Andean contact? Sectarian wars? The Mapuches building a time machine and ruling the world?
I shiver with anticipation.
I shiver with anticipation.
A House of Lamps: A Moorish America
- Thread starter dontfearme22
- Start date
Looking forward to see how things played out in the Moorish America, sounds like there'll be conflicts between the colonials and their motherland. The allusion sounded rather similar to the American path of independence from Britain in OTL.
I also think that the Ayshunids had enough and want to control their territories.
Andean contact? Sectarian wars? The Mapuches building a time machine and ruling the world?
I shiver with anticipation.
How did you get my part 7 draft? was I hacked....
bingo.
A House of Lamps | Part 7
A House of Lamps; Part 7
"The whole world is like a house filled with lamps, rays, and lights through whom the things of the house are elucidated…"
"The whole world is like a house filled with lamps, rays, and lights through whom the things of the house are elucidated…"
Ibn Barrajan, 12th century CE
The Union of Valois and the Voyages upon the Pacific
-From a excerpt from the explorer Thomas Seawall's book: A true relation of such occurences and accidentes of travels in the west Oryales and a descriptiones therein of the places and peoples encountered.
1551
Potential Castilian invasion still acts as a specter over the Riysh, prompting local leaders to requisition supplies and manpower for what is assumed to be an imminent Christian deluge. Instead, further Christian raids along the northern edge of the Riysh, involving both soldiers of the Castilian crown and hired pirates remain the extent of Castilian presence in the region, for renewed native wars in the Castilian colonies to the north prevent the plans of the Christian kings for a full-fledged attack of the Riysh from coming to fruition as quickly as they had hoped.
Renewed Hajid raids in central and southern Morocco, dampened by the fresh force of Ayshunid soldiers serving the Qaranid state, return in force after many of the Ayshunid soldiers complete their terms of service and return to Spain. A final victory against the rebel army remains elusive, though the warring has strained greatly the manpower reserves of the Hajidi-linked tribes.
Castilian forces and Moors clash in open waters near the north shore of Niblu after a force of Christian seamen accidentally intrudes on one of the northerly Moorish fishing camps. Most of the fishermen were captured but several fled and returned with a retaliatory force from one of the coastal forts in Guhana. After a short skirmish the Christians fled north, and the fishermen were able to flee. The Moors responded by attacking Castilian sites in the Castilineans [Carolinas] before retreating. This marked the beginning of a pattern of sporadic raids and counter-raids along the Castilinean coast.
The Castilian conquistador Sancho de Hermosilla leads an expedition that subjugates the native peoples of northern Niblu, called the Mocamua [Timucua] and claims all the inland territories for the Castilian crown.
French ships land at Rocega in northern Sicily, though the areas limited infrastructure struggles to adequately supply the fleet. In avoiding larger ports like Calvi to the west, Henry II avoids having to engage in an immediate siege battle before he can disembark his fleet. French forces sally forth and quickly subdue the smaller villages of the northern tip of the island.
1552
At the battle of Urtaca a paltry force of Corsican militiamen manage to hold a sizable French force until the Aragonese army can beat them back. War weary, Henry II decides to winter in the verdant island and gain some plunder to recoup his losses.
Ottoman forces attack the Castilian lines in Algeria, beaten back successfully after a second hard-fought campaign. The Castilian fleet is strained to deal with relentless Ottoman attacks however, with their supply lines at grave threat from seaborne raids. In late 1552, Henry IV is forced to recall a portion of his Atlantic fleet to bolster his forces in the Mediterranean. This yet further hampers his ambitions of rapid expansion of his own maritime power in the new world.
Riyshi authorities in Niblu recruit among native tribes extensively but run into difficulty from runaway slave and bandit groups that have increasingly taken hold in the swamps of that territory. The harsh conditions of life in the coastal forts cause many native auxiliaries to flee into the swamps, leaving coastal towns unprotected. Under the command of the creole leader “Albara” a coalition of bandits ransack the settlement of Efan and flee into the swamps with its inhabitants enslaved.
At the command of the ghazi Asim Ibn Qay’ud, the Baraniyan Arabs defeat the chieftains of the Tubiyy [Tupi] and oversee their conversion to Islam. They appeal to the court in Seville for supplies and aid but find few friendly ears, except for the noble Abdul Majin Ibn Abdullah, who agrees to personally sponsor the Baraniyan colonies. He also sends his cleric Ibn Siraj to respond to the appeal of the colonists for more experienced religious teachers. Ibn Siraj is a deeply educated Iberian trained in Maliki law and quickly establishes a popular madrassa in Baraniya.
1553
Forced to strike out or lose his foothold, Henry II fights a series of skirmishes with the Aragonese in Corsica, including an abortive siege of the islands capital at Cargaccia which fails, but does result in significant damage to the cities churches. It is said that during the siege, the crown prince of Aragon, Sebastian, was so bothered by the endless din of the French cannonades that he wrote his father and advised peace, if only so he could look forward for some quiet.
The Castilian navy successfully forces an Ottoman withdrawal to Tunisia after a stunning victory, giving Henry IV some much-needed breathing room to pursue his campaigns on land. He is still hampered by incessant Berber guerillas, especially the Banu Ghaniya, who wreak havoc on supply lines throughout the region. Henry IV attempts to rectify this problem by allying with certain tribes against others but finds it difficult to find meaningful friends during a period of renewed religious fundamentalism in the Maghreb (a long-brewing revivalist movement spearheaded by Qaranid Malikite leaders during the early 1500s).
An army led by Muhammad Kouyate of the Songhai raids deep into Sijilmassan territory, destabilizes the Saharan trade network, and allows indirectly the Hajids to retake valuable oasis outposts following the withdrawal of enemy forces from the northern Sijilmassan border.
A second expedition by de Hermosilla trudges deep into the Sirenida [Florida] interior. He reaches the interior shore of the sea called by the Moors Anniblu [Gulf of Mexico] and erects a cross to mark the end of his journey. More Castilian conquistadors penetrate the territories to the north, pacifying the local peoples (or being murdered in the process). Reports of powerful chieftains ruling over large mound cities fuel further treasure seeking expeditions (The Mississippian cultures).
1554-56
Protestantism spreads throughout England under the rule of the Queen Mary, who firmly crushes English Catholicism but whose policies flounder due to the loss of remaining English territories in France.
The French, confident that Aragon had been sufficiently humbled, depart Corsica but not before thoroughly looting the northern part of the island. Henry II invests much of that wealth into building up the city of Livorno on the Italian coast, aiming to make it a key French colony that could protect northern Italy from further aggression. Yet, Henry II has problems at home. Rising religion tension between Catholics and Protestants, unstopped by several proclamations over religious toleration, explode into fearsome riots that leave hundreds dead. At the worst, the Saintes riots (for the town in western France, not the actual term ‘saints’), a mob of protestants descended on the Catholics in the town and slaughtered them to a man. Retaliation by French soldiers on the rioters left many hundreds more dead. Other riots and counter-riots spread throughout western and northern France, demanding royal intervention. Henry II released the proclamation of 1555, a full-throated declaration of support for the Papal cause which put out in writing the absolute abolition of deviant creeds in the kingdom. This crackdown was felt far more harshly on protestants than Jews or Muslims. Henry II, unlike his fellow kings in Iberia, was not a zealot and was keenly interested in preserving French national unity. In his mind, Jews and Muslims had done little to injure that unity (and he was not blind to the importance of maintaining neutrality with both the Ayshunids and the Ottomans and not create new enemies). This proclamation did not stop the religious violence in France.
The Normanos in Iberia, having gradually and almost entirely converted to Calvinism, keenly felt their isolation during a period of rising Protestant persecution in both France and Castile. Many of them began to emigrate towards England, where they felt strong cultural ties, or to Germany. The threat of such a powerful bloc of protestants in Castile had caused tensions in that state, to the extent that the mayor of Cantabria, Sancho l’Elbaro, was forcibly ousted from office by Castilian officials over his Calvinism. This was followed by attacks on aristocratic Normanos throughout Asturias and Cantabria.
Ibn Tahaz dies in exile and is buried by a number of his most loyal followers. The Tahazid movement, driven deep underground the harsh Ayshunid crackdown finds a new leader in Ibn Tahaz’s chosen successor Musa Al-Ishma. Tahazid loyalties still run deep among the Tanaki, and while Al-Ishma chooses to remain in hiding, it is clear to everyone that the movement has not been truly defeated. The Ayshunid officials in Mishiki attempt to encourage further migration into Mishiki from Riyshi Arabs to dilute the native presence on the coast.
Hajidis win a major victory at Chout el-Zet, forcing the Qaranids to relinquish more control of the southern Moroccan coast and interior to the rebels. The Hajids now control more raw territory in Morocco than the Qaranids do, though much of their land is much less developed compared to the fertile and urbane coastal strip, still under firm Qaranid control.
Henry IV defeats the weakened Ottoman army at Algiers and captures Erman Pasha, eventually taking him to Iberia in chains. The growing failures of the Ottoman campaigns in North Africa endlessly frustrate the Sublime Porte. The ship carrying Erman Pasha along with Henry’s second eldest son sinks en route though, both are presumed dead.
Ibn Sa’ad reinforces his ever-shrinking battlelines but finds himself more and more reliant on a Ayshunid willingness to pour money into the Maghreb, his own coffers run entirely dry. The Qaranid force increasingly becomes a loaned army of Ayshunid soldiers with a small core of tribal loyalists. A token force of Aragonese soldiers is sent to the Qaranid court by Charles I, an open sign of his personal favor toward the Ayshunid bloc.
With the Ottomans no longer an imminent threat in Morocco, Henry IV turns to the lingering Qaranid state, but due to mass desertions by tired, over marched troops he soon relents and contents himself with his renewed foothold in North Africa. He returns to Iberia after rumours of a coup begin to swirl. This leaves North Africa entirely open to the Qaranids to reassert themselves. However, that state still struggles too much with the now-massive Hajid insurrection to recapture the lost territories of the Algerian coast. Ibn Sa’ad signs a fragile peace with the Hajids in 1556, both sides aware it will not last.
The Aragonese rapidly intensify their policy of hiring privateers to attack their political opponents, both pirates in the Maghreb and in the Atlantic. Captains are given prometre, lit. “pledges” to attack ships of certain nations, receiving support from the Aragonese crown. The western Mediterranean during this period is so rife with piracy and wartime acts of looting, it was said by many that there were more pirates than there were merchants to steal from. Really this was not because of lawlessness in the area (there was in fact a huge military presence in the region due to the ongoing conflicts in the Maghreb), but because of a deliberate Aragonese and Ottoman arms race in arming and creating pirate fleets to harass their enemies while ostensibly keeping their actual navies more restricted in operational scope.
A native uprising destroys the Riyshi settlements in northern Al-Yikaq, forcing a retaliatory force to burn a number of native villages. Petitions by the settlers of both Yikaq and Niblu to become more fully integrated into the Sultanate are rejected. Both territories are seen as violent and unprofitable frontiers by the colonial government. Instead, southern Niblu and Guhana [the Bahamas] are incorporated as a separate Wilayat, Al-Dayq lit. “the Straits”. By the thinking of colonial authorities, especially the prominent governor of Sayadin, Mustafa Abd Allah Abu Bakhar, the more prosperous settlements in Guhana would help bolster the weaker Niblan economy. It was also no real secret that his supporters came mostly from landlords in both southeastern Niblu (who profited from slave-trading) and in Guhana – combining them under one administrative area made it much easier to pool those resources and protect them from unwanted legal forces. In any case, Al-Dayq was declared a Wilayat by the court in Seville and the bureaucrat Harun Al-Taqri given it to rule (Al-Taqri was, to little surprise, a close friend of Abu Bakhar).
1558
Unresolved territorial disputes in Italy caused Aragon and France to sign a treaty under Papal mediation, the Treaty of Cuneo. It resolved certain dynastic conflicts between the two states stemming from their both claiming portions of Sicily, Sardinia, and Italy. These were mostly unimportant except for the granting of the enclave of Grossetto, in Tuscany, to Aragon. This would end up becoming the only outright Aragonese possession in Northern Italy.
Frustration and high, and perceived sacrilegious taxes causes riots to break out in western Iberia. In an unusual move for such a government, the governor of the Algarve region agrees to lessen the tax burden on the local peasants, and even moves to curb the power of the middle-level landlords who were restricting much of the freedom of movement in the region. It is more likely that this was not a move out of charity but more to remove a powerful political opponent faction.
Muhammad II commands the captain Mahmoud Omar Al-Fassi to recapture the Azores, hoping to cripple the flow of Castilian ships to the New World by dismantling their main Atlantic possession, and a key stopping point for Christian ships unwilling to pay the Moorish tariffs. At the head of a large fleet Al-Fassi attacked the small Castilian settlements on the islands. To his surprise, many of the inhabitants were in-fact of Arab descent, Christianized descendants of the original Moorish inhabitants allowed to stay on the islands. He enslaves many of them and wholesale razes the towns built by the newer Castilian migrants, but cannot recapture the islands. The level of fortifications erected by the Castilian state was far beyond the capabilities of Al-Fassi’s fleet to take, and they settled to simply cripple the islands economic capacity. Before being driven off by a Christian intervention force, Al-Fassi has his men set fire to the lush forests near the islands ports, hoping to deprive the Castilians of the local lumber supply. The dryness of the climate that time of year meant that soon serious forest fires broke out, and yet further devastated much of the territory.
The Sijilmassan state teeters on the brink of collapse after political unrest following severe droughts boils over into outright rebellion among the Tuareg. A breakaway faction led by Allah El Mokhtar Ag Ibrahim causes much of the southern end of the Saharan state to become openly independent.
The Castilian navy gradually loses its ability to police the waters between Iberia and the Maghreb, deeply straining Henry IV’s ability to wage a successful land war in Algeria. Still in Iberia, resolving internal tensions within the Castilian court (especially a peasant revolt supposedly incited by English protestants), he orders his lieutenants in the Maghreb to fortify the Christian foothold in the region, causing Castilian forces to withdraw from the African interior entirely, finding the coast far easier to defend from Berber armies. Henry also orders Castilian soldiers to capture the Ottoman pirate captain Ebu Yusuf Ermi, one of the new admirals sent in to bolster the Ottoman presence in the region after Erman Pasha’s untimely demise. Under the capable command of the Köprülü family, then in control of the Ottoman organs of state, the divided Ottoman forces in the region are reorganized and mount renewed offensives against the Castilians.
1559
Emboldened Castilians sail south and bombard settlements on Sayadin with gunships, looting several towns and generally causing havoc. At almost exactly the same time, a band of Christians chase Moorish villagers out of Northern Niblu. The Christian fleet sailing north is intercepted however by a Moorish fleet, and utterly wiped out. As raids intensified, the moors living in the northern shores of Sayadin and on Niblu began to gain a reputation as especially fanatical in their hatred of Christians.
The Ottomans win a notable victory at Birbouje, routing the weakened Castilian army and causing the entire frontier to quickly collapse. The Ottoman army surrounds Algiers, enforcing a total blockade by land and sea. Berber rebels quickly overcome the interior, many of them loyal to the upstart sheikh Ibn Hatiri, a breakaway Banu Ghaniya leader intent on carving out his own state in Algeria.
Aragon, long an uneasy member of the Catholic states of Europe, takes a decisive step against the Papacy by freely allowing protestant merchants and refugees from elsewhere in Iberia (including many Normanos from Asturias) to shelter freely within its realms. Catalan country becomes known for widespread religious tolerance even as Castile becomes yet harsher in its religious tendencies. In a direct act of aggression against the pope, Charles I make’s a show of not aiding the Papal inquisitors (Pope Pius had established a Papal Inquisitorial office to combat heresies in the Church earlier in his reign) during their attempted investigation of the Catalan scientist Siveri Petrus ‘Petrusius’, though he allows them to take him in the end, but not until after they had been publicly humiliated.
The Sultanate of Kinariu is visited by the English sailor Thomas Seawall who later writes a popular book about his exploits.
1562
Musa Al-Ishma gathers his allies and reignites the Tahazid rebellion in a dramatic show of force. A band of Tanaki peasants descends on the office of the qadi in Kukalla [Cocuite], taking out their rage at the oppression of Andalusi law in their communities by razing the office to the ground and lynching the official in question. The mob then rampages from the office, destroying signs of Andalusi presence and tormenting the Arab inhabitants of the town. Similar instances appear throughout Tanaki territory, most clustered around the western edge of the Ayshunid territories, especially around Tlaxcalla – a violently restive cell of insurgency. The Arabs who are forced to flee mostly travel to the Riysh, though some head south to the Yucatan. Many appeal to the reigning official in Mishiki for assistance, the muhafiz al-mishik Omar Salah bin Muhammad. Now, the Ayshunid territories in Mishiki were actually not administered as wilayats of the Sultanate, proper provinces, but as colonial possessions, called al-hadaya lit. “gifts”. These being semi-incorporated possessions were ruled as militarily occupied territories and so Omar Salah, as a military officer, was empowered to crush such an insurrection. However, since the arabs living in those lands were not fully contributing members to the sultanate, they were treated almost as second-class citizens, ‘hicks’ by Riyshi officials who cared little for their problems.
The Ottomans sign a treaty with Castile, gaining the near-entirety of Castilian North Africa except for a strip of territory between Algiers and Oran, kept as a buffer zone between the Berber rebel factions and the new Wilayat of Algeria (the Ottomans calculating the Christians will prove a more tempting target to the militant Berber rebels than their own forces. The Ottomans succeed in swaying many Algerians to their side, especially the Arab population, weary of the venomous Berber tribalism that characterized Qaranid politics. The growing perception of the Ottomans as the true banner-carriers of Sunni Islam also lends greater legitimacy to their presence in Algeria.
Ibn Hatiri continues to raid Ottoman positions, forming a pocket of independent territory in the Algerian interior. Many Banu Ghaniya fighters lose interest in attacking Ottoman positions and turn towards the Castilian pocket of territory, seen as easier pickings.
Henry IV returns from Iberia with fresh troops and pacifies his territories. Qaranid forces ease their attacks on Castilian positions as a general détente forms – both sides eager to resolve crises on other fronts. This for the Qaranids means a catastrophic refugee crisis brought on by the lawlessness of their southern and eastern borders, mass desertions, economic stress and the ill health of Ibn Sa’ad.
1563-66
Sufi’s and merchants travel deep into the continental interior, aiming to secure new sources of trade wealth and convert the native peoples.
A mixed-race agent detonates a stock of gunpowder at the funduq of Anakiti, in Mulukah, sparking a massive fire and outright destroying several warehouses. In the aftermath, a Tahazid cell, entirely of native origin, are exposed and executed. The potential for this nativist movement to spread to the plantations of the Riysh causes Riyshi officials to treat the threat seriously, and soon after a significant crackdown begins on deviant political philosophies in the colonies. This is obviously targeted at the Tahazids, but also includes all native, syncretic philosophies. Musa al-Ishma also takes the step of outright declaring Ibn Tahaz as having been the Mahdi, effectively retroactively creating a true mahdist movement where Ibn Tahaz himself had only used mahdist imagery as a means to an end. Al-Ishma declares a new state in the coastal regions of the Tanaki lands, but it is really little more than a peasant rebellion. He overestimates the depth of Tahazid sympathies. Essentially, while there were many peasants who were willing to take up arms for his cause and repulse the Arab oppressors, who inflicted their own sort of cruelties on the local peasantry, those who were willing had all already taken up arms. There were simply few new supporters than Al-Ishma had already mobilized by 1562. This became brutally clear when the Tahazids attempted to siege Kembuwali [Cempoalla] and were utterly crushed. Midway through the siege, many of the peasant farmers elected to return to their homesteads rather than continue to fling themselves at what was, by the mid-16th century, a large and well defended settlement replete with mounted cannons. Al-Ishma returns to his rural strongholds with what is left of his army. The Tahazids do gain supporters for allowing a return to lenient government, eliminating taxes seen as unislamic, repatriating stolen properties, and tossing out Arabs, but they do not have the manpower base to do much more than defend rural villages.
The Hajids break their peace with the Qaranids, and swarm across the frontier. Hajid forces also rashly attack Castilian garrison in the east, though it is likely this was an act of individual anti-Christian zeal than a premediated strategic decision. Ibn Sa’ad marches out personally to deal with the threat but succumbs to illness along the voyage. His eldest son Muhammad attempts to negotiate a peace with the Hajidis, but upon the discovery of his pledge to turn over the Moroccan coast in exchange for their leniency, the Qaranid sheikhs throw him out of court and appeal to the Ayshunid sultan instead. Muhammad II is hesitant about taking on direct control of such an imperiled region, but is eventually convinced. He appoints the general Musa Abd Allah Ibn Kubdi to put down the Hajidi rebels and take control of Morocco. Ibn Kubdi repulses the Hajidis, employing scorched earth tactics to funnel their normally wide-ranging cavalry force into a small area with limited supplies, where blocks of artillery made short work of their force. Ibn Kubdi quickly makes his reputation in Morocco as a particular aficionado for artillery. By 1565 the Hajidis are entirely beaten back beyond the Atlas. The entirety of southern Morocco south to Mauritania is abandoned to rebel forces.
The Hajids establish themselves as a strict Islamic state in the south of Morocco. Their ranks swell with tribes fleeing both Ottoman, and Ayshunid rule to the north and east. Mahmoud Al-Haj dies prematurely from a bout of illness brought on by food poisoning, but power is taken by his lieutenant Al-Muzd who becomes the first true sultan of the Hajid (technically the Muzdid) state. The Hajids erect a series of fortresses along the edge of the Sous valley, effectively sealing it as the border of their new realm.
Henry IV faces an unexpected threat as a horrific famine destroys the grain supply of Castile. This causes many of his petty nobles to question the wiseness of his wars in the Maghreb in light of more pressing dangers at home. For Henry, the Castilian possessions in the Maghreb become a personal obsession of his, a way to bolster his reputation to match that of his father. He continues to pour manpower into the region, along with Christian settlers – though the long and convoluted route from his ports in Portugal to the Maghrebi interior exposes him constantly to pirate attacks, and he only extends his colonial possessions in the Maghreb at the good grace of the sultanate in Seville (who appreciate a buffer state with the Ottomans).
1567
The new emperor of the Mexica, Icnoyacapa, is driven out of office by a mob of Mishiki nobles. It is rumored that within his entourage was the Christian missionary Jethro Morgan, who had traveled widely throughout the Riysh in secret before attempting to convert the pagans of Mesico, as it was known in Europe.
The sailor Razin bin Hassan al-Jurkuh, using ships dismantled and carried overland through the territories of the sympathetic Maya regent Muhammad Akan, sails along the coast of Mishiki, attempting to map the far coast of the continent.
The Arab Ismail ibn Abdul al-Terur is dispatched by Muhammad II to cut into the Ottoman monopoly over Indian Ocean trade. He sails around the cape of good hope, called by the Arabs the cape of dragons (al-Ras min al-Tinin) and is able to successfully negotiate favorable trading conditions with some of the native chiefs in Madagascar. He also finds success in East Africa and Oman, where many local leaders had already become well familiar with Andalusi goods, trading them through intermediaries. His expedition draws the ire of the Ottomans of course, who capture most of his crew while he was in South Arabia. He himself escapes and returns to Iberia.
England, which normally remains largely out of Mediterranean affairs, finds itself drawn into them after conflict between Mary’s chosen successor, Prince Edward and her half-sister Elizabeth forces Elizabeth to flee to the court of the Danish noble Lord Halder. In the course of this she receives the attention of the Ottoman empire no less, who see in her a potential ally against France. The Pope had declared queen Mary to be a heretic and had released a papal bull that officially cleaved England from the Catholic Church. While Elizabeth was also a protestant, and an even stauncher one than Mary, she was far more interested in reversing what she saw as her half-sisters floundering and cruel reign. Because of this, she began to accept Ottoman coins to fund her network of spies and allies in England.
Ibn Kubdi places the entirety of Morocco under Ayshunid military government. Remarkably, for a general of such stature and position he shows little aspirations for the throne in Seville himself and acts with unusually earnest loyalty to the Sultanate. Less loyal are his erstwhile allies in the Qaranid tribal elite, who finding themselves quickly marginalized in the coastal cities by the new Andalusian military aristocracy and driven from their traditional strongholds by peasant mobs, Hajid raiders and groups of petty upstarts, attempt to circle the wagons so to speak – reinforce their own limited political standing by hoarding the little remaining wealth of the Qaranid state for themselves, along with the last remaining native troops. Tensions soon flared, and of those Qaranid sheikhs who did not cede entirely to the Ayshunid military were quickly either exiled, executed, or stripped of wealth. There is a deliberate, and wholesale redistribution of the wealth of the Qaranid state to fund the now entirely Andalusian war effort to stabilize Morocco. Much of this effort was secretly bankrolled by the Aragonese, who were quickly becoming the only Christians to profit from involvement in Maghrebi affairs.
Continued wars between Sijilmassa and Songhai cause the former dynasty to teeter on the brink of collapse. Hajid forces defeat the Sijimassans and take the eponymous city itself for their own capital. This leaves the rest of the sultanates territory to be divided between the Songhai, Hajids, and various Tuareg warlords.
The Ayshunids re-establish themselves in Fez over Marrakesh. They value its more central location and being more easily supplied from the Mediterranean. As they had in Iberia, the Ayshunids move to break down the tribal allegiances of Morocco and replace them with more Iberian-style noble houses. Tribal lands are forcefully redistributed into regular plots around major urban centers. The power of the independent Maliki clergy is subsumed into the more European-style state religious organs of the Sultanate. While Morocco soon becomes enriched by a flow of wealth and colonists from the vast Iberian trade empire, it also is being methodically stripped of its autonomy.
Protestantism surges in southeastern Iberia, and even accrues some converts in Occitan France and Moorish Andalusia. It is embarrassing for the Castilians, who are attempting to prove themselves the prime guardians of Catholicism in Europe, and for the Papacy, actively fighting against Protestantism in other fronts and having seemingly succeeded in France. This forces a confrontation by the Aragonese monarchy, as Pope Pius V questions Charles I commitment to the Catholic cause.
The Portuguese sailor Ronald du Cavaral does what no European has done and sails the western African coast as far as the state of Kongo. Most European vessels that attempt to ply the African coast tend to run afoul of pirates, but by sailing a Moorish ship and going so far as to have his crew dress in Moorish robes he evades detection and evens meets at the court of the king of that state. He becomes an outspoken advocate for the European colonization of Africa, though it falls largely on deaf ears.
1568
Al-Jurkuh sails north, encountering the far western borders of the Tarasq state [Tarascans] and the long desert coast known as the al-Sahil al-Izakatul [northwestern Mexico – Baja], lit. the Coast of Izcatul (Yucca). He comments on the astounding fertility of the northern seas, and the skittishness of the native peoples he encounters. On his return trip he invests in building up a proper Arab port on the western shores of Mishik, with the blessings of the governor of the Wilayat al-Maya, Abdul Abdullah Ibn Shu’aya. This is also encouraged by Muhammad Akan, who is eager to bring more Arab traders to his isolated kingdom.
Muhammad II retires, forfeiting the throne to his eldest son Yakub, as Yakub I. Yakub, an accomplished admiral after service in his father’s Atlantic fleet, takes a keen interest in colonial affairs – moreso than his predecessors. Of his reforms, most fail due to a lack of courtly support but the one that succeeds, and succeeds wildly, is the creation of a central trade office that creates unified standards of quality for various goods from the New World. He establishes a series of marks called the “basimah”, letters of authenticity meant to guarantee consistent quality standards, and inspectors that traveled with the goods that were trained to market and manage them. These marks raise the profile of Andalusian goods across European and Islamic markets but have the side-effect of showing visually just how dominant Andalusian goods have become in European markets. Where once it was easy to pass off goods like tobacco, cotton, or even salted fish as whatever nation commanded the lowest tariff (a widespread practice by European trade houses) the practice of guaranteeing that a buyer recognized a good as Andalusi meant that suddenly, Christian ports like Marseille became flush with Moorish goods (even though the actual ratios had never changed). The appearance of robed, Muslim merchants in European ports alongside the apparently sudden proliferation of Muslim goods and a decrease of Christian goods at the same time the Ottomans were busy carving their way across Christian states in the east – it immediately provoked riots. Gangs burned Andalusi goods, beat and tortured the ‘inspectors’, and tossed the paper quality slips into the ocean. This was egged on by many local magistrates eager to reassert the authority of Christian merchants over the moors. Jews were also targeted in these trade riots, as they almost always were with such pogroms. Still, the ability to trust a products standard based on a central, and impartial trade commission was a boon to reliable, legal, commerce across the Atlantic and the practice only spread.
The Papacy, frightened by continual Ottoman naval incursion into the western Mediterranean, tries to encourage more European powers to join the lead of Castile and fight the Ottomans ship for ship. Venice, another major power equally threatened by Ottoman hegemony in the Mediterranean had been waging its own war with what it could against the Ottoman war machine but buoyed by Papal directives signed an accord with Castile to jointly combat the Ottomans in a coordinated fashion. The papacy even sways Aragon to the cause, though it is out of mutual hatred of Istanbul, not shared goals for the balance of power in Europe.
1569-70
In the battle of Kwahekay the Tahazid rebels are slaughtered by a Moorish army and the villages of the Tanaki interior put to the sword. Considered them apostates, the Riyshi army commits brutal atrocities against the native peasantry. Paradoxically, this causes more sympathy for the Tahazids among the native peoples, and the movement continues to spread underground.
The Ottomans are soundly defeated at the Battle of Lecce, forcing the Ottomans to shelve their abortive plans for an invasion up the Adriatic Sea. The Ottoman wars in the Balkans, running into serious opposition from Albanian guerillas and the Habsburgs of Austria, an influential family in Central European politics. The Ottomans fight a series of indecisive battles in Austria. Their manpower reserves sapped by the grinding wars against Berber rebels in North Africa, the Ottomans settle in for a long war on the Austrian frontier, unable to commit enough troops to break through to Vienna. An unexpected opponent rises in the Balkans as a Moldavian noble, rallying up an army of local bandits and raiders, Radu Bloga Rosupumm (lit. “redfist”), defeats the Ottomans and goes on a rampage through the conquered territories of Moldova and Transylvania. He will be eventually captured and executed, but remains as a potent symbol of European resistance to Turkish rule.
Du Caraval returns to Africa, exploring its coastline and even capturing native animals for exhibition in Europe. He would return one more time before being murdered by local tribespeople in Ghana.
Henry II dies, and suspicion is immediately cast upon the begrudging protestant population of France for the circumstances surrounding his death. In the course of the investigation, multiple powerful men are brought on trial for the so-called ‘assassination’ of the king by the powerful Cardinal Denien. Indeed, such is this man’s influence on French politics in this period it is called the Denieterre, a play on the term ‘The earth of Denien” or, “Deniens earth”. Henrys death does clear the way for the ascension of his son John of Reims, who also has claim to the kingdom of Castile. John soon began to intensely stockpile the energies of France towards his eventual union with Spain, which he understood as an inevitability. John is an intensively energetic ruler and pursues war in both the sea against the Turks, relations with the Holy Roman Empire, and intensifies his colonial efforts.
Yakub attempts to do what no other Sultan had dared, to ‘tame’ the Riysh and its notoriously violent trade practices. He dispatches an army of bureaucrats, trade inspectors, and all manner of petty official to the Riysh to bring it in line with the standards of Iberian trade – using the trade rules of the central Funduq of Cadiz to create his standard (unaware that most Iberian trading houses had already adopted Riyshi practices). He clears out the infamous markets of the Riyshi port-cities on the pretense of rooting out moral decay, but the real intent was to ‘purge’ the Riysh of its native semi-legal economy. By the thousands, prostitutes, smugglers, bodyguards, musicians, petty artisans, craftsmen, stockbrokers, bankers and even simple fishermen were thrown into prisons or scattered into the colonial periphery. Many of the sprawling funduqs built up into massive trade complexes were demolished and construction plans made for new ones. The powerful Riyshi trade families attempted to retaliate but were kneecapped. Yakub ensured that their financial holdings in the major Riyshi cities were entirely seized, and only returned to those who could prove their total loyalty to the state (through rigorous and public trails under the auspices of moral conduct). Full-scale brawls ensued in some areas between the hired muscle ghuzat of the Riyshi houses and the Andalusian soldiers sent to confiscate their holdings. The grand affair that was the Riyshi economy was crushed under the Sultanates boot in a way that had never occurred before, not even during the Ghazi Revolt. Yakub carried out similar pogroms in the Maghreb, but he stepped with a more gingerly heel there, well aware of how fragile his position there still was. In the Riysh, keenly aware of the threat of nearby European powers and the high costs of the local crime networks, he had no qualms about savagely putting down the local trade families. Yakub also closed the funduqs of the Riysh to European, Christian merchants except for the port at Buhuq to better monitor their activities (he suspected the Genoese of instigating the local crime networks). Lastly, he instituted a religious purge of ‘deviant’ Islamic strains in the Riysh and the mainland colonies. This ran into stiff resistance from the native population, many of whom elected to pretend to follow orthodox traditions until the Iberian officials left (this was not a fact lost on Yakub, but he had more pressing concerns).
1571
A second major expedition by Al-Jurkuh sails south and discovers the western shores of Baraniya, where he founds a settlement at Tumaka [Tumaco, Ecuador].
A Moorish expedition puts down a peasant revolt in the Yucatan, a surprisingly violent affair given the provinces relative stability.
Charles I makes a crucial decision on the fate of Protestantism in his kingdom after a odd series of religious confrontations occur in Aragon.
Castilian conquistadors carry out an expedition deep into the American interior, reaching the river Misisippi [Mississippi river]. Interestingly, by this point the Arabs, the Castilians, and the French had all reached this river (the French had dived deepest into the interior), but none of them recognized it as the same water body. The Arabs believed it to be somewhat of a giant estuary, the Spanish saw it as a vast river stretching north to south, and the French believed it to run east-west. It would take the revolutionary maps of the Dutchman Jan-William Bruijne, who collated geographic information from throughout the new world, to truly educate the European literati on the true nature of the continental interior, as it was known at the time. The Bruijne 1571 World Map was one of the most accurate maps of the new world ever made until the late 1600s.
1572
Charles I dies after a mysterious sickness brought on by injury. It is rumored afterwards, and is likely propaganda, that he was murdered by a poison delivered to him anally during a particularly exotic experience with a prostitute. What is more likely was that he suffered from some rare disease, probably brought on by the odd diet and exercise practices he chose for himself in his middle years. In any case, he was replaced by his son Sebastian as Sebastian I of Aragon.
An Italian merchant is captured and executed by Riyshi authorities after he was deemed guilty of defaming Islam. This incensed the Italian aristocracy who saw it as a grave violation of the man’s rights. The Straparinni Scandal, as it was called, incited many to protest and persecute Muslims living in Italian port cities and even volunteer for war against the Ottomans (to many lower-class Italians, they saw little difference between Andalusians and Ottoman Turks).
1573-76
Henry IV dies peacefully in his sleep, and all Iberia immediately erupts into chaos. John of Reims presses his claim to the kingdom of Spain but faces resistance from Henry’s eldest son prince Henry and his step-sister Joan of Gascon. It is obvious that most of the states of both Italy, Germany, and even England back prince Henry lest John become instantly the most powerful king by far in Europe. Joan attempts to turn this opposition into material war against John of Reims but finds herself outmaneuvered, and Henry does not help his own cause, being a notoriously slovenly individual. Henry IV’s will had supposedly chosen John of Reims, but whether that was earnest or under the pressure of elements in his court is uncertain (the question of what his true intentions were was simply called “The Spanish Question”, in contemporary parlance. John of Reims is able to easily take the throne of Castile and assumes the title of the King of Castile in addition to King of France, and his various family holdings in Italy and Central Europe. The personal union of Castile and France makes John not only the most powerful king in Europe, but also importantly, the most powerful Catholic king. France and Castile become a solid Catholic bloc in the west, which obviously causes great consternation in non-Catholic parts of Europe and terrifies the Ottomans and Ayshunids. The most immediate effect of this in Iberia is the tightening of the alliance between Aragon, the only true competitor power to King John, and Seville.
This is not to say that King John was entirely free of danger however. Firstly, Castile and France shared no land border, separated by Aragonese territory around Pamplona. Second, he faced extremely stiff opposition in Castile, both from the Normanos still in that country and from those loyal to Henry IV, who in his latter years was rumored to have selected his daughter Isabella as his preferred heir (she had wisely hidden in Sicily during the actual succession process). Then there was the difficulty of governing a nation with so many powerful and entrenched ethnic power blocs, multiple currencies, bordering both protestant, catholic, and Muslim states, and now with a vast swath of land in the new world as well. The most immediate danger, was that he was now at war with not only the Ottoman empire, but also nearly at war with the Ayshunids, who still held a powerful monopoly over new world trade and could easily gutter it and crash his economy. This was the reason that King John almost immediately after his accession sent diplomats to the court of Yakub to assure him of the peaceful intentions of the crown of Valois. Wisely, Yakub did not believe these intentions one whit, and continued to secretly tighten his relationship with Aragon in anticipation of an eventual confrontation with King John. His belief, and the prevailing opinion of the Ayshunid court, was that war with Valois was, due to the colonial ambitions of the two nations, inevitable.
1577
Ibn Kubdi is murdered, likely by opponents in the Iberian aristocracy. Forced to confront the issue of Morocco by growing unrest and a need to requisition new funds, Yakub integrates northern Morocco into the empire fully as the Wilayat al-Murrakus, giving it to the Ceutan administrator (and notoriously dry personality), Malik Yusuf Ibn A’id. Much of the funding necessary for the maintenance of Morocco comes from income originally derived from Riyshi trade, but Ibn A’id attempts to make Morocco more economically self-sufficient by solidifying control on the gold trade. Unfortunately, the Hajids at this point controlled a large portion of territory along the main trade routes, and exacted tariffs on these caravans before they even made it to Morocco. It is also under Ibn A’ids tenure that large numbers of African slaves come to Morocco in quantities unseen since the Almohad period, as he attempted to develop a cash crop economy on the fertile Mediterranean coast.
French fur traders discover a series of inland seas called les Grands-Lacs [the Great Lakes]. The trade in pelts from the interior enriches the Francophone settlements in the north, with the largest site being the trading post at Baidebalene near the mouth of the Lagayo river [north of Quebec city]
While the personal union of Castile and France is clearly stated as the law of the land in Europe, it is an extra step more difficult to relay this to the colonies. Many of those on the former borders of the two nations had spent many years battling each-other and were hesitant to suddenly make peace. King John soon had to grapple with infighting between his subjects in the New World. While his personal union of the two nations had been originally intended to create lasting peace in the old world, in accomplishing this, it sparked new wars in the new. The day to day realities of colonial life, changed little despite this. The necessities of governing such a state demanded a degree of devolution to local authorities, and since King John found willing administrators already within the government of the former king Henry, he allowed them to carry on much as they had before. The encomienda system for one, carried on unabated. Much of the territory of the Castilineans [Carolinas] was by this point subdivided and parceled out. Alternatively, while the Castilians welcome this union, believing it will bring renewed royal funds to their colonies the Francophone colonies deeply resent it.
Fears about an impending Moorish embargo on vital goods like sugar and tobacco, many European monarchs begin to finance expeditions to find alternative routes to the West Orioles [West Indies, from the Castilian term for the new world, Tierra de Oro]. This includes renewed interest in the northern shores of the new world, especially by the Dutch and English. The Dutch-funded expedition, led by the Danish merchant Benjamin Olesen, sets sail and records both the southern shore of Greenland, and then the land called Olesensland [Labrador]. Due to a misinterpretation of the maps produced of this area, this became contracted to Olseland. This coast was then contracted to be further explored by the then nascent Dutch West Oriole Company, “Vereenigde Westerouurlandische Compagnie”, the first such colonial company specifically dedicated to managing such affairs. Many copycat ventures soon arise in other European states.
Sebastian I, concerned about the potential tensions over the religious mix of Aragon begins developing a system called the marques de sang, classifications for all the various peoples of his kingdom. Sebastian was most primarily concerned with the growing power of Jewish and protestant merchants in his kingdom, many who had come from other places in Europe. This included Normanos, who discriminated against the local peasantry, believing themselves to be ‘purer’ than the partially-North African stock of Aragonese peasants. According to the marques de sang (colloquially just the marques), protestants were ranked lower than Catholics while Jews and Muslims were ranked lowest. The highest status was for native-born Aragonese Catholics, and also the Basque – being wholly Christian and having never been conquered by the moors.
1578
Moorish sailors sail the entire eastern coast of Baraniya attempting to discover a passage to the western ocean. They reach a point dubbed the Nihayat al-Alam lit. “Worlds end” [near Montevideo, Uruguay] and sail inland, discovering a great river and fertile plains, but no continental passage. Other sailors sail inland and discover the interior regions of this area, which are broadly labeled the Sharuh, from a native word for the land [region around eastern Paraguay and northern Argentina].
The rise of the Shishimana warlord Koyakatza and his subsequent rebellion against Arab silver demands forces a retaliatory force to march deep into the northern deserts and suppress it. The Arabs absolutely destroy the native peoples of this region, intentionally clearing it to make room for colonists from farther south. The natives who survive fleet north to avoid contact. Increasingly, the Arabs are trying less to negotiate with native peoples and simply driving them out by force. This is probably because of higher population pressures in the Riysh and increasing social tensions with natives due to growing Islamic sectarianism dividing Arabs from natives.
Elizabeth returns to England after nearly ten years of exile. In the course of a murky series of events, King Edward abdicates the throne (it is rumored that this is because of blackmail by Elizabethan agents). Mary, gravely ill and suffering from what was likely some form of cancer, retreats to the countryside, where she eventually dies in 1575. Edward vanishes from history, and his fate was as much a mystery to his contemporaries as it was to later historians. Elizabeth, now Queen Elizabeth assumes the throne as a deeply unpopular usurper. English Catholics who had hoped the change in government would ease their persecution were somewhat rewarded, as the British Parliament repealed the 1565 Acts of Unity, which had put in place many of the most irksome restrictions on Catholicism. However, the damage was done, and Catholicism would never return in force to England, though it survived in Ireland and parts of Wales.
1581
The proliferation of theological knowledge in western Europe brought about by both the printing press, the unification of the west under the house of Valois, and then the rise of Christian societies by the refocusing of the petty nobility on Christian matters over primarily martial pursuits creates a massive explosion of monastic orders, especially in southern France. This included many from Italy who fled the persecutions of the sadistic duke of Lombardy Federigo della Sanati (who was reputed to enjoy forcing holy men to participate in orgies). Sponsored by King John, who hands out royal slips to monk brotherhoods left and right, catholic monks begin to found missions all over the known world. This is an intentional strategy, for King John believes that Christianity is the most powerful unifying force within his kingdom, and that Christianizing the various savages around his colonial empire might ease tensions.
A hurricane obliterates the island of Boriken, further adding to the economic instability brought about by Yakubs reforms. The winds are so strong they are said to have dismantled the old stone mosque at Hezzi Mahmat, one of the oldest and most respected places of worship in the Riysh (it contained the former school of the great Maliki scholar Abdullah ibn Yahyah al-Qa’ahala). The entire town of Hezzi Mahmat was almost completely wiped from the earth, and its inhabitants wiped away with it. In the aftermath of this disaster, charity flowed in from across the Islamic world to rebuild the mosque.
Yakub dies, allegedly having committed suicide after the death of his two infant sons due to disease the previous year. His eldest son, Hussain, appears set to take the crown but Hussain, a zealot and Nuhi (a sect of Andalusian Islam that rejected prior legal consensus taqlid in favor of independent reasoning ijtihad, essentially refuting a core belief of Malikism) , is fervently opposed by the ruling families of Iberia. He assumes the position of Sultan, but it is clear that there are serious political rumblings in Iberia. These only worsen as he moves quickly to install his supporters, other Nuhis to positions of high power. In the process, he displaces those representatives of the powerful Andalusian families, infuriating them in the process.
1582-83
Under the leadership of the monk Guy Solé a band of divergent protestants venture to the Castilineans aiming to establish an enclave for their faith. They are soon chased out by local European colonists and flee to the interior of Serenida [Florida]. For years afterwards, Arabs spread rumors about bands of Christian Indians living in the swamps of this land.
King John attempts to derive a new language that can be used by all the subjects of his realm, dubbed Universae Linguae. It is a mix of Parisian French and northern Castilian Spanish with elements of Latin brought back in, King John believed that one reason behind the rise of Protestantism was the loss of Latin among the common people. Unsurprisingly, the endeavor seems entirely set for failure, as native languages remain common in the various regions of the empire and French remains as the prestige language in the larger empire.
The Riyshi economy begins to recover, with improved political stability in the mainland leading to a resurgent silver trade. There was also trade increasingly with Africa, as African kings consumed luxury goods like sugar and tobacco in increasingly exorbitant quantities. These leaders increasingly buy Riyshi goods by trading in slaves, most of whom are sent to Iberia to farm the sprawling plantations that dotted the countryside, or to fight in the Andalusian army. A surprising quantity was bought by the Sultans of Kinaru [the Canary Islands], to the point where some islands were entirely covered in black slaves and their descendants. It is said that when the Sultan was compelled to give a crew of soldiers to aid the Andalusians in an expedition into the west African interior to reprimand a local king, he sent a force of 1000 blacks, and 6 Canarians.
1584-86
The Ottomans fight a series of naval battles off the Algerian coast with King John collectively dubbed the Battles of Mahon. Partially through the battle an Ottoman force attacks a nearby Aragonese fleet (the Aragonese controlled the nearby Balearic Islands and were guarding its ports), mistaking them for Castilians, since the Aragonese ships had no flags raised. This escalates into the battle of the Wooden Ships. The Ottomans are driven off. Now, what the Ottomans did not know was that the Aragonese fleet had been intentionally acting like Castilians, as Sebastian I had been hoping to drum up war support against the Ottomans in Aragon. Many Aragonese, unwilling to become involved in yet another major European war while still suffering from the effects of economic stagnation, were riled up by this flagrant assault on Aragonese sovereignty and soon clamored for war.
Queen Elizabeth orders an expedition to the new world, but all ships are lost at sea. The second expedition is more successful, colonizing a stretch of land south of the Riysh that is dubbed Virgina [Paraiba, Brazil], with a main settlement at Aubreytown, for the expeditions captain Lord Roger Aubrey. The initial crop of settlers soon is faced by tropical disease, native warriors, and a wildly unfamiliar environment, though they recognize the areas value for farming.
Hussein does away with the system of land grants called the hadyaha. Over the past several centuries of Ayshunid rule, the state had gradually taken over the role of land control, distributing holdings and keeping detailed records of land ownership. These plots were given with set incomes to the landowners, state pensions to ensure that there was sufficient funds to properly maintain the areas upkeep. This system began to erode as landowners increasingly used these pensions to simply bloat their own personal wealth and not invest in their properties, choosing instead to hire vast quantities of laborers to farm the lands as industrial estates, often with gruesome labor conditions. Also, as the population in Iberia rose, and along with this the increase in the underclasses there was higher and higher demand for pensioned lands, but with less willingness for the petty nobility to share this land and the same pool of wealth being more and more thinly distributed, the system began to break. Hussein did away with the hadyaha ostensibly because their existence conflicted with his own legal reasoning, and the beliefs of the Nuhi order (who despised much of the innovations of Andalusian legal society apart from original Islamic law). He instead attempted to redistribute lands communally. This move possibly had much to do with breaking the power of the Andalusian nobility by destroying their most secure income stream and emancipating the peasantry. While many peasants now were freed from their feudal obligations, they were unable to work these lands, as they were still largely estates and often in areas where local nobility still controlled great sway – frustrated former land owners often sent militias to harass the emancipated peasantry living on these lands. Instead, most peasants became landless and turned to banditry.
Fig 1. Iberia and the Maghreb in 1586
Fig 2. The New World in 1586
Fig 3. South America in 1586
In this installment: ULTLRACATHOLICS, muslims discover argentina, and everyone goes a little bit conquistador
Originally this was going to go to 1600, but I was at 9000+ words by 1586, so I decided to just cut it off. I might fill it in a bit if I notice any timelines weirdly left off, we are reaching a point of kinda crazy complexity here so its harder and harder to keep everything detailed.
I also am dropping the keys from the maps, simply because as more players appear in the new world I want maximum space for labels, and the keys just take up a lot of room.
Originally this was going to go to 1600, but I was at 9000+ words by 1586, so I decided to just cut it off. I might fill it in a bit if I notice any timelines weirdly left off, we are reaching a point of kinda crazy complexity here so its harder and harder to keep everything detailed.
I also am dropping the keys from the maps, simply because as more players appear in the new world I want maximum space for labels, and the keys just take up a lot of room.
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Oh dear, Iberia looks like it's ripe for disaster. Discontented Protestants, Castillians, Muslims, Jews, Andalusians... The whole thing seems primed to blow.
Lol aside, I subscribe to the belief that zeal is a personality trait, not necessarily brought about by a specific creed. In this case then, Queen Mary is just by her nature a fanatic, and with the right odd changes of circumstances she applies that zeal to Protestantism over Catholicism. As France becomes more Catholic, England is becoming more Protestant - the traditional Anglo-French push and pull we see OTL reflected here.
BTW people, don't expect this madcap union of France and Castile to be the most stable of polities.
Yes, better than the Islamic states: Sultan Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad
@Koprulu Mustafa Pasha
The religious situation in Europe is surprisingly similar to OTL, especially in the east and in much of Italy and France. What is most different is that England is more protestant, Iberia is more protestant (because there is simply a much larger native iberian population of protestants scattered in its various kingdoms than OTL), and France is largely more catholic. The Hapsburgs are also a much weaker, and more regional dynasty here than OTL (They never really expand outside of central european politics), and so do not have as much clout to suppress Protestantism in eastern and central Europe as they did OTL. So Protestantism, overall in this timeline, is actually more successful on the ground level, even if the largest states are all strictly Catholic.
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The Ayshunids consider themselves to be a fully sovereign state with no higher authority besides that of the Caliphate itself, to which they do not consider the Ottomans the rightful heirs. The Ayshunid sultan also has absolute authority over his territory. Its simply a term used to convey the religious and secular authority the Ayshunid ruler has, well over that of a simple principality or tribal kingdom.
They do use emirs and maliks, but going in line with the overall 'europeanizing' of the Andalusian aristocracy those have become noble titles, very close to how terms like 'duke' and 'count' are used.
Many states in the Maghreb style themselves as Sultanates because there is a very strong tradition of trying to establish the Maghreb as the new center of Islam - dating back to the Almohads, and the conception of a Sultanate is more forceful in promoting that image.
Two main points
Aragon could actually create a permanent segregated unintegrated Morisco population with the sangra laws, they also can't risk expulsion/mass extermination of the Morisco population (otl about 20 percent of aragons popylatikn) because of how reliant they are on morisco trade/alliance.
The nuhid/ Maliki clash is also really interesting because of how obviously incompatible it is with the riysh's social system
Aragon could actually create a permanent segregated unintegrated Morisco population with the sangra laws, they also can't risk expulsion/mass extermination of the Morisco population (otl about 20 percent of aragons popylatikn) because of how reliant they are on morisco trade/alliance.
The nuhid/ Maliki clash is also really interesting because of how obviously incompatible it is with the riysh's social system
The Riyshi social structure is incredibly unequal and rife with innovations that are deeply blasphemous to much of traditional Islamic doctrine - not to mention social vices. What we might see as some signs of social progressivism, like for instance many Riyshi women holding greater political standing and wearing revealing clothing, to hardline contemporaries in Andalusia are signs of moral decay. The rise of Nuhism is in many ways a reactionary movement to the overwhelming flood of cultural and social change that has engulfed the Ayshunids over the last 200 years.
That is exactly what Aragon is going to do. Preserve societal diversity, but lock it in castes to prevent upheaval to the established order - where Iberian Catholics hold ultimate power. Of course if this massive underclass of moors, neighboring as they do a large and powerful moorish state were ever to feel they were less welcome in Aragon than they might be in Andalusia....it would be bad, lets say this.
@Ultima Ratio oh you
Late again, you know the drill. Also, I have little clue of the going-on in Europe and Africa, so I’ll ignore the place for now.
Amazonia/Baraniya
Wowwow-wow-wow wow. Amazonian Muslims? Now that is a really interesting development! The closest analogue I could think of for this are the West Bornean sultanates, but the Bornean region does not have the kind of social organization of settled urban centres that was present in the Amazon back then, so this is going into uncharted territory here. I suspect the conversion process would be somewhat similar in some regard as the Riysh: the nobles would be the first, along with the traders and the ones marginalised by contemporary society; peasants, artisans, and the like would come later. If the ghazis are bent on control of the nobility, then Amazonian Islam might divide into two separate branches like what Maya Islam went through, but the inclusion of a learned Andalusian cleric seems to disprove that. I wonder how he feels on spreading the faith in the hot equator…
On a larger note, given that we now know the region to be more populated then, there is good inference that the Amazon might be filled with trade routes between town centres, permitting Islam to travel pretty quickly through the basin. However, the arrival of the English could also mean the same for Protestantism and English rule. There is also the problem of introduced plagues, which has already caused havoc in alt-Mesoamerica and might destroy the Tupi before any religious wars so. In the end, for as much as a bastion of Islam the Amazon rainforest could potentially be, the situation is really fluid, and there are so many ways this could all go.
On a final note, Andean contact when?
Riysh/Mesomarica
Well, the party has to end someday, and looks like it ends with rules and violence (and a storm, too!).
The Riyshis are becoming more like conquistadores is something I’m sad to see, but all power rots, and it seems the Arabs are discovering swords to be more effective than words or silver. If Shishimana means Chichimec, then that’s one’s people group wiped out that I wish could’ve coalesce into a state. Then again, it seems the region is finally confronting the issues it faces, if the anti-Arab Tahazid revolt and the Mayan uprising are to be inferred. I have a feeling that we aren’t seeing the worst of it, though, since there hasn’t been word of a Mayan religious fracturing among the nobility, nor any sectarian war among the Mexican Plateau kingdoms. Yakub’s insistence for an orderly Riysh might be what pulls the corks off.
And speaking of Yakub, I’m in two minds about him and his policies. The fact that clamping down on piracy and rapacious trade is commendable, but he’s also trying to impose order in a region that flourishes really well with dynamism. The basimah is a good idea of showcasing Ayshunid quality and sourcing, but I feel that this would also trigger a boom in smuggling second-rate products from the Riysh and passing them off as Castillian/French/Genoese/what-have-you back in Europe. Given European realization of the scale of Ayshunid trade, and their squabbles with one another, there could even be an economic war where privateers are instructed to smuggle below-quality goods to Europe and sell them off as “Ayshunid” or “goods of enemy nation x” to defame the sultanate and it’s prowess. Or to defame their enemies.
I like the note that the Mexica emperor is driven out of office, though the presence of a missionary is troubling. On a final note, it seems there is also friction between the Riysh and the Italian traders there, though the Genoese are still coming there albeit under surveillance. I wonder how rich is Genoa now? Given the profitability of inter-oceanic trade, I wouldn’t be surprised in Genoa resembles more like Venice in splendour than Venice itself!
That’s all I could think for now, but I’m sure there’s more nuggets of info up there that I haven’t dug up yet. Amazing update!
P.S.: Your economic map isn't showing up on my desktop.
Amazonia/Baraniya
Wowwow-wow-wow wow. Amazonian Muslims? Now that is a really interesting development! The closest analogue I could think of for this are the West Bornean sultanates, but the Bornean region does not have the kind of social organization of settled urban centres that was present in the Amazon back then, so this is going into uncharted territory here. I suspect the conversion process would be somewhat similar in some regard as the Riysh: the nobles would be the first, along with the traders and the ones marginalised by contemporary society; peasants, artisans, and the like would come later. If the ghazis are bent on control of the nobility, then Amazonian Islam might divide into two separate branches like what Maya Islam went through, but the inclusion of a learned Andalusian cleric seems to disprove that. I wonder how he feels on spreading the faith in the hot equator…
On a larger note, given that we now know the region to be more populated then, there is good inference that the Amazon might be filled with trade routes between town centres, permitting Islam to travel pretty quickly through the basin. However, the arrival of the English could also mean the same for Protestantism and English rule. There is also the problem of introduced plagues, which has already caused havoc in alt-Mesoamerica and might destroy the Tupi before any religious wars so. In the end, for as much as a bastion of Islam the Amazon rainforest could potentially be, the situation is really fluid, and there are so many ways this could all go.
On a final note, Andean contact when?
Riysh/Mesomarica
Well, the party has to end someday, and looks like it ends with rules and violence (and a storm, too!).
The Riyshis are becoming more like conquistadores is something I’m sad to see, but all power rots, and it seems the Arabs are discovering swords to be more effective than words or silver. If Shishimana means Chichimec, then that’s one’s people group wiped out that I wish could’ve coalesce into a state. Then again, it seems the region is finally confronting the issues it faces, if the anti-Arab Tahazid revolt and the Mayan uprising are to be inferred. I have a feeling that we aren’t seeing the worst of it, though, since there hasn’t been word of a Mayan religious fracturing among the nobility, nor any sectarian war among the Mexican Plateau kingdoms. Yakub’s insistence for an orderly Riysh might be what pulls the corks off.
And speaking of Yakub, I’m in two minds about him and his policies. The fact that clamping down on piracy and rapacious trade is commendable, but he’s also trying to impose order in a region that flourishes really well with dynamism. The basimah is a good idea of showcasing Ayshunid quality and sourcing, but I feel that this would also trigger a boom in smuggling second-rate products from the Riysh and passing them off as Castillian/French/Genoese/what-have-you back in Europe. Given European realization of the scale of Ayshunid trade, and their squabbles with one another, there could even be an economic war where privateers are instructed to smuggle below-quality goods to Europe and sell them off as “Ayshunid” or “goods of enemy nation x” to defame the sultanate and it’s prowess. Or to defame their enemies.
I like the note that the Mexica emperor is driven out of office, though the presence of a missionary is troubling. On a final note, it seems there is also friction between the Riysh and the Italian traders there, though the Genoese are still coming there albeit under surveillance. I wonder how rich is Genoa now? Given the profitability of inter-oceanic trade, I wouldn’t be surprised in Genoa resembles more like Venice in splendour than Venice itself!
That’s all I could think for now, but I’m sure there’s more nuggets of info up there that I haven’t dug up yet. Amazing update!
P.S.: Your economic map isn't showing up on my desktop.
Late again, you know the drill. Also, I have little clue of the going-on in Europe and Africa, so I’ll ignore the place for now.
Amazonia/Baraniya
Wowwow-wow-wow wow. Amazonian Muslims? Now that is a really interesting development! The closest analogue I could think of for this are the West Bornean sultanates, but the Bornean region does not have the kind of social organization of settled urban centres that was present in the Amazon back then, so this is going into uncharted territory here. I suspect the conversion process would be somewhat similar in some regard as the Riysh: the nobles would be the first, along with the traders and the ones marginalised by contemporary society; peasants, artisans, and the like would come later. If the ghazis are bent on control of the nobility, then Amazonian Islam might divide into two separate branches like what Maya Islam went through, but the inclusion of a learned Andalusian cleric seems to disprove that. I wonder how he feels on spreading the faith in the hot equator…
On a larger note, given that we now know the region to be more populated then, there is good inference that the Amazon might be filled with trade routes between town centres, permitting Islam to travel pretty quickly through the basin. However, the arrival of the English could also mean the same for Protestantism and English rule. There is also the problem of introduced plagues, which has already caused havoc in alt-Mesoamerica and might destroy the Tupi before any religious wars so. In the end, for as much as a bastion of Islam the Amazon rainforest could potentially be, the situation is really fluid, and there are so many ways this could all go.
On a final note, Andean contact when?
Riysh/Mesomarica
Well, the party has to end someday, and looks like it ends with rules and violence (and a storm, too!).
The Riyshis are becoming more like conquistadores is something I’m sad to see, but all power rots, and it seems the Arabs are discovering swords to be more effective than words or silver. If Shishimana means Chichimec, then that’s one’s people group wiped out that I wish could’ve coalesce into a state. Then again, it seems the region is finally confronting the issues it faces, if the anti-Arab Tahazid revolt and the Mayan uprising are to be inferred. I have a feeling that we aren’t seeing the worst of it, though, since there hasn’t been word of a Mayan religious fracturing among the nobility, nor any sectarian war among the Mexican Plateau kingdoms. Yakub’s insistence for an orderly Riysh might be what pulls the corks off.
And speaking of Yakub, I’m in two minds about him and his policies. The fact that clamping down on piracy and rapacious trade is commendable, but he’s also trying to impose order in a region that flourishes really well with dynamism. The basimah is a good idea of showcasing Ayshunid quality and sourcing, but I feel that this would also trigger a boom in smuggling second-rate products from the Riysh and passing them off as Castillian/French/Genoese/what-have-you back in Europe. Given European realization of the scale of Ayshunid trade, and their squabbles with one another, there could even be an economic war where privateers are instructed to smuggle below-quality goods to Europe and sell them off as “Ayshunid” or “goods of enemy nation x” to defame the sultanate and it’s prowess. Or to defame their enemies.
I like the note that the Mexica emperor is driven out of office, though the presence of a missionary is troubling. On a final note, it seems there is also friction between the Riysh and the Italian traders there, though the Genoese are still coming there albeit under surveillance. I wonder how rich is Genoa now? Given the profitability of inter-oceanic trade, I wouldn’t be surprised in Genoa resembles more like Venice in splendour than Venice itself!
That’s all I could think for now, but I’m sure there’s more nuggets of info up there that I haven’t dug up yet. Amazing update!
P.S.: Your economic map isn't showing up on my desktop.
Brazil, ATL like in OTL, will be a orgy of syncretism and exploitation. I'll leave it at that. The Andean peoples will get their time in the sun, but wait for expansion in Colombia before that is a possibility.
You are right in that the basic structure of the Riysh, while being incredibly volatile on a small-scale, has actually allowed larger regional tensions to diffuse through smaller conflicts. Now that the sultanate is cracking down hard to try and unify the region, there will no longer be any outlets for this constant simmering tension, making any releases of it much more explosive.
There actually is constant sectarian war among the peoples of Mexico and in the Maya highlands, its just smaller conflicts, not worth mentioning. The real tensions in the region are between the local Arabs and the native peoples. Just as the Berbers began to chafe and bite at the Arab administrations in the Maghreb during the 8th - 10th centuries, the native peoples of mainland Central America are beginning to do the same. And it is only going to get worse as the Arabs settle into their routines as colonial overlords, not as a vulnerable minority in a vast native sea (this understanding is why the Arabs in the Maya lands have done so much better than those in Mexico, because they knew when to work with native peoples - the Arabs in Mexico increasingly couldn't care less). The violence against the Chichimecs is a demonstration of this. The attitudes are changing from amicable relations with the local peoples to open exploitation. Whether this change is because of the solidification of the Arab bureaucracy in the mainland, a improving demographic shift in favor of the Arabs, or a gradual adoption of European concepts of racial hierarchy by the Andalusians, its a open question. The situation is definitely become more unequal in the mainland from any perspective.
Your opinion of Yakub is well founded. He has the mind of a accountant, and is as about as flexible as you would expect one to be. He sees prosperity in order, and has attempted to model his state after the state-driven capitalism and bureaucracy of European nations, rather than what he perceives as the backwards banditry of his Islamic, Maghrebi neighbors. Its really part of a larger centuries long trend to 'europeanize' the Ayshunids, both culturally and economically. European powers for their part, are simply going to use privateers to gut the Ayshunid trans-atlantic trade, and are largely going to ignore the basimah itself as a tool, though they will adopt the general idea (that is, marks of 'authenticity'). Especially the Dutch.
The coup against the Mexica emperor is the largest blow in a growing war inside central Mexico between the pagan aristocracy and the increasingly islamized, arabized peasantry. There are cliques in the Mexica court that are vying for power and as a result it is destroying the remaining power of the state. Similar things are happening in other independent native states, but I only mentioned the Mexica specifically here.
On Genoa, it is absolutely loaded right now. The problem is though, that the more the Genoese are percieved as solely profiting from the transatlantic trade the juicier they are as a target, especially for larger catholic powers (and the ever-present Ottomans). The problem for the Genoese is, as much as they profit in their relationships with the Ayshunids, whether or not the Ayshunids will go out of their own way to help the Genoese in a crisis is a different question. They very much are profiting inside a bubble of convenience, since no other power has found a plausible excuse to target them openly yet. Venice is managing fine, though its wars with the Ottomans are taking a toll. Venice however has much greater sway in Italian politics, and holds more concrete power in Europe than Genoa does - its own influence entirely built on their transatlantic cash flow. Once that dries up, so does Genoa, and they have no other sources from which to gain similar sway in European politics.
Remember, these timelines present highlights - but I intentionally leave them open to additional information. Just like a history book has a broader summary covering a page or two, and then a few hundred pages of additional content, this is that summary, and the additional content covered in later posts. I allow myself the freedom of information omission, so theres always surprises up my sleeve
Lastly, It is finals for me right now - and I am starting the process of moving to a new house, so updates will remain scarce. Luckily I will use these next few months of intense IRL work to focus on smaller updates, rather than being under pressure to write another major timeline update like this one. Stay tuned, and much appreciation to everyone who has supported this mod through the Turtledove nomination process. I am glad to get recognition for this, and I also hope everyone reads other authors ongoing timelines as well - there are many excellent ones being worked on right now that continually serve to push me to keep my own standards as high as possible.
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