[What If?] Islam replaces Christianity

[Vondy]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

From what I've seen in the real Pittsburgh' date=' the hijab (head covering) is what most Islamic women wear locally. In a mostly Islamic United States, would a Jewish woman wear one? If so, would she still wear it inside the synagogue?[/quote']

 

Orthodox Jewish women (married) in the United States already wear head-coverings in the form of hats, snoods, scarves, or sometimes the controversial wig. The use of wigs is primarily limited to Chabad Hassidim and some modern orthodox women, but is staunchly criticized by most, especially Sephardic Jews.

 

When Sephardic Jewry still lived in Muslim countries (as recently as the late 40's) they followed the local custom (incl. unmarried women). This was normally a hijab, but in Yemen it was the burqa. Indeed, the few remaining Jews in persia and yemen wear the hijab and burqa respectively even today. As for switching in the synagogue - absolutely not. I won't go into why, but I will reiterate the point - absolutely not.

 

Secular and liberal Jews would follow the secular and liberal trends of the society. However, if this is a well-established historical evolution its unlikely such individuals would exist in significant numbers. If you look at Sephardic Jewry they were almost uniformly orthodox when living in Muslim countries. It was only when they moved to the secular west (and Israel) that large numbers of them became secular, though traditional is a better descriptor for most who did (very few became involved with liberal Jewish streams or became ideologically secular).

 

In a world with a long history of Islam (as opposed to a recent Islamic take-over) the conditions that led to the rise of liberal Jewish streams wouldn't exist (the reform and conservative movements were born in the unique trends of Pre-WWI-Germany and the 20th Century US respectively) . How secular and liberal Jews would react in a scenario where the pendulum swung the other way is entirely a matter of speculation.

[Vondy]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

A Hasidim is not going to be wearing the same clothing as an Orthodox Jew...

 

Not always true.

[Mark Rand]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

I did a little research using the Wikipedia and found out that the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightment) movement started in Germany in the late 18th Century. They didn't like the gettos, where the rabbi's word was law and wanted better intergration into European society.

 

Reform Judaism started in Germany in the early 19th Century and Conservative Judaism started there, too, in the mid 19th Century. Most United States Convervative synagogues broke away from Orthodox Judaism. However, one, the Tree of Life Congregation, the one my family belonged to for many years, broke away from a Reform synagogue just after the Civil War. For more information, go to http://www.tolpgh.org.

 

I suspect that, even with Islam replacing Christianity, there will still be various divisions of Judaism.

[Vondy]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

I did a little research using the Wikipedia and found out that the Haskalah (Jewish Enlightment) movement started in Germany in the late 18th Century. They didn't like the gettos' date=' where the rabbi's word was law and wanted better intergration into European society.[/quote']

 

Extremely simplistic (and one sided as an explanation), but it touches on one major factor. Important to note is the fact that the haskalah movement never happened in muslim countries and it had a dramatic effect on how the liberal movements developed. Without a liberalized christian petrie dish to grow in they would have been stillborn. incidentally, its also wrong. The polish rabbis had immense power, but the German rabbis did not. And the haskalah movement still took off in Germany - not Poland. Also, that power existed not because of orthodox norms, but because the gentile authorities insisted the Jews be a separate estate and elected their rabbis as being responsible for them.

 

Reform Judaism started in Germany in the early 19th Century and Conservative Judaism started there, too, in the mid 19th Century. Most United States Convervative synagogues broke away from Orthodox Judaism. However, one, the Tree of Life Congregation, the one my family belonged to for many years, broke away from a Reform synagogue just after the Civil War. For more information, go to http://www.tolpgh.org.

 

Incorrect. I don't need to go, though I looked. The website you mention is spreading a myth. A common one, and one rooted in an agenda. The web is one of the worst possible places to research Judaism.

 

Conservative Judaism is a uniquely American phenomenon, especially as Orthodox Judaism was a misnomer among Ashkenazi Jews in the US prior to the 20th Century. Suggesting it broke away from Orthodoxy is a difficult proposition - albeit a popular one among those easily led.

 

American Jewry has always been complex, and has faced problems no one else had before. Some orthodox congregations became conservative (the vast majority didn't), but the conservative movement was a reaction to reform thought, not orthodox thought, and originated among ashkenazi Jews from Europe who had been a part of the haskalah movement there, but found it wasn't necessary in America and shifted back the other way.

 

Indeed, it was called the conservative movement because they wanted to "conserve" halacha and tradition because they believed the German reform movement, which had come to America, had gone too far. It was a step back towards orthodoxy without going all the way. Indeed, 50 years ago the main differences between the orthodox and conservative movements were epistemological with minor differences in practice.

 

Today we have a different story - not only in facts in the ground, but retconned history as well. The conservative movement has essentially become the second reform movement in the past 10 years and American Jewry is becoming polarized. The trends are towards assimilation or proper orthodoxy with nothing left in the middle. The average conservative Jew doesn't have a home anymore (something an orthodox rabbi here who was raised in the conservative movement in america noted).

 

I suspect that' date=' even with Islam replacing Christianity, there will still be various divisions of Judaism.[/quote']

 

I suspect that you haven't really thought it through and have no experience of sephardic Jewry. There are numerous divisions within the orthodoxy, but no other streams emerged in the muslim world. History and cultural factors just aren't on your side. There's a reason the reform and conservative movements are only popular among german and american immigrants in Israel today - and it isn't the chief rabbinate. Its a simple matter of a cultural divide.

 

As a result, for your assertion to hold water, tt depends when. If the islamic shift occurred before 1700 or so in Europe then the trends that created the Reform movement, and then the Conservative movement after it in America (since those immigrant waves would have been muslim), never would have happened among Ashkenazi Jewry. If the islamic shift happened after that - meaning a liberalizing christian environment was in place - then its quite possible those movements would exist.

 

American Jewry is largely Ashkenazi. Most Sephardic Jews ended up in France, South America (not anymore), and Israel. Americans have very little experience with Jews from the Orient and North Africa and have no idea what their version of history is like, let alone their views on Jewish life and belief. They have a completely different outlook - and were the world islamic prior to about 1700 the views you are discussing would never have come into being - indeed, you're making your supposition sitting in a very non-muslim armchair.

 

Jewry in muslim lands never had a haskalah movement, despite being exposed to rationalism (at an even earlier date), and despite having rabbis who often had more power (esp. in the ottoman empire) than the polish (again, not german) rabbis ever did. Indeed, despite that power, sephardic Jewry continues to revere the rabbis and the halacha (a very orthodox focus), even when the person with the reverence isn't very religious. Also, Islam went through a period of intellectual liberalism long before christian europe did and it never led to such schisms.

 

Indeed, the schisms that did occur were not liberal, but sabbatean and kariite in nature, with occassional sufi-esque blips, and those would be more likely to have a resurgence among Jews in a muslim dominated world because they were related to islam and actually occurred within its sphere. You're approaching a potential islamic world, but you're assuming some things about the course of history that could only have occurred in the liberalized Christian world of the enlightenment.

 

So you have to decide: when did the islamic shift occur? Before or after the european enlightenment?

[Mark Rand]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

Good points from Von D-Man. Rep has been sent.

 

Then, the shift occurred after the European enlightenment. How, I don't know.

 

The only other thing I can see happening is that, in time, Orthodox Judaism slowly developed into something like Conservative Judaism.

 

Also, being an Ashkenazi Jew, I've had little experience with Sephardic Judaism.

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

What's to stop Islam from maintaining its predominance of learning after the fall of Rome? A huge proportion of the ancient Greek texts we still have are due to their being maintained in Arabic libraries during the Dark Ages. If there was never a Renaissance in Europe, and no (whatever happened in the Middle East that made Islam fall from a fairly tolerant, enlightened society into barbarism with a veneer of civilization), there's no reason Islam couldn't have had an Enlightenment-like intellectual movement, with the emergence of liberalized Jewish sects, and the writing-off of North European Christians as close-minded tribesmen who are more interested in killing each other than actually improving their own lot.

[Roth]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

So let see if I have this right. Sometime in the 18th- 19th centuries, after the Enlightenment, Age of Reason, whatever you want to call this period of European History, Islam takes over? After 1800 or so years (give or take) Christianity as a mostly whole just rolls over and dies? No offense to any Christians out there, but as a Pagan that idea has some appeal. It's not grounded in any sort of alternate reality that I can concieve beyond an extreme Davinci Code type revelation that Jesus wasn't a demi god, instead he was a superhuman, or a con man or a little green man from Alpha Centauri. Of course in a Champions universe all of those are possible.

 

 

This would also take some kind of massive world wide communication that wasn't possible in those days except by magic/ superpowers/ divine intervention. And after everybody who was a Christian, mostly stopped being one, they would have to turn to Islam. For a lot of people this wouldn't be possible and couldn't happen. A fair number of countries/ peoples/ cultures would revert to their old forms of worship, as their old priests/ diviners/ shamans etc go "See... told ya!"

 

And a number of people from europe would probably start looking into the european pagan paths before they would turn to Islam. And what would that kind of epiphany do to Islam itself. How much of Islam is based on Christianity?

 

Thoughts to Ponder.

[Vondy]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

What's to stop Islam from maintaining its predominance of learning after the fall of Rome? A huge proportion of the ancient Greek texts we still have are due to their being maintained in Arabic libraries during the Dark Ages. If there was never a Renaissance in Europe' date=' and no (whatever happened in the Middle East that made Islam fall from a fairly tolerant, enlightened society into barbarism with a veneer of civilization), there's no reason Islam couldn't have had an Enlightenment-like intellectual movement, with the emergence of liberalized Jewish sects, and the writing-off of North European Christians as close-minded tribesmen who are more interested in killing each other than actually improving their own lot.[/quote']

 

They did have an enlightenment-like movement - centuries before the west did. It just fell into a spiral after 1400 or so, and had different philosophical underpinnings. There was a period where Islam was the engine advancing human civilization. And during that period rationalist Judaism was born, and the rabbis of the Arab world were the leaders of the rationalist movement. We're talking about big names here - people who are universally considered giants by Jews of all streams today (e.g., the Rambam). These were forward thinking men who embraced sciences and "progress," but at the same time they had a completely different set of issues they were dealing with.

 

You can't assume a completely different cultural paradigm will produce the same results. Its highly unlikely Judaism would look anything like the reform or conservative movements did (or do) had they emerged from an extended Muslim enlightenment. Indeed, there's some secular chauvanism at play here. It would be more likely to see Jews in a liberalized muslim society become loosely traditional or just non-practicing secular than to form break away sects.

 

There seems to be an assumption that orthodox means unenlightened or anti-modern, which is what the people who coined the phrase wanted (the phrase was invented by the reform movement as a way of labeling Jews who didn't agree with them as "backwards"). That's far from the case - and in the muslim world it was the rabbis who were guiding the modern (and by today's standards those men were intensely orthodox and modern all at one time). They had a clear, working philosophy. Indeed, the average sephardic Jew knew less about modern philosophy and ideas than his rabbi did.

 

The fact that hassidic Jews are hiding from the world and spouting mystical strangeness and ne'er before heard militant literalism doesn't mean Orthodxy as a whole is, or ever did. Indeed, a lot of modern Christian theological evolutions in reaction to science (apologetics or textual reinterpretations) were things the rabbis in the arab world (and muslim imams) discussed a thousand years ago - before there was anything to be apologetic about. and Secular Israeli propaganda aside: the most highly educated (meaning university) and productive group in Israel today is the national religious movement (who are orthodox on a spectrum from modern orthodox to hard core). They also tend to have more technical workers and scientists in their ranks. And they're orthodox.

[Alverant]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

Why would you have an Islamic US? Would the Europeans even have come to the "New World"? Might China, or some other group have conquered? Or perhaps the Native Americans would have risen and made contact with the "Old World"?

 

Hard to say without more background.

 

Assuming Europe still "discovered" the New World, I can see one of two things happening.

 

1) The US as we know it today would not exist. Since leaders are divinely inspired and chosen in Islam it would conflict with our notions of free speech, press, and religion even more so than Christianity. The best case situation is that the US becomes another sect of Islam breaking away from Europe.

 

2) Christians and other non-Muslims flee Europe much like how religious minorities did in the real world and found the US much as it is today with perhaps a more explicit definition of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. If not in the US, maybe Australia since it's likely it would be used as a dumping ground for undesirables like what Britain did.

[death tribble]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

I am another who has read the Years of Rice and Salt.

 

The major players here are China and Islam but there are others that were not affected by the coming of Christianity. Find a synopsis and work from there.

[McManus]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

So let see if I have this right. Sometime in the 18th- 19th centuries, after the Enlightenment, Age of Reason, whatever you want to call this period of European History, Islam takes over? After 1800 or so years (give or take) Christianity as a mostly whole just rolls over and dies? No offense to any Christians out there, but as a Pagan that idea has some appeal. It's not grounded in any sort of alternate reality that I can concieve beyond an extreme Davinci Code type revelation that Jesus wasn't a demi god, instead he was a superhuman, or a con man or a little green man from Alpha Centauri. Of course in a Champions universe all of those are possible.

 

 

This would also take some kind of massive world wide communication that wasn't possible in those days except by magic/ superpowers/ divine intervention. And after everybody who was a Christian, mostly stopped being one, they would have to turn to Islam. For a lot of people this wouldn't be possible and couldn't happen. A fair number of countries/ peoples/ cultures would revert to their old forms of worship, as their old priests/ diviners/ shamans etc go "See... told ya!"

 

And a number of people from europe would probably start looking into the european pagan paths before they would turn to Islam. And what would that kind of epiphany do to Islam itself. How much of Islam is based on Christianity?

 

Thoughts to Ponder.

 

This sounds like Baron Munchausen and his cronies were not there to stop the Sultan from taking over Europe. Maybe they were still stuck in the whale or never came back from the Moon, or the Halls of Hephaestus. Then the Sultan simply marched from the Bosporus to the English Chanel. Many Europeans fled to the new world. But as everyone likes a winner they eventually converted to a more liberal or cosmopolitan form of Islam. The Torturer's Apprentice was adopted as the national anthem of …. nah, that could never happen.

[assault]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

Since leaders are divinely inspired and chosen in Islam

 

This is untrue, at least in Sunni Islam. The early Caliphs were elected, and claimed no particular religious authority.

[Mark Rand]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

Assuming Europe still "discovered" the New World, I can see one of two things happening.

 

1) The US as we know it today would not exist. Since leaders are divinely inspired and chosen in Islam it would conflict with our notions of free speech, press, and religion even more so than Christianity. The best case situation is that the US becomes another sect of Islam breaking away from Europe.

 

2) Christians and other non-Muslims flee Europe much like how religious minorities did in the real world and found the US much as it is today with perhaps a more explicit definition of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. If not in the US, maybe Australia since it's likely it would be used as a dumping ground for undesirables like what Britain did.

 

I like the second one.

 

I suspect though that there will be some Muslims living in the United States anyway. Of course, there would be many more different religions and each good-sized city would have at least one place that supplies stuff for witchcraft and pagan religions.

[Alverant]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

I like the second one.

 

I suspect though that there will be some Muslims living in the United States anyway. Of course, there would be many more different religions and each good-sized city would have at least one place that supplies stuff for witchcraft and pagan religions.

 

That would be interesting. Christianity and Islam never really took root so pagan faiths continue to dominate.

 

On the other hand since nature hates a vacuum, maybe another Abrahamic religion develops after Islam.

[David Johnston]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

Simple POD: No Charles Martel.

 

The Holy British Empire: Which started calling itself that when the Papacy was relocated to London from Rome. The British Empire is very Catholic indeed. It controls what in our world would be the North Eastern United States, and Eastern Canada as well as Great Britain and Ireland and Southern Africa). New York is known as "New Rome". North America is known as Avalon. An Inquisition exists, and spends much of it's time hunting for Moorish spies and "heretics" in the colonies. There is an independance movement in the colonies but it is in fact in the pocket of the Al Andalusians who control the equivalent of the south eastern United States and use slave labour from both Africans and Europeans to work plantations in a manner very reminiscent of our world's 19th century. Colonisation of the Americas has proceeded more slowly. Mexico is known as Tlaxcalla and is ruled by a Mesoamerican culture who converted to Islam. They are moving northward into the Great Plains, squeezing out the nomads who still dominate that area. Japan converted to Catholic Christianity in imitation of the British and now controls what in our world would be California. Austrailia is a remote Ottoman outpost.

 

The major nations in the world are

 

The Ottoman Empire (The unquestioned superpower)

Al Andalus (Spain, but it has conquered large parts of North Africa a well as colonising in the new World)

The Holy British Empire

Al Faranj (France, with large parts of Germany tacked on)

Nihon (Japan with the California Colony).

The Mogul Empire (A still largely Hindu India ruled over by a Moslem upper class)

 

And of course the Great Powers are on the verge of a devastating war with the Moguls and the Faranji fighting the Ottomans and Andalusians and the British and Nihonese drawn in on the side of the weaker Faranji, unaware that the Andalusians have developed a terrible new weapon, a bomb that can destroy entire cities and will be used by them against London and New Rome should war break out.

[Mark Rand]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

That would be interesting. Christianity and Islam never really took root so pagan faiths continue to dominate.

 

On the other hand since nature hates a vacuum, maybe another Abrahamic religion develops after Islam.

 

I'm just guessing, but the religious makeup of the United States might be 25% Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, 20% various Eastern religions and the rest everything else.

[dustytomes]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

The average non Muslim family in Europe has 1.1 children

in the U.S. it's 2.1. the average Muslim family has 6.

the replacement rate is 2.2.

 

So in 2 generations Europe is a Muslim Continent.

In the U.S. it would take longer a lot longer if you factor in Immigration.

 

So Muslims could have "taken over" with out a shot fired.

(these are ball park numbers as best I can remember them.)

 

Dusty

[Markdoc]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

I think if there ever was a turning point in which Islam would've overtaken Christianinty it would have been if the Muslims had won the Battle of Tours in 732. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours

 

This was the furthest into Europe that the Muslims conquered, southern France. Remember that Islam had conquered Spain.

 

More accurately, they won a lot of battles and conquered southern spain - but they were never able to assert control of Spain or even defend most of their conquests in the northern 2/3rds of Spain - which of course led to their defeat as those regions united and became serious military opponents.

 

I think a more credible candidate for islamic conquest was the invasion of Europe by the Ottomans in the 17th century - they reached as far as Vienna and were repelled by a loose and fractious alliance. But it was a near-run thing - many of the nobles and royals of Europe being too busy fighting each other to participate. That's exactly the kind of disunity that let the Turks defeat the Byzantines at manzikert and the Crusaders defeat the Seljuks.

 

cheers, Mark

[Markdoc]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

The average non Muslim family in Europe has 1.1 children

in the U.S. it's 2.1. the average Muslim family has 6.

the replacement rate is 2.2.

 

So in 2 generations Europe is a Muslim Continent.

 

For that to work in 2 generations, muslims would have to be present as a substantial proportion of the population. Where did they all come from?

 

Secondly, to give those numbers, Europe would have to have a replacement birth rate lower than any culture that has existed and the muslims would have to have a fertility rate that matches the highest recorded (for example in the world today, Europe's replacement birth rate is at it's lowest ever - currently 1.7, compared to 2.6 for North Africa and the Middle Eastern Countries: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/282/5388/419). Medieval/Pre-industrial fertility rates were more or less the same, so for this to have happened, you'd need some sort of major diversion from history: the black death uber-disease thing, for example.

 

So it's possible that Christianity could be replaced by differential birth rates, but you'd need substantial muslim immigration and/or centuries of co-existence.

 

cheers, Mark

[David Johnston]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

Simple POD: No Charles Martel.

 

The Holy British Empire: Which started calling itself that when the Papacy was relocated to London from Rome. The British Empire is very Catholic indeed. It controls what in our world would be the North Eastern United States, and Eastern Canada as well as Great Britain and Ireland and Southern Africa). New York is known as "New Rome". North America is known as Avalon. An Inquisition exists, and spends much of it's time hunting for Moorish spies and "heretics" in the colonies. There is an independance movement in the colonies but it is in fact in the pocket of the Al Andalusians who control the equivalent of the south eastern United States and use slave labour from both Africans and Europeans to work plantations in a manner very reminiscent of our world's 19th century. Colonisation of the Americas has proceeded more slowly. Mexico is known as Tlaxcalla and is ruled by a Mesoamerican culture who converted to Islam. They are moving northward into the Great Plains, squeezing out the nomads who still dominate that area. Japan converted to Catholic Christianity in imitation of the British and now controls what in our world would be California. Austrailia is a remote Ottoman outpost.

 

The major nations in the world are

 

The Ottoman Empire (The unquestioned superpower)

Al Andalus (Spain, but it has conquered large parts of North Africa a well as colonising in the new World)

The Holy British Empire

Al Faranj (France, with large parts of Germany tacked on)

Nihon (Japan with the California Colony).

The Mogul Empire (A still largely Hindu India ruled over by a Moslem upper class)

 

And of course the Great Powers are on the verge of a devastating war with the Moguls and the Faranji fighting the Ottomans and Andalusians and the British and Nihonese drawn in on the side of the weaker Faranji, unaware that the Andalusians have developed a terrible new weapon, a bomb that can destroy entire cities and will be used by them against London and New Rome should war break out.

 

Or if you really want no Christian nations left, then maybe the Holy British Empire, and its Avalonian colonies were conquered a few years back.

[Mark Rand]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

I had a wild idea today that lets Islam replace Christianity and still have a constitutional monarchy in the United States and various forms of Judaism.

 

In 1940, Hitler had his scientists use captured alien technology to build a device that would kill all non-Christians in the Eastern Hemisphere. Someone goofed in building it and, when activated, it killed all Christians in the hemisphere, then blew up.

 

Hitler's last words were, reputedly, "Oh nuts."

[Mark Rand]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

Actually, a large part of the Muslim-Jewish divide in the region resulted from the fallout of WWI, and a number of conflicting and broken promises (to both sides) by the British and French following WWII. Failed imperial policy created a significant and sudden rise in competition and animosity between 1918 and 1948, which continues to be the status quo today. Its the frogs and soccer hooligans fault.

 

You also have to remember that Islamic attitudes in the post world war (and nationalist) era have been radically changed. The ottomans, while being brutal, were nonetheless fairly cosmopolitan in their approach to other ethnic groups and used a millet system giving each one a certain amount of autonomy within the empire (though rarely geographic semi-autonomy). The ottomans, in conjunction with the Morrocan kings, set a very different tone for the Islamic world.

 

Prior to WWI there were some pretty grounded discussions with the Ottoman's about turning the current location of modern Israel (and part of southern Lebanon) into what would amount to a semi-autonomous Jewish "beylick" within the empire. WWI, however, put a stopper on that idea - as did nationalism. The Jews prior to the world wars, while wanting a homeland, weren't as deeply committed to a completely independent state. Islamic nationalism also emerged from this era, but for different reasons, and is one of the principle causes of radical islamic thought in the modern day.

 

The reasons for the ottoman's moving towards the idea (after several meetings with the rothschilds and hillel) were many, but the two primary reasons were 1) the Jewish population of the empire was highly productive and it would have served to draw European Jewry, and thus (theoretically) increase the profits for the imperial coffers, and 2) as one of the most stable and loyal ethnic groups in the empire a Jewish beylik would have created a geographic wedge between competing Muslim beys who weren't always perfectly loyal to the Grand Porte.

 

I would have put slightly less than even odds on the plan prior to WWI, but it was a real possibility, and if the ottoman's had stayed out of WWI (or gotten out faster) the odds probably would have increased. The rise of nationalism among Arabs in the 20th century was unavoidable (with or without Israel) and pressures of revolt among Muslims would have made the plan more and more appealing as the decades passed - and would have caused the fall of the ottoman empire in the end, anyways.

 

And that would have meant those beylicks that hadn't revolted would have collapsed into smaller states or been on their own by the 1950's or 1960's. The creation of a Jewish beylik, or even the migration of European Jewry to the region without such an entity emerging, still could have resulted in the emergence of a Jewish state. The real question is: would the rise of nationalism occurred at all?

 

I like this idea. It'll let me keep the idea of the United States as a constitutional monarchy. Instead of an established church, it'll be a religious melting pot. Question, would Conservative and Reform Judaism still exist?

[pawsplay]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

In real history, Christianity came very close to not being the dominant religion in Europe.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Avignon

 

One of many battles that significantly halted the Islamic expansion. while many people think of Europe as comfortably Christian, there were many eras where it seemed Islam was poised to rule Europe.

[Vondy]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

I like this idea. It'll let me keep the idea of the United States as a constitutional monarchy. Instead of an established church' date=' it'll be a religious melting pot. Question, would Conservative and Reform Judaism still exist?[/quote']

 

Its all conjecture, but: it depends on when the change occurred. Reform Judaism emerged in central Europe 150-200 years ago, and Conservative Judaism emerged in North America (though it had ties to reform thinkers) about a century ago. If it occurred before that in either area, then the answer is "very unlikely," especially since the millet system did not generally allow for ethnic and religious groups to have more than one set of leaders.

 

There were rare exceptions, but they were usually made due to external pressures on behalf of those groups (in some beyliks both Roman and Orthodox catholics had their own leaders - though, in general, the Orthodox catholics represented Christians as a whole in the Ottoman Empire). I don't believe any Jewish stream could bring that kind of external pressure to bear. The early American Jews (predating the emergence of the United States) were orthodox, with the Sephardim coming to the the Spanish colonies before the British became a major player in the New World.

 

Also, Muslim experience with Jews was almost entirely with Sephardi Jews (Americas first Jewish comers), and as I noted before, the conservative and reform movements were/are an Ashkenazi phenomenon, though even the early Ashekenazi Jews in America were orthodox - because the other streams didn't exist at the time. I would propose that the most likely result (unless the world went muslim in the 20th Century) would be for an American "beylik" with some history to have orthodox leadership in its millet, but also have what the sephardim refer to as "masorti" - Jews who have identity and do some things, but aren't reform or conservative by any stretch of the imagination. You would also have completely non-observant Jews, of course.

 

The masorti tend to revere big sages, love tradition, consider themselves Jews, fast on yom kippur, and avoid leavening on passover, marry other Jews, and pray in orthodox shuls (when they bother to go to a house of worship), but no one would call them "observant/orthodox." The closest thing you have in America is the old guard of the conservative movement - who were very close to the orthodox in viewpoint until about thirty years ago. Anyways, this would allow you to have a spectrum of Jewish practice for PCs and NPCs despite the fact that the two movements who dominate the Jewish scene in America today would probably not exist in a Muslim world due to the unique factors in Christian Europe that led to their emergence. Jews from Muslim countries had a radically different experience.

 

If, however, the change occurred later - esp. in the 20th century - then they probably would exist, and you would probably have some sort of multi-stream ecumenical council that oversaw the Jewish communities affairs, though the reality of the millet system led to ethnic groups that tended to stick together more strongly, and maintain a much stronger sense of identity and tradition, than the circumstances of modern American Jewry inspires.

 

I would note, based on the religious breakdown of North America in the 1940's, your "Hitler Plan" (I'm not sure how a weapon picks adherents based on faith, but leaving that aside) would have led to a massive vacuum, and the Muslim world was in no position to take advantage of it at the time - indeed the sudden absence of the French and English would have led to total chaos. If they had been able to come together (debatable based on the realities at the time), they might have been able to dominate Europe, but the East Asian part of the world would have been in a far more advantageous position. There were (and are) more hindus and bhuddists (as well as other aisan religions) in the world than muslims at that point.

 

The United States - and most "Christian states" - would probably cease to exist overnight. You would probably get little pocket states with minority concentrations emerging. Jews and Asians in many big cities (the New York Area, Boston, Chicago, etc), Asians in California, Indian tribes in the Northwest and BC, Eastern Canada, and the Plains States. And there would be so much space between them that they might not have come together.

 

And even if they all came together to keep America strong, they were so few that the "Hitler Event" would have probably resulted in a Japanese victory in WWII. Without the US to hammer them in the Pacific, and the British to contain them in India and southeast Asia, the Japanese would have owned the Pacific, and unlike the Muslims at the time, they had the organization in place to take advantage of it. They might have even managed to move onto North American soil much quicker than others could. Something else to consider is the Russians. They were communists - Godless Heathen Commies - and while that wasn't universal (many maintained beliefs in private) they might not have been decimated the way Europe and the Americas would have been. They might well have come to terms with the Japanese in order to move on Europe, and they could have done it far faster that the Muslims could.

 

You might end up with a very different cold war. The russians on one side and the Japanese on the other, with India, Asia, and the Muslim world being the various client states they used against one another. Also, it would be very difficult to determine who could exploit the Americas faster. Or another possibility: once upon a time the Spanish and Portuguese divided the world amongst themselves - maybe the Japanese and Russians would do the same.

 

Of course, this doesn't serve your ends: a Muslim world. As such, I would argue that the best way to make it happen is have a Muslim victory in the historical past. If Charles Martel had his critical battle, for instance, its possible the Muslims would have swept through Europe within a century, and this would have been a few hundred years before the "Golden Age of Islam." It would have also eliminated the rise of the European Empires, and since Islam spread into Asia many centuries ago, its possible they would have come to dominate not only Eurasia, but to have been the first to colonize the New World as well.

 

For me, if I were to do something off the wall like this, I'd probably do a Chinese Victory. Then you could have Wuxia world. The entire planet would the a Hong Kong action movie.

[Badger]

Re: Islam replaces Christianity

 

Assuming Europe still "discovered" the New World, I can see one of two things happening.

 

1) The US as we know it today would not exist. Since leaders are divinely inspired and chosen in Islam it would conflict with our notions of free speech, press, and religion even more so than Christianity. The best case situation is that the US becomes another sect of Islam breaking away from Europe.

 

2) Christians and other non-Muslims flee Europe much like how religious minorities did in the real world and found the US much as it is today with perhaps a more explicit definition of freedom of religion and separation of church and state. If not in the US, maybe Australia since it's likely it would be used as a dumping ground for undesirables like what Britain did.

 

 

Or another alternative if Islam took over in late 18th/early 19th century. The Old World is Muslim, the New World is Christian. The two sides of the Atlantic could splinter their relations with each other. Perhaps to the point where they have almost nothing to do with each other (largely isolationist). Though in a modern technology setting this might be impossible.

 

Of course if the sides are at extreme odds at want to bring down the other, it could go as a battle for expansion for new converts into their cause. Which result in a speedier expansion period as Islam tries to convert Africa, and Christianity speeds through the American West. Also if the USA had already freed from Britain, they would definitely encourage Mexico, South America, etc. to free from their parent nations, to protect themselves from Islam. And as Islam were to have swept through an 18th century Europe, the turmoil would weaken the connection between the 2 worlds making it more of a motivation to rebel.

 

Not really sure how the Far East could play in all that though (and Australia). Between the 2 they would be more susceptible to Islam geographically. Not an expert on how Islam developed throughout Central Asia. But the Far East could have their own religion to fall behind to protect themselves (version of Buddhism, as the favorite)