WI Islam won out in Europe?

[LSCatilina]

If it isn't the norm, doesn't that make it by definition exceptional?

Not really, exceptional underline that was occured only a few times. Not in the norm is more for it didn't happen all the time and wasn't heavily supported by all the society, but it happened nevertheless enough often to not being exceptionnal.

Yeah, can't count Jewish and Christian officials. Not sure how common those are in Al-Andalus, which I sadly don't know much about.

They were christian and jewish officials, but with power limited to their own communauties. They were exception tough, as during the Taïfa period, or as advisors of a Caliphe.

And we still see fairly consistent intolerance in the Christian world in its days of success and areas of tolerance in the Muslim world up to - how long in the Ottoman Empire?

It's true, but it's mainly remains of precedents policies.
The jewish policy of christians kingdoms were mainly issued from a period of crisis, and kept for fiscal (more taxes), political (less counter-powers) and also cultural reasons (religion).
For the Ottoman Empire, well, the Jews came in during his period of expansion, that support what i said. And they could stay in OE, because of its "westernization" (i don't like the word, but you know what i'm meaning) that supposed protection of minorities because, well, it was a right to live here much more than "Well, they doesn't disturb us, for now, so it's okay" and the religious-cultural influence.
I'm not saying that religion don't played a role here, but it was a secondary one.

And no worries on the lack of being a native English speaker. Just wanted to let you know in case I sound frustrated or misunderstand something.[/QUOTE]

 

[Elfwine]

Not really, exceptional underline that was occured only a few times. Not in the norm is more for it didn't happen all the time and wasn't heavily supported by all the society, but it happened nevertheless enough often to not being exceptionnal.

Okay, I can accept that definition.

They were christian and jewish officials, but with power limited to their own communauties. They were exception tough, as during the Taïfa period, or as advisors of a Caliphe.

The advisers of the Caliph are what I mean, though. That's a level no Muslim or Jew reached in any Christian kingdom I can think of.

It's true, but it's mainly remains of precedents policies.
The jewish policy of christians kingdoms were mainly issued from a period of crisis, and kept for fiscal (more taxes), political (less counter-powers) and also cultural reasons (religion).
For the Ottoman Empire, well, the Jews came in during his period of expansion, that support what i said. And they could stay in OE, because of its "westernization" (i don't like the word, but you know what i'm meaning) that supposed protection of minorities because, well, it was a right to live here much more than "Well, they doesn't disturb us, for now, so it's okay" and the religious-cultural influence.
I'm not saying that religion don't played a role here, but it was a secondary one.

But it did make a difference for the better, along with more secular influences.

Not sure we're disagreeing that strongly on this, just on the extent of the tolerance when it happened and how often that broke down.

 

[LSCatilina]

The advisers of the Caliph are what I mean, though. That's a level no Muslim or Jew reached in any Christian kingdom I can think of.

Well, you have exemples in Sicily as advisors, and many Muslims lords were allowed to keep their possessions after the christian conquest, similar to the treaties passed between Muslims and Christians in 711/717

But it did make a difference for the better, along with more secular influences.

The problem here is that islamized tribes or clans or even politicians have used Sharia to impose a anti-judaic and anti-christian policy during the Middle-Age. The religion could support any side in the minorities question, both in Christian world (where it indeed have a more fluctuent role, letting to the clerical institutions and not the moral institution, the role of protecting minorities) and Muslim one.

Not sure we're disagreeing that strongly on this, just on the extent of the tolerance when it happened and how often that broke down.

Oh, surely. That's just that the ideal of tolerence is a recent one, issued from the Humanist and Lumières tradition. In Middle-Ages, the best you can reach is an enlighted communautarism, more often reached within muslim world than christian, for social-economical reasons.
Earlier prosperity in Dar-Al-Islam, wthout great diseases as the Black Death in Europe, without great and durable wars (but many little conflicts), more links with the non-Muslim world for Dar-al-Islam than the contrary. All of that contributed to make them a more stable region than Christian one, creating the basis for a better life for minorities.

 

[Elfwine]

Well, you have exemples in Sicily as advisors, and many Muslims lords were allowed to keep their possessions after the christian conquest, similar to the treaties passed between Muslims and Christians in 711/717

But that seems to have ended badly by the end, and been almost unique while it lasted.

The problem here is that islamized tribes or clans or even politicians have used Sharia to impose a anti-judaic and anti-christian policy during the Middle-Age. The religion could support any side in the minorities question, both in Christian world (where it indeed have a more fluctuent role, letting to the clerical institutions and not the moral institution, the role of protecting minorities) and Muslim one.

Sure, makes sense.

Oh, surely. That's just that the ideal of tolerence is a recent one, issued from the Humanist and Lumières tradition. In Middle-Ages, the best you can reach is an enlighted communautarism, more often reached within muslim world than christian, for social-economical reasons.
Earlier prosperity in Dar-Al-Islam, wthout great diseases as the Black Death in Europe, without great and durable wars (but many little conflicts), more links with the non-Muslim world for Dar-al-Islam than the contrary. All of that contributed to make them a more stable region than Christian one, creating the basis for a better life for minorities.

Makes sense. Which probably also explains why the Byzantines tend towards the favorable end - as a Christian state in a position more like its Muslim neighbors in some regards.

 

[Snake Featherston]

If somehow Islam conquers Europe, Muslim Europe ends up more like a hybrid of Ghazi Emirates and Persian learning, and it's Ibn Warraq of Al-Andalus who meets the Huey Tlatoani Moteuczoma II as a means for the Randomid dynasty to avoid subservience to the distant Ottoman ghazis.

 

[von Adler]

Even if the arabs win at Constantinople 717-718 and Tours 732 and somehow manage to keep together and not go into conflict with the Turks or the Persians, there's still the Franks, the Frisians (a grand power before Charlemagne crushed them), the Bavarians and many other christian people around. Then there's the Mongols, who would love to rip apart a big and rich Caliphate.

 

[Chairwoman Roxelana]

Even if the arabs win at Constantinople 717-718 and Tours 732 and somehow manage to keep together and not go into conflict with the Turks or the Persians, there's still the Franks, the Frisians (a grand power before Charlemagne crushed them), the Bavarians and many other christian people around. Then there's the Mongols, who would love to rip apart a big and rich Caliphate.

You don`t need the Caliphate. The Ottomans did well on there own.

 

[Cuāuhtemōc]

You don`t need the Caliphate. The Ottomans did well on there own.

The Ottoman Empire doubled as the Ottoman Caliphate as well. The Padishah was the Caliph.

 

[George Carty]

The Ottoman Empire doubled as the Ottoman Caliphate as well. The Padishah was the Caliph.

The Ottoman Empire were a powerful state even before 1517 when they conquered Syria and Egypt from the Mamluks. It was only after this victory that the Ottoman Padishahs were Caliphs -- before then the Caliphate had rested with the Abbasids in Cairo (although the Abbasid Caliphs in Cairo were just religious figureheads, with the Mamluks having all the political power).

 

[von Adler]

You don`t need the Caliphate. The Ottomans did well on there own.

The early caliphate was all about converting the heathens. The Ottomans could not care less what religion people was, as long as the taxes came in. In fact, they frowned upon sufis converting people of the Balkans, as they could levy more taxes from christians than muslims.

 

[Keenir]

The problem here is that islamized tribes or clans or even politicians have used Sharia to impose a anti-judaic and anti-christian policy during the Middle-Age.

reference, please?

(that and that's not what Sharia is...as we've pointed out in Chat many times)

 

[Oracle of Sobek 𓆋]

I think the chance of Islam conquering all of Europe pretty slim. For one, it wasn't really on their agenda. It's not as if the battle of Tours/Poitiers was what thwarted the Caliphate's ambitions. The battle occurred as a result of a local military leader intervening on behalf of a vassal; to the Muslims it was a border skirmish on the fringes of their already massive empire, not the "clash of civilizations" as the west likes to imagine it.

You could have Islam taking and keeping all of Iberia, southern France and possibly even Italy (Constantinople too if they're REALLY lucky), which would essentially leave a rump-Europe on the fringes of a massive Dar al-Islam.
Based on the OP's scenario, let's say Iberia/South France/Italy end up with Muslim pluralities... Those regions become part of the Islamic world, get the benefits of the Islamic Golden Age, etc. I could see this aborting the Renaissance in non-Islamic Europe, the loss of the Mediterranean region could have a similar effect on European/Christian society as the fall of Baghdad had on Muslim society. In short, Europe withdraws, ends up somewhat like OTL's Middle East, and Islamic Civilization ends up as the basis for "Western" civilization.

 

[pa_dutch]

Why is everyone assuming that the only way to get Europe "in Muslim hands" involves a single, gigantic, Arab horde curb-stomping the whole continent? I think the conversion of say, Northern Europe to Islam would work much the same way the conversion to Christianity did - Missionaries converting native leaders, and leaders spreading it to their subjects.

 

[Elfwine]

Why is everyone assuming that the only way to get Europe "in Muslim hands" involves a single, gigantic, Arab horde curb-stomping the whole continent? I think the conversion of say, Northern Europe to Islam would work much the same way the conversion to Christianity did - Missionaries converting native leaders, and leaders spreading it to their subjects.

That would require Islam to be present in a place to do so, though.

And it still leaves the Christian parts of the continent alone - which is probably more of it than not (except eastern Europe, defined as "east of Germany").

 

[Valdemar II]

Why is everyone assuming that the only way to get Europe "in Muslim hands" involves a single, gigantic, Arab horde curb-stomping the whole continent? I think the conversion of say, Northern Europe to Islam would work much the same way the conversion to Christianity did - Missionaries converting native leaders, and leaders spreading it to their subjects.

There would be a significant lack of benefit in converting, it wouldn't give them the bureaucracy which Chritianity offered, it would force on them alien and non-sensible rules and mores. In fact outside Indonesia only Nomadic groups ever mass converted to Islam. Islam tended to spread through conquest and settlements.

 

[Elfwine]

Alien and nonsensible rules and norms, not to be confused with how Christianity is the most rational of religions.

The only thing I can think of is the pork issue.

 

[Oracle of Sobek 𓆋]

...it wouldn't give them the bureaucracy which Chritianity offered, it would force on them alien and non-sensible rules and mores...

Perhaps not the bureaucracy, but it would have made commerce with the Islamic world easier, thus enabling the introduction of the secular bureaucracies present in the Islamic world. Also Europeans had already adopted "alien/non-sensible rules and mores" a few centuries earlier during the slow transition from "paganism" to Christianity, which offered a set of values completely in contrast to what they had been used to. There's no reason it couldn't have happened again (remember Russia very nearly went Muslim rather than Christian).

 

[pa_dutch]

That would require Islam to be present in a place to do so, though.

And it still leaves the Christian parts of the continent alone - which is probably more of it than not (except eastern Europe, defined as "east of Germany").

Well, yeah, it's one thing to have an Arab army conquer France or Constantinople. My issue is with the assumption that the limits of that particular group of invaders would be the limits of Islamic expansion in Europe altogether.

 

[Elfwine]

Well, yeah, it's one thing to have an Arab army conquer France or Constantinople. My issue is with the assumption that the limits of that particular group of invaders would be the limits of Islamic expansion in Europe altogether.

Makes sense.

Personally I'm assuming that the limits of Islam carving out states is a safe limit to how far it can really expand - not absolute, but safe.

 

[Valdemar II]

Perhaps not the bureaucracy, but it would have made commerce with the Islamic world easier, thus enabling the introduction of the secular bureaucracies present in the Islamic world. Also Europeans had already adopted "alien/non-sensible rules and mores" a few centuries earlier during the slow transition from "paganism" to Christianity, which offered a set of values completely in contrast to what they had been used to. There's no reason it couldn't have happened again (remember Russia very nearly went Muslim rather than Christian).

...and why should the Saxons and Danes care more about the trade with the Arabs than their neighbours the Franks.

Christianity: the only rules forced on the Pagans was zero tolerance for other faiths and no human sacrifices.

Islam: Zero tolerance for other faiths, no human sacrifices, no eating pigs, no drinking alcohol, no using the blood of slaugthered animals and cut something of your dick.

Beside that Christianity had adapted to European culture for centuries, while Islam hadn't.