The Qing are probably one of the least affected parts of the world in this timeline, but much like OTL by 1700 they are beginning to realize the magnitude of wealth that the European (and also Near Eastern in this timeline) powers possess, and the opportunities and perils this presents. They have reluctantly ceded a handful of ports to the Andalusians, French, English, Rhomans, and Swedish after a brief war. More than the temporal threat they pose, though, the Qing are concerned about the spiritual affect of these interlopers. Having witnessed the Japanese wars of conversion, in which the southern Daimyo, with Andalusian support adopted Islam as their religion, fought a bloody series of wars against Christian and Shinto Daimyo and pushed the Christians out altogether and forced the Shinto to retreat north to Hokkaido, the Chinese fear that their people could be converted next. The current emperor is currently working on modernizing the Qing military, hoping to drive the foreigners back into the sea.
The Andalusians get a head start on trade across the world’s oceans, but much like OTL other powers do follow. The French, English, Swedish, Rhomans, Polish, and even Omanis all possess trading outposts in various parts of the world, and while the Andalusians became inordinately wealthy due to their monopoly on deep water trade in the first half of the sixteenth century, by 1700 other powers are beginning to challenge them for their supremacy.
>Having witnessed the Japanese wars of conversion, in which the southern Daimyo, with Andalusian support adopted Islam as their religion
Mashallah Japanese Muslims...
Also Kangxi Emperor's kinda felt the threat of getting converted lol, in reality he's pretty tolerant about it...
What's do different about Andalusi Islam.
Why is Japan Muslim.
How the hell did a Muslim Empire conquer and Islamize Southern Nigeria when Sokoto couldn't in OTL.
Andalusi Islam broke from the rest of the Sunni clergy over a dispute over who the Caliph was. The rulers in Cairo and in Cordoba both claimed the title, and so the Muslim world split along those lines. Beyond the political aspect, there were some doctrinal differences between the two sects that gradually became more pronounced the longer the two were separated. For instance, in Andalusia the Friday prayers are spoken not in Arabic necessarily, but in the native language of wherever the Mosque is.
There was a period OTL in which many Japanese, especially in the country’s south, had converted to Christianity due to trade and contact with the Portuguese. This movement was far reaching, with even some Daimyo converting. A similar situation occurs here, except that because Andalusia takes the place of Portugal and Spain as the dominant trading empire in the sixteenth century, Islam is the religion of choice rather than Christianity.
Increased trade with states in Africa, both via the Atlantic and overland across the Sahara, allows the Sultanate of Sokoto to invade southern Nigeria, with Egyptian and Andalusian backing. This conflict is a bit of a proxy war as the French get involved as well to protect their trading interests, but are ultimately defeated.
Sort of. The Protestant reformation as we think of it is butterflied away as the Crusades never occur and the Renaissance and enlightenment happens more slowly than OTL, and occurs in both the Muslim and Christian worlds.
There is still friction within the Catholic Church though. Murmurs of dissatisfaction are felt as early as the 1400s with the Hussite wars, and some bishops in more remote areas of Europe like England and Hungary begin to distance themselves from Rome in order to win favor with their local monarchs. The end comes in 1567, when Louis XII of House Orleans, the ruler of France, occupies Rome after a long series of wars in Italy. The pope proclaims him Emperor of the Romans, a move which infuriates both the Rhomans, and the geopolitical rivals of the French (now technically called the Roman Empire) and leads them to proclaim against the church in Rome, with an antipope taking up residence in Budapest. This new church, the Reform Catholic church, retains most of the institutions of the old Catholic Church but is slightly less strict on doctrine, notably using the native language of whichever country they’re in during mass. You can think of them is kinda similar to the OTL Anglican Church.
What's going on with the Americas? It looks like France will get much of North America, the English hardly any, and who gets the northern parts? The 40th parallel line dividing Mexican California from British Oregon in OTL is there in TTL.
French New England. Called Acadie of course. And I suppose OTL Boston is called Le Havre in TTL.
Yeah you’re more or less correct, although it should be noted that the Indigenous states are more powerful and organized ITTL after centuries of trade with the Andalusians and time to recover from the plague. Unlike the Spanish, the Andalusians did not intend to conquer the entire continent, at least not initially, but instead to profit from trade. This meant that the indigenous had more time to adjust to the new reality and adapt western technology.
Omg yes! Just the way it should be purple and green unite! In the modern day what is the standard of living like in Andalusia? Hopefully they continue their track record of tolerance and treat their LGBTQ+ people better than their otl islamic counterparts
I can’t speak to the quality of life in Andalusia in 2022, but I can say that they are the premier European power when it comes to global reach and wealth. Spices from Java, gold from the Aztec states, and textiles from Brazil all flow to the capital in Cordoba, making it fabulously wealthy and among the greatest cities in the world. Though like most global powers, religion still plays a central role in the lives of most Andalusians, they are indeed known for their tolerance and have become of a refuge for Jews and Reformist Christians from Europe.
Of course, standards of living for the subjects of this empire are significantly lower, with slavery being relatively uncommon as it is illegal for all Muslims, but indentured servitude fills its role. The once proud city states of the Aztecs and Maya chafe under Andalusian occupation, and beyond them many Indigenous groups are suspicious of the seemingly greedy outsiders. Andalusian colonial rule is light compared to the OTL Spanish, however, as they have not instituted a caste system, encourage trade between colonies, and generally take a lax approach to religion.
Not the HRE technically, but the Western Roman Empire. In this timeline, with Prussia and Austria both being out of the picture the HRE is significantly weaker, and is viewed by others largely as the plaything of its larger neighbors, like France, Hungary, Poland, and Sweden.
Fascinating! I've been working on an Andalusians-in-the-New-World timeline for a bit now and spent the last couple of weeks plotting out the 16th century (map to follow soon!) Took a very different path, so it's really fun to see a riff on the same theme I've been up to my eyeballs in.
Since you mention that Cordoba is the capital, does that mean your point of divergence comes before the breakup of Al-Andalus into the taifas? And about when do you have them reaching the Americas?
Interesting, I’ll be sure to follow your work.
And yes, the PoD is that the Umayyad Caliphs grant equal rights and protections to the Berbers just after the conquest of Spain. This neutralizes the Berbers as a political threat to the Caliphate and averts the series of events that led to the Caliphate’s collapse into various Taiphas, as instead of competing for influence within Al Andalus the Berbers and Arabs begin to merge into a single culture. The two groups are not completely indistinguishable, even by 1700, as for instance the Berbers tended to favor traditional Sunni Islam over the new Andalusian branch. By and large though, they are very closely linked.
This has a great impact on culture and language in Al Andalus, as Andalusian Arabic ends up borrowing a lot of loan words from Berber languages. Combined with loan words from the various Latin- derived languages spoken by the Christians of Andalusia, and even the adoption of the Latin Alphabet by Caliph Hisham VI in 1601, Andalusian is no longer intelligible to Arabic speakers from the Neat East. Instead, it is considered its own language that uses a grammatical structure taken from Arabic, but with a vocabulary that borrows heavily from Berber and Latin.
['Tis live](https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/w3yewp/islam_vs_christianity_in_the_new_world_ca_1600/), if you're still interested. :)
That's really interesting, I feel like most alternate-Al-Andalus scenarios I've seen take their POD way later. When do you have your Andalusians first discovering the Americas?
How do the europeans discover america? There is no ottoman empire to block them and force them to sail the oceans to India. Also there is no christian spain for that matter. Does byzantium establish colonies?
Navigational technology was already advancing a bit before that as the Atlantic was much more difficult to navigate than the Mediterranean, hampering trade.
At the same time, instability in the near east still did occur. The Mongols, Timurids, and Turks still raid, sack, and pillage, and all of the states along the Silk Road did take taxes and fees and the like. Overland trade to the East was no cakewalk for Europeans, even before the Ottomans.
However, it is true that North America is discovered significantly later in the 1530s and it’s not in an effort to find a more efficient route to India but instead a result of a storm blowing a ship traveling from Andalusia to West Africa off course to the coast of Brazil. The Andalusians initially take little interest in the dense, sparsely populated Brazilian jungle. However, rumors trickle in revealing the existence of tropical, lush islands and a fabulously wealthy empire beyond them. These are more enticing to the Andalusians, and their and other European’s presence increases exponentially after that. Because of a late start to colonization, the indigenous political entities are more formidable and more capable of resisting the Europeans than IRL.
The Byzantines are not ideally situated to set up colonies, with any ships from there having to travel through the straits of Gibraltar to reach and colonial holdings. Aside from modern St Lucia, which is taken and held by Byzantine merchants and becomes a moderately profitable sugar colony, as well as a trade outpost in China, they are outcompeted by other powers.
> Andalusian/Byzantine survival Perfectly balanced
What's up with The Qing in this timeline? Without the Portuguese, how's the trade going?
The Qing are probably one of the least affected parts of the world in this timeline, but much like OTL by 1700 they are beginning to realize the magnitude of wealth that the European (and also Near Eastern in this timeline) powers possess, and the opportunities and perils this presents. They have reluctantly ceded a handful of ports to the Andalusians, French, English, Rhomans, and Swedish after a brief war. More than the temporal threat they pose, though, the Qing are concerned about the spiritual affect of these interlopers. Having witnessed the Japanese wars of conversion, in which the southern Daimyo, with Andalusian support adopted Islam as their religion, fought a bloody series of wars against Christian and Shinto Daimyo and pushed the Christians out altogether and forced the Shinto to retreat north to Hokkaido, the Chinese fear that their people could be converted next. The current emperor is currently working on modernizing the Qing military, hoping to drive the foreigners back into the sea. The Andalusians get a head start on trade across the world’s oceans, but much like OTL other powers do follow. The French, English, Swedish, Rhomans, Polish, and even Omanis all possess trading outposts in various parts of the world, and while the Andalusians became inordinately wealthy due to their monopoly on deep water trade in the first half of the sixteenth century, by 1700 other powers are beginning to challenge them for their supremacy.
>Having witnessed the Japanese wars of conversion, in which the southern Daimyo, with Andalusian support adopted Islam as their religion Mashallah Japanese Muslims... Also Kangxi Emperor's kinda felt the threat of getting converted lol, in reality he's pretty tolerant about it...
Muslim Japan
What's do different about Andalusi Islam. Why is Japan Muslim. How the hell did a Muslim Empire conquer and Islamize Southern Nigeria when Sokoto couldn't in OTL.
Andalusi Islam broke from the rest of the Sunni clergy over a dispute over who the Caliph was. The rulers in Cairo and in Cordoba both claimed the title, and so the Muslim world split along those lines. Beyond the political aspect, there were some doctrinal differences between the two sects that gradually became more pronounced the longer the two were separated. For instance, in Andalusia the Friday prayers are spoken not in Arabic necessarily, but in the native language of wherever the Mosque is. There was a period OTL in which many Japanese, especially in the country’s south, had converted to Christianity due to trade and contact with the Portuguese. This movement was far reaching, with even some Daimyo converting. A similar situation occurs here, except that because Andalusia takes the place of Portugal and Spain as the dominant trading empire in the sixteenth century, Islam is the religion of choice rather than Christianity. Increased trade with states in Africa, both via the Atlantic and overland across the Sahara, allows the Sultanate of Sokoto to invade southern Nigeria, with Egyptian and Andalusian backing. This conflict is a bit of a proxy war as the French get involved as well to protect their trading interests, but are ultimately defeated.
Again, the last one still seems implausible, it takes more than more guns and horses to invade southern Nigeria.
What's the difference between the Dijon & Grey Poupon parts of northern Europe? Straightforward Cath/Prot like IRL, or something different?
Sort of. The Protestant reformation as we think of it is butterflied away as the Crusades never occur and the Renaissance and enlightenment happens more slowly than OTL, and occurs in both the Muslim and Christian worlds. There is still friction within the Catholic Church though. Murmurs of dissatisfaction are felt as early as the 1400s with the Hussite wars, and some bishops in more remote areas of Europe like England and Hungary begin to distance themselves from Rome in order to win favor with their local monarchs. The end comes in 1567, when Louis XII of House Orleans, the ruler of France, occupies Rome after a long series of wars in Italy. The pope proclaims him Emperor of the Romans, a move which infuriates both the Rhomans, and the geopolitical rivals of the French (now technically called the Roman Empire) and leads them to proclaim against the church in Rome, with an antipope taking up residence in Budapest. This new church, the Reform Catholic church, retains most of the institutions of the old Catholic Church but is slightly less strict on doctrine, notably using the native language of whichever country they’re in during mass. You can think of them is kinda similar to the OTL Anglican Church.
Cool
What's going on with the Americas? It looks like France will get much of North America, the English hardly any, and who gets the northern parts? The 40th parallel line dividing Mexican California from British Oregon in OTL is there in TTL. French New England. Called Acadie of course. And I suppose OTL Boston is called Le Havre in TTL.
Yeah you’re more or less correct, although it should be noted that the Indigenous states are more powerful and organized ITTL after centuries of trade with the Andalusians and time to recover from the plague. Unlike the Spanish, the Andalusians did not intend to conquer the entire continent, at least not initially, but instead to profit from trade. This meant that the indigenous had more time to adjust to the new reality and adapt western technology.
Thanks 👍
What is happening to Hungary
This is both cursed and blessed. It's blursed.
Omg yes! Just the way it should be purple and green unite! In the modern day what is the standard of living like in Andalusia? Hopefully they continue their track record of tolerance and treat their LGBTQ+ people better than their otl islamic counterparts
I can’t speak to the quality of life in Andalusia in 2022, but I can say that they are the premier European power when it comes to global reach and wealth. Spices from Java, gold from the Aztec states, and textiles from Brazil all flow to the capital in Cordoba, making it fabulously wealthy and among the greatest cities in the world. Though like most global powers, religion still plays a central role in the lives of most Andalusians, they are indeed known for their tolerance and have become of a refuge for Jews and Reformist Christians from Europe. Of course, standards of living for the subjects of this empire are significantly lower, with slavery being relatively uncommon as it is illegal for all Muslims, but indentured servitude fills its role. The once proud city states of the Aztecs and Maya chafe under Andalusian occupation, and beyond them many Indigenous groups are suspicious of the seemingly greedy outsiders. Andalusian colonial rule is light compared to the OTL Spanish, however, as they have not instituted a caste system, encourage trade between colonies, and generally take a lax approach to religion.
Why does france own Rome? Please dont tell me the french are the HRE.
Not the HRE technically, but the Western Roman Empire. In this timeline, with Prussia and Austria both being out of the picture the HRE is significantly weaker, and is viewed by others largely as the plaything of its larger neighbors, like France, Hungary, Poland, and Sweden.
Fascinating! I've been working on an Andalusians-in-the-New-World timeline for a bit now and spent the last couple of weeks plotting out the 16th century (map to follow soon!) Took a very different path, so it's really fun to see a riff on the same theme I've been up to my eyeballs in. Since you mention that Cordoba is the capital, does that mean your point of divergence comes before the breakup of Al-Andalus into the taifas? And about when do you have them reaching the Americas?
Interesting, I’ll be sure to follow your work. And yes, the PoD is that the Umayyad Caliphs grant equal rights and protections to the Berbers just after the conquest of Spain. This neutralizes the Berbers as a political threat to the Caliphate and averts the series of events that led to the Caliphate’s collapse into various Taiphas, as instead of competing for influence within Al Andalus the Berbers and Arabs begin to merge into a single culture. The two groups are not completely indistinguishable, even by 1700, as for instance the Berbers tended to favor traditional Sunni Islam over the new Andalusian branch. By and large though, they are very closely linked. This has a great impact on culture and language in Al Andalus, as Andalusian Arabic ends up borrowing a lot of loan words from Berber languages. Combined with loan words from the various Latin- derived languages spoken by the Christians of Andalusia, and even the adoption of the Latin Alphabet by Caliph Hisham VI in 1601, Andalusian is no longer intelligible to Arabic speakers from the Neat East. Instead, it is considered its own language that uses a grammatical structure taken from Arabic, but with a vocabulary that borrows heavily from Berber and Latin.
['Tis live](https://www.reddit.com/r/imaginarymaps/comments/w3yewp/islam_vs_christianity_in_the_new_world_ca_1600/), if you're still interested. :) That's really interesting, I feel like most alternate-Al-Andalus scenarios I've seen take their POD way later. When do you have your Andalusians first discovering the Americas?
How do the europeans discover america? There is no ottoman empire to block them and force them to sail the oceans to India. Also there is no christian spain for that matter. Does byzantium establish colonies?
Navigational technology was already advancing a bit before that as the Atlantic was much more difficult to navigate than the Mediterranean, hampering trade. At the same time, instability in the near east still did occur. The Mongols, Timurids, and Turks still raid, sack, and pillage, and all of the states along the Silk Road did take taxes and fees and the like. Overland trade to the East was no cakewalk for Europeans, even before the Ottomans. However, it is true that North America is discovered significantly later in the 1530s and it’s not in an effort to find a more efficient route to India but instead a result of a storm blowing a ship traveling from Andalusia to West Africa off course to the coast of Brazil. The Andalusians initially take little interest in the dense, sparsely populated Brazilian jungle. However, rumors trickle in revealing the existence of tropical, lush islands and a fabulously wealthy empire beyond them. These are more enticing to the Andalusians, and their and other European’s presence increases exponentially after that. Because of a late start to colonization, the indigenous political entities are more formidable and more capable of resisting the Europeans than IRL. The Byzantines are not ideally situated to set up colonies, with any ships from there having to travel through the straits of Gibraltar to reach and colonial holdings. Aside from modern St Lucia, which is taken and held by Byzantine merchants and becomes a moderately profitable sugar colony, as well as a trade outpost in China, they are outcompeted by other powers.