadership taking advantage of internal strife taking out their enemies but the conquest of Persia and Transoxiana was probably driven by religious zealotry fired up by great leaders.
You made the right choice, it only goes downhill from there. I gave up on it when a disgruntled priest nailing his laundry list to a door was sufficient to cause some sort of second great schism in Christianity.
Burton K Wheeler
Moderator
A series of great leaders. Steppe empires were historically pretty ephemeral, the Uighurs were just phenomenally lucky to have three great emperors in a row.
It would be easy to just say that any of the Yaglakhar Khagans died early. If you want something more dramatic, off the top of my head, what if the Yenesei hadn't been defeated in 758? The Yenesei people basically ceased to be after that point, with the remnants converting to Manicheanism and joining Uighur clans, but they could easily have been a thorn in the Khanate's side or even overthrown it.