MoF 16: The Caliphate of Rûm

Krall

Banned
The Caliphate of Rûm


The collapse of Rome left Europe in ruins. A dark age set in across the continent as the empire's former subjects and enemies alike spoke of the great city that spawned an era of prosperity and civilisation unlikely to be seen again. Ever since men and empires have sought to emulate dead Rome.

Who would have thought it would be the followers of Islam that laid final claim to their legacy?



Your challenge is to create a map of an Islamic nation that either has reforged or is on its way to reforging Rome's once great empire. The nation need not necessarily be the caliphate, but it must contain the city of Rome and be a dominant power in the Mediterranean.
EDIT: No ASB or future history maps.

This round shall finish on Sunday, 27th of June.

!THIS THREAD IS FOR POSTING OF ENTRIES ONLY!

Any discussion must take place in the discussion thread. If you post anything other than an entry to the contest here you will be disqualified from competing in this round of the contest.

Remember to vote on the previous round of MoF.
 
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I suppose this might be an ASB map, but I think it meets the qualifications of the challenge...the spread of Islam on Strabo's world!

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At the Battle of Manzikert, Emperor Romanos escaped during the rout of his forces and rode back to Costantinople, where he raised another army, and faced the Seljuqs again at Cesarea, being defeated once again, though by a lesser margin. After this, the Sultan Muhammad bin Da'ud Chaghri, realising that the Byzantines would be nothing but a threat to him as long as they lived, called a Jihad against the rump Byzantine Empire. By autumn of 1072, he was at the gates of Constantinople, where the Byzantine army had marched out to meet him.

The Byzantine army was reinforced by Western armies, notably of the Holy Roman Empire and Frankish Empire, which saw Byzantium as their bastion against the Seljuk Turks and had no interest in seeing it fall. However, after a long battle, the Seljuqs defeated the Christian armies and sacked Constantinople, killing the Emperor in the process. This marked the fall of the Byzantine Empire.

The Sultan spent the winter in Konstantinople, before marching for Egypt, where he was proclaimed Caliph and proceeded to annex the Fatimid domains. He then died by an assassin's hand in the October of that year.

His son, Jalāl al-Dawlah Malik-shāh, completed the conquest of the Fatimids, and turned back to the Holy Roman Empire, which was raiding his northern borders. Taking an army, he defeated them at Vien, before signing a treaty with them in which they surrendered all of their land south of the Alps and vowed not to make war on the Caliph or his successors. After this, the Holy Roman Empire descended into anarchy, with several states breaking away completely, and the position of Emperor is a mere formality today, wielding no power whatsoever.

The Seljuq territory in Italy was immediately invaded by the Franks, so the Caliph sent an army to retake the land. Facing the Franks at Milan, the Seljuqs utterly routed them, then moving on to conquer all of Italy.

The Franks attacked again the next year, and after tis defeat, the Seljuqs pursued them back into France. At this time, the Englis were also campaigning in France, and the Seljuqs and English reached a compromise, dividing the Frankish territories between them.

In Iberia, the Reconquista, as it was then known, had stopped, as the Christian lands became aware that they had followers of Muhammad both north and south. When the inevitable counterattack came, the Christians fell within months, and Seljuq rule over the land was finally assured. A new empire had risen from the ashes of the Latin Empire, but it followed Muhammad.

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One theory I've heard (I forget where) about why Europe did so well as compared to the Middle East is that the Middle East got pillaged by the Mongols in the 1200s and never really recovered, whereas Europe got off relatively easy, pillaging-wise, and even had some semi-friendly relations with the Mongols. So my POD is that, in 1218, instead of executing Genghis Khan's ambassadors, the governor of Otrar welcomes them with open arms, beginning an amicable relationship of trade, cultural dialogue, and relatively few severed heads between the Mongol Empire and the Islamic world. Instead, the Mongols turn to Europe, penetrating as far as the North European Plain will take them, shattering Novgorod, Poland and the Holy Roman Empire. The conquests weren't permanent; the Golden Horde was overstretched and surrounded by enemies in Central Europe, and eventually pulled back to more easily defensible borders in Western Russia, contenting itself with setting up tributary states in Central and Eastern Europe.

The Crusaders, wavering in the face of Islamic opposition anyway, are swiftly recalled to the home front. Eventually the Teutonic Knights retake Northern Germany from the Mongolian vassals, and the Holy Roman Empire is replaced by Teutonic-allied kingdoms (except for a rump HRE on the Rhine), as the Mongolian Peril to the east necessitates a higher degree of political unity. England, being an island immune from Mongol cavalry invasion, does fairly well, and carves out new domains in western France. Genoa takes control of many important Mediterranean trade routes and also does well.

However, in general, Europe is a horrible mess. With morale low and treasuries emptied to hold off the Mongols and fight the futile Crusades, Europe is easy prey for the Islamic sultanates, which are undergoing a renaissance in culture and a boom in economic and military power. The Christians are driven out of Sicily and Spain, and the Byzantines crumble before the might of the Seljuks. Eventually the Emir of Tunis, an ambitious young would-be conqueror whose grandfather had taken Sicily, and whose father had taken southern Italy up to Naploli, announces a new crusade, one aimed at Rome. The stated reasons are three. Firstly, to convert the Italians to Islam. Secondly, to wrest control of the Western Mediterranean trade routes from Genoa. Thirdly, to save from Christian neglect and barbarism the treasures of Rome itself. The entire Islamic world is, at the time, rediscovering the works of antiquity, and have a great interest in possessing Rome. In 1312, the Emirate of Tunisia captures Rome, with the Pope fleeing to Milan in haste before the heathen army. The Emir installs himself in the city and crowns himself Emperor. People begin to suspect the man is eccentric.

In 1347, the year of this map, the situation is as follows. The Roman Sultanate (as its Islamic allies insist on calling it despite its claims of being an "Imperium") is a major trade power and also a patron of the classics and history. It is even said, only half-jokingly, that its protectorates in Greece are largely there to dig up old amphorae for the Emir/Emperor. The Seljuks are a real superpower (they stretch to Persia), and the Egyptians and Moors are also strong. All four are nominally part of one Caliphate, although the Caliph, like the old Pope, is really only a spiritual leader with some land in the Hejaz.

Europe is a chaotic place to say the least. There are three popes (yes, deja-vu), each calling the other two antipopes. Christian fanaticism is widespread, and in the Teutonic Order-State, institutionalized as a foaming-at-the-mouth witch-burning theocracy. Despite this, heresy and even open paganism are widespread. The Cathars have carved a state out of the mess of Greater France, and are even sending out secret missionaries to spread their Gnostic ideas and oppose the designs of the Rex Mundi, the Cathar Satanic figure and creator of the (evil) world, whom they identify with the Christian God and Muslim Allah. The Lithuanians are also still pagan, and still going strong as a Mongol ally. There are even rumors that the Scandinavians are sliding back into Wodenism in hidden ceremonies in remote fjords, a rumor supported by a string of recent church-burnings in Norway.

Many Europeans are beginning to question whether life has to be this way, and disconcerting tales are reaching the crowned heads of Europe, speaking of their Christian subjects leaving their farms in the night and striking out for the borders of Dar al-Islam, or of entire merchant ships being taken by mutiny and sailed into Muslim ports. The flood of new literature from the Muslims' printing presses surely isn't helping matters.

Map to follow.

EDIT: (Note: the Mongol's vassals are all Christian, "some nominally Christian" is intended to be some in-world European bias creeping in, as the dogmatic Catholic powers do not see Eastern Orthodox Novogord, diverse and tolerant Kiev, and Papal Schism-neutral Hungary as "true Christians")
 
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Europe after an alternate Migration Period, the western Empire still exists but converted to Islam:

green=muslim states
violet/blue=christian states
brown/red=pagan states
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POD : Charles Martel killed at Battle of Cologne, 716 CE
732: Victory for Muslim forces at Battle of Tours-Poitiers
749: Rome surrenders to besieging Muslim forces, Pope flees to Aix-la-Chapelle
787: Caliphate of Rome proclaimed
787-906: Under the Caliphate of Rome, Muslim Europe becomes the chief Islam centre of learning and military prowess. Dissension with ‘traditional’ Islam leads to Muslim ‘civil war’. Christian incursions into some parts of Muslim Europe.
912: Caliphate of Rome victorious, incorporates much of Muslim territories west of Baghdad.
912-1298: Islam expansion sees Caliphate of Rome holding more territory than the Roman Empire. Pope flees to Ireland. Caliphate of Baghdad expands slightly northward
1298-1400: Caliphate of Rome at its zenith territorially but gradually losing its vigour. Caliphate of Baghdad during 14th century loses areas to Empire of the Ganges forces. In 1345 a Christian preacher, James Prester, predicts that Islam will be visited by a monstrous plague which will herald its last two centuries of existence. Prester travels to Rome where in 1347 he is executed. 1348 sees the Black Death sweep through much of the Muslim world but with lesser effect in the northern Christian areas. Prester’s apparently verified prediction and ‘martyrdom’ leads to a darker, more militaristic form of Christianity known as Church of the Second Coming. By 1400 only Ireland remains Catholic and the League of the 12 Kingdoms is formed by the new Church.

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When the Seljuk Sultanate of Rûm collapsed in 1307, no one realized that Karamanoğlu would become the most powerful force the world had ever seen, within only a few centuries. Karaman quickly expanded and by 1387, controlled the majority of Anatolia; the entire Karaman province of the current Roman Caliphate. In the north, Candaroğullan had become a power as well, and so had Saruhanoğullan. Allying with the Byzantines themselves, Karaman over the course of two wars entirely conquered the Saruhan nation.

Karaman, by 1420, controlled all of Anatolia except for the coast of the Sea of Marmara. The Beylik of Karaman soon became the Karamani Empire. The weakened Roman Empire lost the coast of Asia Minor and the city of Constantinople itself to the Karamani Empire in 1429 when the Karamanids won the first of three wars with the Romans. Two wars and two-and-a-half decades later, the Karamani Empire controlled all of the Byzantine Roman lands. In 1452, after the 'Great Conquest' as it was called, the Roman Caliphate was declared.

From then on, the Roman Caliphate dominated Europe. Conquered nations simply became more provinces of the Empire. These provinces gradually became Turkish.

1666 was the year when the Roman Caliphate conquered the city of Rome itself. Then it could truly call itself Roman.

1670 marked the very last attempt to Crusade on the Roman Caliphate. It failed. Europe grudgingly accepted the fact that the successor of the Roman Empire was Islamic. (however the Caliphate still fought wars occasionally with European nations of course)

By 1682, the Roman Caliphate reached its zenith. The Roman-Turkish Enlightenment is said to have begun a decade later than that.

By 1831, Islam and Turkish were widespread across the Caliphate, even in Italy.

The Sezar-Halife of the Roman Caliphate, Abdul Mohammed Karamanid VI, established the 'great reform' in the 1850s. Latin was revived, and Turkish took on a new form--Arabic and Persian loanwords were trashed, and Turkish was now written in the Latin Alphabet.

By the early 1890s, the Roman Caliphate was arguably the most enlightened and the second most advanced and industrialized nation in the world.

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The Almohad victory at Alarcos brought Castille to its knees and paved the way for the Muslim reconquest of the Iberian peninsula. By 1300, the Christian kingdoms were pushed back to the Duero and Ebro rivers.

In the meantime, the Mongols managed to conquer Egypt and Tripoli, establishing a khanate in the region. Many fled westward, ending up elsewhere in North Africa or Al-Andalus. This population influx would ultimately be one of the driving factors behind the reconquest of Sicily. The Emirate of Sicily was reestablished, and would last until its takeover by the Mengüceks, which eventually went on to conquer Naples but fell short of taking over Rome itself.

Flash forward 750 years after the POD. Over in Hozelaga [North America], a rogue general managed to overthrow the government of the Hozelagan Rus after a highly disputed election. His government would go on to direct a war of conquest against the numerous nations of Mexico and Lower Hozelaga. Tenochtitlan, one of the world's major financial capitals in this TL, was captured in 1946. This event would go on to trigger the Long Depression and bring about the Decade of Chaos. In much of Islamic Europe and North Africa, this would bring about the rise of the Islamic Brotherhood, a movement that sought to unite the region under the guidance of the Qur'an. They managed to gain power in several countries, and in 1955, form a political union.

Much of Europe looked on with fear, but the Islamic Union found allies in the dicatorial French Democratic Republic and nationalistic Malorussia. Eventually, the Franco-German dispute over Lorraine escalated into a great war; in the end, France was defeated and occupied, Malorussia took a good chunk of Poland and gained a few new puppets, and the Islamic Union managed to do what the Mengüceks didn't and conquer Rome (along with take over numerous other territories and end Croatian dominance of the Mediterranean). The Roman Republic was reborn; many think it's only a matter of time before the President-Regent declares himself Emperor of Rome.

The world is trying to put its problems behind and look towards a brighter future, but the fear of things taking a turn for the worse is rather widespread. Rumours of the Romans possessing doomsday weapons certainly isn't helping calm people down.

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