Al-Andalus question

What reforms, and when to make them, would be needed to keep Al-Andalus in control of Iberia? If they could get entrenched and established quick enough, before the Spanish and French could really unite and organize their own nations, could it have remained a strong viable nation?

Also, any thoughts on what this could lead too?
 
What reforms, and when to make them, would be needed to keep Al-Andalus in control of Iberia? If they could get entrenched and established quick enough, before the Spanish and French could really unite and organize their own nations, could it have remained a strong viable nation?

Also, any thoughts on what this could lead too?

"Nation" is really a misleading concept to describe anything about Andalus (or the Islamic world in general, really, in most cases).
They were entrenched and established IOTL something like a couple of centuries before the "French" or the "Spanish" were anything worth talking about, let alone united, but that still did not do Andalus any good. The issues were manifold, and largely about a messy internal structure at several levels. Ethnic divisions (mainly between Arabs and Berbers, but also within both groups) played an important part.
The power structure at large was plagued by chronic instability, with a layer of questionable legitimacy.
This was, by the way, largely the case of Medieval power systems in general, exacerbated in al-Andalus by the aforementioned ethnic fault lines, a major rift between the military power and the civil society, and a unusually militant set of neighbors both on the Northern (Latin/Christian) and Southern (Berber/Maghribi/Muslim) sides, among other issues. Rivalries among local areas/cities also played a part I think.
 
"Nation" is really a misleading concept to describe anything about Andalus (or the Islamic world in general, really, in most cases).
They were entrenched and established IOTL something like a couple of centuries before the "French" or the "Spanish" were anything worth talking about, let alone united, but that still did not do Andalus any good. The issues were manifold, and largely about a messy internal structure at several levels. Ethnic divisions (mainly between Arabs and Berbers, but also within both groups) played an important part.
The power structure at large was plagued by chronic instability, with a layer of questionable legitimacy.
This was, by the way, largely the case of Medieval power systems in general, exacerbated in al-Andalus by the aforementioned ethnic fault lines, a major rift between the military power and the civil society, and a unusually militant set of neighbors both on the Northern (Latin/Christian) and Southern (Berber/Maghribi/Muslim) sides, among other issues. Rivalries among local areas/cities also played a part I think.

Damn, that is a tone of shit to over come.
 
Damn, that is a tone of shit to over come.

Putting it shortly, yes. Al-Andalus had a lot of issues. I don't think it was doomed, but to have it looking like something resembling a "nation" (as in, a relatively stable geographical and cultural area with a degree of overarching political cohesiveness) requires to overcome some serious problems.
 
I read a claim in a steppe history book that the Caliphates were done by a last or so constitutional change, ISTR from the steppe.

So it might 'just' a matter of looking up the last constitutional change to three and fixing the the trouble spot ITTL.

He also said that the steppe also did in women by the patriarchy.
 
Well you could have them finish up the Visigoths in Austrias and Navvara and they would be rid of external troubles, as the HRE and France would be too occupied to do anything more than hang on to Barcelona

If they manage to survive long enough, you could see them colonisze the New World
 
There is reason to believe that a Granadian expedition may have reached the Sargasso Sea in OTL, have them get swept a bit farther west and perhaps Cuba becomes home of an Emirate in the 1200s. Aztec mujahadeen are a frightening prospect...
 

Faeelin

Banned
There is reason to believe that a Granadian expedition may have reached the Sargasso Sea in OTL, have them get swept a bit farther west and perhaps Cuba becomes home of an Emirate in the 1200s. Aztec mujahadeen are a frightening prospect...

What's the evidence of this?
 
Top