HESPERIA ; Part eight- Islam
HESPERIA ; Part eight- Islam
Far to the North and East Something had happened that would completely change the Direction that Hesperia was headed. In Mecca on the Red Sea, the son of a Merchant started preaching about what was wrong with Christianity. In 622 the "Powers that Be" Kicked him out of Mecca. Within a generation of the hijra--Muhammad's flight from Mecca to Medina in A.D. 622, and hence the beginning of the growth of Islam, the youngest of the great monotheistic religions--the message of the Prophet would spread like wildfire into Asia in the east and Africa in the west. Membership in the umma, or worldwide community of believers, gave a deep sense of cohesion and community to all Muslims, regardless of race, ethnicity, status, or wealth. All shared the majestic simplicity of starkly monotheistic faith in Allah, "submission" (Islam) to whom was expressed in adherence to the five "pillars" or fundamental practices of the new religion: a profession of faith, daily prayer, fasting, alms giving, and pilgrimage.
Among the many striking successes of the early Arab warriors on jihad numbered the conquest of Egypt, which fell to Islam in 641. Muslim armies continued their drive west across north Africa, but soon encountered a more resistant foe than the Byzantine forces which had been so handily defeated in the lands around the eastern Mediterranean. These new enemies were the Berbers, the hardy "lords of the desert" who would come to dominate the trans-Saharan trade. Paradoxically, perhaps, the Berbers were attracted to the new religion even as they struggled against the bearers of its message. Soon the Berbers were Muslims every bit as fervent as the Arabs, and had moreover embraced an extremely strict form of the faith known as Khariji Islam, which emphasized utter equality between all members of the umma. After rebelling successfully against Arab domination, the Berbers were subject to the caliphs of Damascus and Baghdad in name only, and went on to play crucial and self-sufficient roles in the history of Islam and trade in Africa.
The Berbers who had founded the Kingdom of Ghana, had like their forefathers in Roman North Africa, were Christians, and accepted the Christian Hesperians. If the Hesperian Type of Christianity wasn't Catholic, of Orthodox, or Coptic, it didn't matter, because the Berbers weren't exactly Pure either. But by 680- 710 Islam had "conquered" north Africa, and the newly converted Berbers were ready and willing to convert their southern cousins.
In 710 Hesperia had a thin finger of territory that extended north of the Senegal river about 240 miles and thirty miles wide, with another abandoned 60 miles further north. To the south they had crossed the Gambia and were expanding along the foothills of the Guinea highlands. [OTL Senegal & Guinea-Bissau], With the absorbsion of the Dogon, they had expanded inland all along the south & west banks of the Senegal river. This they had settled, and controlled by living on it.
With the unplanned Conquest of Ghana, a lot had changed. Ghana had conquered several neighbor states and extended from the Mauritania Coast to the city of Goa on the Niger River. These subject peoples had been unhappy about being part of Ghana, but at lest Ghana was a Berber Kingdom like them. While these small kingdoms weren't ready to rebel, they were more than willing to show their unhappiness by embracing the new religion of Islam. By 730 these subject kingdoms were majority Islam.
[ [It's hard to get exact dates for events at this period, but IOTL, the Islaming of these Berber Kingdoms started in the early 700's. It then took several generations. I have speeded it up, as a reaction to the Conquest of Greater Ghana, By the Hesperian Christians].
In 760 After only 80 years [third generation reaching adulthood] the Hesperian Empire collapsed. Lead by the Songhay tribe in the City of Goa, the Islamic Kingdoms rebelled. While the Hesperians had the superior Army, the difficulties of subduing a hostile population over the distances needed, was just to much to handle. Like it's founder had done 300 years earlier, Roma de Sud withdrew to it's core and immediate surrounding territory. [With more Success than Rome had had. It managed to hold Ghana].
After regaining their freedom the Small Islamic Kingdoms started on a program of forced conversion or expulsion of the remaining Christians in the Kingdoms. Thousands fled, or were forced out. Once again Hesperia received a flood of refugees. Those that didn't settle in Ghana, ended up being settled in the Guinea Highlands. After a short try at Empire, Hesperia, once again a Republic, was back at it's old Game of, Growing it's way south.
