WI: Ummayads Conquer Balkans and Anatolia instead of Iberia

[kasumigenx]

WI: Ummayads Conquer Balkans and Anatolia instead of Iberia

I am itching to explore this scenario, how would this pan out, and what would be its consequences?

 

[TimTurner]

The Muslim presence in the Balkans would likely be too hard to root out and persist until present day.

 

[cmakk1012]

The fractured, weak Visigothic state and the ERE, even in this time period, had some serious differences between them that likely mean you can’t just sub out one conquest for another. One of the biggest differences is Constantinople and its incredible defenses—if you can’t take it, you can’t really conquer anything beyond it in Europe, and the Caliphate in this time period tried and failed to take it.

Ummayad Anatolia could happen, though, and could be quite interesting.

 

[An Thuong]

Obviously it could have gone a thousand different ways.
One possibility is that, just as in OTL there is a centuries long campaign of reconquest. If successful then I assume it means the end of Eastern Orthodoxy (with the Coptic, Armenian, Georgian and Amharic churches being perhaps the lone traditionally vernacular churches of the whole world.)
However, I think it's also likely that the bigger Catholicism is, the harder the reformation hits.

 

[kasumigenx]

I really think Ummayads could take the Balkans and Constantinople and the Roman Remnants and Franks could partition Iberia and Italy.