The kievan Rus is basically the eastern slavic equivalent of the western roman empire to Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. All east slavs trace their heritage there, but it doesn't belong to any of them specifically.
Also in other news... if Russia became Muslim, then the Cold War would've become a religious war @.@ (Though the question remains whether or not there would've even been a cold war. Would communism even be incentivized to form in this new russia?)
I'm Muslim, and one of my religious teachers at school told me that Russia "almost" became Islamic. I always thought there was something suspect abt that statement, this video explains why.
@@karantikoo9302 Chechnya, Tatarstan and the like are pretty devout. I wasn't talking about other "states", if you didn't mean oblasts of Russia, I don't know how devout people in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and the like are, I was only speaking for Russia. Russia is a pretty damn muslim country. And if we were to judge how muslim countries are by how much people there drink, there probably wouldn't be any muslim countries whatsoever..
As a Slav (Ukrainian but still) Vlad choosing Christianity over Islam because it let us keep drinking is the single most Slavic thing I’ve ever heard. There legit might be no deeper meaning to it, we love our vodka that much
Also his Grandmother. (Oleg, regent to Svilatoslav. The "give me a bird from each of your houses," then ties cinders to them to burn the city down. " and "turn a bathhouse into a pyre for a opposion army during peace negotions" women. ) Was a devout Orthodox. "If its good enough for her. Its good enough for me"
Most likely, this is a myth from pop culture. In the Medieval Rus with the capital in Kyiv, Christianity had deeper roots, taking into account the cultural ties with the Eastern Roman Empire and Bulgaria.
Funnily enough even without being Muslim some Russian tsars used to call themselves sultans when addressing Muslim monarchs and/or nations. They also called themselves padishahs and hakans. There are 2 tughras(calligraphic autograph sort of) of Peter the Great for example. In one he is called "Peter son of Aleksej Sultan of two norths and hakan of two seas" and in another, he is called "Peter the First son of Aleksej, Padishah of Rus".
The idea of a commercially focused Catholic Novgorod is super interesting, especially considering in the OTL they had a sort of council-based government. Would love to see a video about a Venice of the north. Also I wonder how this would effect the Swedish empirr
@@Eugensson oh,my bad, checked it. Most hillarious thing - Novgorod was the last Viking state. Novgorod pirates raided other principalities, and even mongols and Sweden
To quote an Egyptian Army Captain I met while in the Navy years ago. He poured himself a giant solo cup of wine while we Americans were staring. He looked at us and said,"What? Islam is my religion, not my diet." Then he chugged the whole thing refilled it and kept going. And he wasn't the only who did it either. Only one of their cadre didn't drink and he didn't seem to care that his compatriots did.
Much like the bibles forbids a bunch of stuff and christians still do it, same happens within Islam (although maybe not as common due to the own nature of the religion). Everyone has a different interpretation of the religion, fitting it to their core beliefs, so it wouldn't be THAT crazy to think of a vodka drinking sultanate.
@@rezajafari6395 islam forbids any thing that’s harmful for you. And alcohol and what comes form it intoxication are both forbidden. So any thing that intoxicates you is forbidden in islam. Search about it to make sure.
@@rezajafari6395 Egyptian army is very non religious because you will be imprisoned if you showed signs of religiousness A lieutenant in the Egyptian army was imprisoned because he memorized the Quran and when he get out of jail he went sprinting into isis hands
@@mustfaaboassd I had to do a double take when you said Isis because I thought you were talking about the Egyptian god Isis. Then I realized you were talking about the terrorist group.
I want to explore the Christian Novgorod divide scenario more. It seems most likely to me that when the Golden hoard was thrown off, it left many areas of Petty Kings, Warlords, and the like. Having a Moscow-like under the banner of Islam start gobbling them up while Novgorod to the north does the same feels like a hell of a game night, at least!
I have my own Alternate History scenarios, and Novogorod surviving as an independant state is already one I've been considering (though still christian russians). Would love to hear someone wo does this more than me consider it.
It honestly seems pretty likely too, given the circumstances. The people of Novgorod aren't just going to stop trading west, so it would kind of be shooting themselves in the foot to distantly tie themselves to the muslim community of moscow, central asia and the middle east rather than just huddling up with more of their immediate neighbours.
I think it would be more interesting to see Novgorod take a fusion of christianity and morph into its Pagan values like what Orthodoxy kinda did off Christians and local beliefs.
It would be interesting if an independent and mighty Novgorod adopted a brand of Christianity totally different, like say beleived and militarily defended the teachings of Martin Luther during the Reformation... like a lot. Could you imagine a Lutheran H.R.E.? After-posting thought: In this scenario, that doesn't seem all that unlikely, given the "game night" scenario in another reply here*, and the fact that Lutherans and Orthodoxy almost got along at first, and this scenario entirely changes who is in charge of the Orthodox faith at the time. *proposed by "Tank of Reality"
The topic wouldn't be so sudden, of course; our religion starts with prohibitions automatically to avoid any aggressive reactions. @@davidibidokun2693
Gotta love the deep dives into alternative stuff. Very fascinating conversation while also every now and then picking up more knowledge on history that I missed on
I think we would see a Kievan Russ collapse, and divided among different princes, some staying Pagan, some turning Catholic, others Orthodox, and others Islamic in order to either gain foreign support, allies, and trade partners or some stubbornly sticking to their Pagan traditions. In the long term I believe this would consolidate Russia into 2 to 4 nations, with the most likely to stick around in my opinion being Islamic Russia, and Catholic Russia with Orthodox Russian Princes being conquered due to the collapse of Eastern Rome. And the Pagans being pushed out due to the lack of religiously motivated allys smoothing relations. While nations were more then willing to work with other faiths, it made things a lot easier and would have a major impact in my opinion. The interesting thing here is, the Pagan Russians instead of being wiped out, might be forced to migrate east, into Siberia to escape persecutions and become a centerpoint of a Siberian pagan nation or series of nations with the Christian and Islamic Russians focusing on the richer lands west of the Urals and on conquering lands from each other.
Interesting, so how do the mongols factor in? Like Cody said they're coming werther or not Vladimir the Great chooses any religion. Which it's important to say that the conquest east was seen as defensive, "the Tatars can't invade us if we occupy their land"
@@Thatonepersonyouheard Id imagine something similar of the occupy them first variety, however the warfare would likely be alot more brutal and a far more gradual march/conquest eastwards in my opinion. Though there is always the possibility that these Pagan Russians get conquered by the mongols/tatars but I dont believe that would last long term due to the collapseing Mongolian empire/s
@@hakced No way to truly predict how well it would go though, but no matter what it would make for some interesting wars fighting the mongols and other groups to carve out a new nation.
Russian would look like nowadays middle east always at war with each other as they are muslim and islam the 2 worst allah trash cultures who won't see a win in the next war and will be a central target to be wiped out as they have been the cause of everyone's problems and the west is waking up to that and are starting to no want them Canada being one of thos as they pushed terrorist views for the 5 years and its coming to bit terrorist like muslims and islam
Something to keep in mind with Vladimir choosing Orthodoxy is that he was raised primarily by his grandmother, Olga (either a Bulgarian princess or a Viking of Pskov, depending on who you ask), who was a devout Orthodox Christian and even lead a delegation to Constantinople to meet the Emperor. So, Vladimir was likely already Orthodox privately before he enforced Christianity on Kievan Rus. P.S., the Cyrillic alphabet is a Bulgarian-Slavic alphabet, established by Cyril's pupils during the First Bulgarian Golden Age. It's based on the Glagolic alphabet, which IS a Greek-created alphabet, created by Cyril and Methodius to serve as a alphabet for the slavic peoples the Byzantine alphabet was trying to convert to Orthodox in Christianity power politics.
He wasn't orthodox, because before adopting christianity he tried to reform slavic paganism, but failed, because different tribes tended to worship different gods
Just because of drink please don't give up Islam only true religion In sha Allah in paradise Jannat we will drink more greater better drink forever We don't know when we will die accept Islam and become muslim May Allah give you hidayat - Aameen
you mentioned offhand that maybe Russia would develop it's script from Persian, so my friend and i arranged an abjad system for writing Russian and i cobbled together a windows keyboard layout for it. it's really cool to use, and we just realized that the word for "toilet" is written the same way as it is in Farsi, so we must have done something right :p
@@wolfgang2453 Yeah, I was just pointing out, that a similar system was developed between the 15th and the 19th centuries to transliterate the Serbo-Croatian language, another Slavic language into an Arabic-derived script. The Wikipedia link gives more info
@3.KADEME TEKME Much like any western European language uses the Latin script and has their own alphabet, Persians use the Arabic script and have their own version of it. Pretty obvious what was meant.
@3.KADEME TEKME If you have a complaint take it up with the video. Clearly you didn't finish watching it because I was just quoting him. I'm not going to argue with you about something that is factual.
Still can't believe this dude's grandmother was St. Olga, one the most hardcore lady saints. Like... she's literally the Patron Saint of Vengeance. I remember reading about how she created a trench to burry a bunch of soldiers from a nation that killed her husband and then burned the leaders to death by locking them in her castle. I honestly think those "vibes" partly came from there. He might've done some research on her.
Just because of drink please don't give up Islam only true religion In sha Allah in paradise Jannat we will drink more greater better drink forever We don't know when we will die accept Islam and become muslim May Allah give you hidayat - Aameen
As funny as that apocryphal quote about Vladimir choosing the Abrahamic religion that would allow him to drink is, alcohol was and is still drunk in the Muslim world. There are records all over of rulers drinking wine; there were even whole ceremonies and genres of poetry dedicated to wine in central Asia and the Middle East. Just because it's forbidden or at least frowned upon doesn't mean it was always applied. "Thou shalt not kill" wasn't exactly on the mind of a lot of Christian kings after all.
This is one of your most interesting scenarios. My knowledge of eastern European history is limited, so I don't know if I can provide much insight or new ideas, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video.
@@kekzealot3568 they don't say "like, comment, OR subscribe." They say "like, comment, AND subscribe." In all seriousness, the TH-cam algorithm uses engagement statistics, including likes and comments, to decide what videos to recommend on your feed. If you want to help your favorite creators, both liking and commenting on their videos really helps.
I have you one better, Cody: What if Japan converted to Muslim in 1906? "In 1906, widespread campaigns were aimed at Muslim nations with journals reporting that a Congress of religions was to be held in Japan where the Japanese would seriously consider adopting Islam as the national religion and that the Emperor was at the point of becoming a Muslim"
Japanese mythology would be changed, Muhammad would be connected to Jimmu, and they will make their mythology a mixture of Monotheism like how Africans kept Orulun as creator God as Muslims and Christians.
I like this change of pace with more unrealistic scenarios. I like the more grounded ones of course, but this brings back some essence of what alternate history felt like when I first discovered it.
One large error I noticed in your video is the lack of Lithuania completely in this scenario, given they had major influence over trade in Eastern Europe and conquered a large portion of Eastern Europe from the Golden horde. Also, the Northern crusades would have massively changed with an Islamic Russia. You mention Poland a lot, yet they didn't have much of a presence in the area. Lithuanian leaders like Algirdas were the ones to conquer major cities like Kyiv before the union Ironically enough, an Islamic Russia may have resulted in an Islamic Lithuania as Lithuania would continue to expand and integrate with Islamic culture in this situation
@Базированный Демократ Lithuanians and other Baltic peoples used to inhabit a much larger area, and were far more battle hardened/militarized due to centuries of fighting and finally unifying Lithuania rapidly expanded as well, thanks to the Grand Dukes of the Gediminds dynasty, who were able to expand rapidly with the help of diplomacy (marriages, integration, supporting rebels, etc) and the usage of light cavalry
Lithuania was one of the last remaining pagan nations at the time, but they held onto their paganism strongly, so much so that rulers like Gediminas and Algirdas remained pagan, even as they ruled over increasing numbers of Christians, so they had to balance pleasing the pope, their Orthodox subjects, and their pagan supporters. In fact, if Lithuania did convert to Islam, there would be no Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, because as part of a deal to marry Jadwiga, the queen of Poland, the grand duke of Lithuania Jogaila (aka Wladyslaw II Jagiello), converted himself and his people to Christianity.
@@compatriot852 no mention of slavic majority of GDL who populated the ranks of army. Sole baltic noblemen on their horses conquering and controlling vast territories from sea to sea.
This is one of the few channels that actually makes watching the sponsored bit entertaining. I wish others did that, might actually make me more apt to buy something.
The idea of an independent Christian Novgorod makes the most sense to me, so whilst Russia does unite "mostly" it's split between these two states and thus the rift between Europe and what we think of as Russia is even more vast, with only Novgorod being able to slightly fill that hole.
@@ZiCUnlivedbirchif they were to become a bulwark of faith, they could have tried to spin this in combination with their economical and political ties to baltic states in order to get help from Western European countries on the Baltic Sea and from Roman Catholic Church.
@@fillosof66689 Novgorod was also a member of the Hanseatic League, and I'd imagine that if anything threatened Novgorod severely, like religion, the Hanseatic states could enticed to muster their forces to defend Novgorod.
@@ZiCUnlivedbirch BS right here the entire Russian history is full of fabricated lies made up by the Germanic Romanovs. All these states that exist in modern day Russia was part of a great forgotten empire called Tartaria.
@@calebr7199 With Danish controlling exit from Baltic sea, expansionist Sweden on the west, frozen waters on the north, uninhabitable lands for large settlements on the east and no way to the south? How it can become "colonial"?
I think the most interesting part of this scenario would be Russia's modern relationship with Afganistan, Chechnia, and Syria, it could even lead to America never declaring the "war on terrorism", beacause they would risk bothering Russia too much
Well, in that perspective Russia would have never allied with Serbia, that alone would already had a great effect on the landscape of the Balkan Wars and relationship with the US.
BTW, was there any way the US could have become a Muslim-majority country? Such as the founding fathers accepting Islam and convincing people to follow them as to separate themselves from Britain?
I would imagine that the direction to expande for this new Islamic Russia would be more focused, maybe, on becoming a hegemon in Central Asia and Iran/northern India instead of Siberia, since they could use religious ties to exploit the politics of these far richer regions (at least compared to Siberia). I would also imagine this scenario really affects the Victorian culture, in seeing a white yet islamic power rivalling at times with the europeans. On a side note, I'm so glad you went for this scenario and not the done to death Romanov one :3
@Mohamed Ahmed the problem with the Russian Sufism idea is, although i agree with you that it probably would be a alcohol-allowing sect, i don't thing it can stay esoteric very long. Esotericism in a religion inherently require a great degree of dedication both spititually and phisically. I think it would more likely istituzionalize into something akin to sunni and shia islam, becoming a third branch. Then again, religion is not the only factor into play when considering expansion or aggressiveness. Russia is a nation bound to be expansionist since the moment it unites, since the lack of natural borders would always be a factor that would push for a "defensive imperialism" (i would argue the same can be said for nations like Germany)
@@redbear1839 Ehhh I find the defensive imperialism theory (At least the modern one that *insists* Russia in general and Putin in particular want the Carpathians) to be a bit exaggerated.
For an alternate take on the title conundrum: a Muslim Rus that overthrew the Golden Horde and conquered/unified its fractured successor states might see itself as the rightful continuation of the Golden Horde and the legacy of Genghis Khan (which serves as a handy justification for Eastward expansion) and such the Emperors of Russia might take the title Kagan and as a result the Cossacks would be less like autonomous subject and more like a subclass of the Boyars with the same marriage ties that our Russia has with the Byzantines being formed with the surviving Ghenghisids/Borjigins, strengthening the Russian claim as ruler of the steppes.
You can hear how painful this scenario is in his voice. But I do find it as an interesting scenario, perhaps if the Rus go south of the caucases, maybe a military alliance with Persia could stop the Ottamans from gaining a lot of power
The Rus' and Ottomans don't overlap periodically and "Persia" didn't even exist it was dominated by Ilkhanid Mongols, Timurids, and White Sheep Turcomans
@@nenenindonu it was controlled mostly by the buyids at the time, who were persian. Then later a part of the turkish seljuk empire, who became pretty quickly persianized. The Ilkhanate came pretty later down the line.
Actually I think the Russians allying with the Ottomans would make for a interesting part 2. If the Ottomans have a sizable ally in Europe to help them, just imagine how much further their conquests would get them. You could potentially have most of Eastern Europe living under an Islamic government, which would potentially cause Catholic Europe to explode. In fact, if that were to happen I could see most of Europe coming together to help stop the assault, as if it were a 2nd invasion by the Mongols that everyone feared.
Or you end up with Protestant Europe leaving them to their fate, and you get Islam and Protestantism as the main religions of Europe with Catholicism relegated to a few small holdouts. (Maybe Italy)
@@johnwbh I could actually see the Protestant Reformation being put off longer due to the increased presence of Islam. I mean even if the Spanish complete the Reconquesta that still leaves a sizable Islamic presence in Europe which I think would increase the idea of unity among the Catholic Church. In fact I could see the Crusades not happening or happening less because of an Islamic Russian presence
The Ottomans already ruled eastern and central Europe and the Mediterranean countries even western Europe, such as France, and they paid a lot of tribute to the Ottomans to be lenient with them and win them as allies in the 16 c ,,, Imagine, with the help of Russia, they would rule all of Europe, and there would be no room for colonization trips to take place in the New World ,,,,,
For a part two, I think it'd be important to mention the fact that if the Rus were more interested in the Volga river trade that would've accelerated their conquest/colonization of Central Asia, which only took place in the 19th century in our timeline. I don't doubt the fact that Russia probably would've also been feuding with the Delhi/Mughals and the Ming/Qing
that's possible, if they adopted the same kind of politics as they did in real life, which is to focus on land expansion. They could also just not be very interested in going East now, maybe because Central Asia is already Muslim and does not need to be converted. it's just speculation though, could very well see them doing what you said
@@maciejbala477 excellent point Maciej, and yes you are right it does depend on their policies. Whether they were Sunni/Shia, have Tamerlane-like ambitions, or just wanted to control the Silk road all would affect the decision.
I am a Russian with a Central Asian-Muslim origin, preparing to become a graduate of the Institute of History this year, so I will try to supplement the comment above. If Kievan Rus had adopted Islam, it would have significantly affected its history in the Mongol era. If in reality the confrontation between Russians and Mongols was fueled by differences in faith, then in an alternative scenario their relations could become much closer due to their common faith. Perhaps there would have been a cultural symbiosis between Muslim Slavs and Tatars and this would have led to a less noticeable fall of the Mongol yoke. Not as a result of a major battle like Kulikovo Field, but as a result of an internal coup or the collapse of the state, just as it happened with the Ilkhanate. In addition, if Russia became Muslim, it would lead the eastern border of Europe along the borders of Poland and the Baltic States. Eastern Europe would become a frontier between Christian and Islamic civilization, just like Spain in the era of the Reconquista. Perhaps this would breathe new life into the Teutonic Order, since after the victory over the Baltic pagans, it could switch to the fight against Islamic Russia and receive support from Poland and the Holy Roman Empire. Against this background, Russia and the Ottoman Empire could become not enemies, but allies against a common enemy. It is unlikely that the coexistence of these two huge empires would have been completely without conflicts, but Russia clearly would not have been obsessed with the ideology of the liberation of the Balkan Slavs and Constantinople. If Russia had helped the Ottomans capture Vienna, it would have made the struggle very difficult for Christians. But I think in the long term, the technological and economic advantage of the Western world would lead to partial isolation and conservation of Russia. Perhaps major reforms aimed at Westernizing the country would also have taken place, but rather at the same time when they actually took place in Turkey (the era of the Tanzimat). Finally, the clash of interests of Russia and England would have occurred much earlier. The first attempts to penetrate into Transcaucasia in reality were made by Russians already at the end of the XVI century, and under Peter I they undertook campaigns in Persia and Turkestan. Unity of faith could make the rulers of Afghanistan and Persia allies of the Russians, but would lead to enmity with the Qin Empire for the liberation of the Uighurs. The vector of Russia's territorial expansion in this world would be much more diverted from the more technologically and economically advanced countries of Europe towards Central Asia. P.S. Instead of the Romanovs, the descendants of the Mongol-Tatar conquerors could be at the head of Russia. Many noble families in Russia in reality (such as the Yusupovs, Godunovs, Golitsyns) were descended from Tatars. In this world, they would not only dominate the Russian political arena, but would also be supplemented by dynasties of Central Asian origin. In reality, the Russian tsars willingly accepted Baltic Germans, Swedes, Poles, Romanian Phanariots, Orthodox Georgians into their service. In this timeline, they could be Central Asian Genghisids, Iranian Kyzylbashi, Afghan Pashtuns and Baluchis.
@@raymonddefoix6017 great scenario there,love the speculation. One thing also that Russian culture would be heavily Turkified,more compared to present. And Caucasus and Persia would be the point of conflict between them and Ottomans.
@@raymonddefoix6017 Fun fact: Central Asian khanates began to perceive Russia as a serious power only by the end of the 17th century. Let me touch on one historical fact: in 1605, Khan of Bukhara, Baqi Muhammad. Preparing to march to Russia with a large army, his main goal was to return the throne of Astrakhan, which he considered his legitimate inheritance. But by chance this young Khan dies
When you got to the ad I was about to skip and leave, and then I was like “no wait, I want to see what happens to Jimmy in this one.” I was not disappointed. These companies should pay you like 10x the usual rate, you’re the only TH-camr who’s ad read I actually sit through.
i come from a majority muslim slavic country (bosnia) and for centuries even though we claim to be muslim, a lot of my fellow compatriots have drank alcohol, so a muslim slavic country which likes alcohol isnt strange at all
this only works if those "muslims" never read the quran, or just dont care about the quran. in which case they are muslims only in name and can just be disregarded as ignorant and useful for true muslims to refer ignant disbelievers to as a way to protect the true intentions of islam (to destroy the world and kill everyone).
I’m actually legitimately interested in what would have happened if Russia was a Jewish nation honestly. Imagine how differently history would have played out if one of the most pre-eminent European powers in Eastern Europe was Jewish. How would that affect diasporic communities in the rest of Europe? Would Russia be seen as a contemporary to Europe? And the biggest elephant in the room: how would the lack of anti-semitism in Russia affect the history of Zionism, as some of the earliest Zionist thinkers find their origins in the Russian Pogroms
On the ideas for part 2, mostly regarding Russian/Slavic culture and their policies against the Ottomans: In a case of an Islamic Russia, it is a very real possibility that the entire rest of Slavdom and Greece become Catholic. Before the rise of Russia and the Ottoman conquest, the cultural centres of the Slavic world were in Bohemia for the West Slavs and Bulgaria and more specifically Preslav and later Turnovgrad for the South and East Slavs, furthered by the fall of Kyiv under Mongol rule, to the point that we have surviving letters of Russian nobles negotiating buying religious texts at ridiculous prices ither from Byzantium with Bulgaria as the middleman or directly from them, and the Cyrillic alphabet, which was made by Bulgarians on the basis of the Greek alphabet and the Greek but more Czech-ish Glagolitic alphabet became dominant in the Kyivan Rus and the rest of the Orthodox world. The point at which this starts to change is when you remember that, back in the 1200s, Bulgaria went Catholic to counter the Byzantines and get their titles recognised before returning to Orthodoxy because of the IV Crusade and that Byzantium did the exact same thing right before being conquered by the Turks. Without Russia to escape to like in OTL, after the Turks conquer Constantinopole, the Orthodox churches would be forced to escape either to Italy (which admittedly also happened OTL and helped the Renaissance but that's besides the point) or remain alone under foreign, Islamic rule, both options leading to an eventuallity of submitting to Rome's dominion. I doubt the Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians etc. would instantly give up all of their church traditions, as after all they were already centuries entrenched into the societies, rather I envision something similiar to OTL's Uniats or Eastern Catholic churches, keeping most of the traditions and practices of Orthodoxy but remaining in communion with the Pope, although seeing their disantvantageous possition the Orthodox churches would probably be forced to give up more. This whole ordeal would probably also lead to another domino effect, causing Western Europe to be more like the East culturally, considering that OTL the brain-drain from Byzantium and Bulgaria led to ridiculous things like a Bulgarian being Patriarch of Kyiv, many churches straight up just teaching entirely and exclusively in Greek up until Peter the Great forced them not to and Russian writting remaining almost entirely different from the common speech even of the aristocracy, being a sort of weird mix of South and East Slavic or what we now call "Old Church Slavonic" (which is confusing because it's also different from the original Slavic writting and language even tho it's lumped in with them under the language umbrella term), so I expect similliar effects in the West from Greek aristocracy. Okay now comes the part that's actually about Russia. To answer a question you asked in the video, the title of the Russian ruler would remain tsar (or maybe a slightly alternate version due to palatilization like chesar or kesar as was rarely found in OTL) but not because of Roman influence but because the word had already entered into Common Slavic trough Gothic (maybe we're not fully sure) and/or Proto-Germanic by the time the split of Proto-Slavic happened. Without and Orthodox justification, Russia would probably not be that willing to fight the Ottomans, or atleast over Constantinopole, because while there still would be an incentive, they would have no use for hostile Christian territory that is mostly useful for trade with the unwilling Europeans, or atleast not as easy as, like you said, the Volga river. Same things would probably be true for North and Baltic sea trade. With this boxed in situation, I imagine Russia would probably give up on interactions with the West rather quickly, choosing to focus on pushing trough the Caucasus and Siberia way earlier and way faster than OTL, taking a defensive stance in the West. Most likely, Russia's political centre would also move farther East to, possibly to the rich trading centres of the Bulgars like Bolghar or Kazan or maybe even further into newly founded cities on the frontier. I believe that this earlier expansion would also put Russia in an incredibly strong possition, as having their focus East would probably lead to them reaching China just around the time of the gradual fall of the Ming and rise of the Qing. Subsequently, while I don't think a Russian presence would lead to the Ming being saved, I can certainly see Russia grabbing Mongolia and parts of Manchuria and the Atlantic coast while taking advantage of the Chinese wars, leading to an either even more closed off China or an incredibly aggresive one and a similiar relationship with Japan, I really can't tell since i've already went so far away from the point of divergence in this comment put I think it's an interesting thing to think about. All while this happening, I think Russia would at some point in the 1600s also start aggresively moving South, but this time not so much towards Crimea (although yeah I think they'd still probably want that) but more towards Persia, who I think, trough being the closest trade partner of Russia and middleman between them and Arabia, would have a great influence on Russian culture and geopolitics. During this time, the Ottomans were starting to greatly weaken the Persian state and conquer much of their Western land, which would in no doubt effect Russia, and as such I believe that they would probably take advantage by allying or even eventually vassalising the Persians and helping them greatly in the wars against the Ottomans, which would probably end in victory for them and eventual conquest of rich lands like Iraq and the Gulf under Persian/Russian control and make the Ottomans focus way more on their Eastern frontiers and probably even weaken places like the Sultanate of Oman trough the resurgance of Persia as a major player in the Persian gulf even before the age of colonialism and **o i l** in the region. I could go way further with my ideas that this great video inspired, since they truly are many like what would happen with Poland or Sweden but I don't think i'm educated enough on that front (or for basically most of what I said for that matter) and I am really excited to see Cody's ideas on all of this, so i'll leave it off like this. Incredible video, I hope I have been helpful and I can't wait to see part 2. If you read this Cody, good job big guy. TLDR: Russia is even more Asian lmao
I kinda disagree a lot with Cody since in my opinion Novogorod rebelling is unrealistic as hell if it rebels it would be war for title of Grand Prince of Kyiv, as OTL Jaroslav The Wise was given that land to administer, he would revolt against his father which I dont see happening as Rurikids loved to use that to chip away future lands for themselves when their brothers lost.
What do you think about the cultural differences between the 1500s northern Russians(Novgorod or something similar) and southern Russians (Moscow and crew). It would be important to figuring out if this hypothetical state would even exist
@@Thatonepersonyouheard I'm also Russian and think that Novgorod unfortunately couldn't save itself in any way. Western Europe had its institutions since Roman times and was just remembering them, while slavs never had any. Novgorod's democracy was more chaotic and unstable, so in 1500s it just became an oligarchy where the richest decide. It resembles of what would later happen with Poland. During that time, absolutism was more effective in these lands, so 'veche' institution kinda naturally died (there were veches in many places, Novgorod just had a stronger one).
Have you consider the possibility of a Islamic Russia taking the mantle of the Gold Horde directly and declare itself to be both a Tsardom and Khanate? I actually did this cursed Russian Mongol Empire thing in a EU4 playthrough 😂...
@@sircatangry5864 Ehhh. That's an increasingly common kneejerk given the current war, but it's still more "elder abuse" than it is some asiatic invasion,
@@sircatangry5864 What, because you took the Golden Horde's land? I guess Nazi Germany also has legitimate claims to that land considering they reached Stalingrad?
@@Oujouj426 Nope, its because the rus states were under mongol souzerainity . And the way they spread eastwords and how rough their socieiteis are mirrored that of the mongols instead of the byzantines. The only connection russia has with eastern rome was them sharing the same christian sects. Other than that? Hardly any similarities.
Great video! I can't wait for a potential part 2. I remember hearing the Vlad Vodka story and imagining a scenario like this. The absence of a Russo-Turkish Great Game would be interesting, and there'd be little reason for the Ottomans to enter WW1.
If Russia had picked Islam, I'd imagine the Northern Crusades would have gotten a lot more worldwide and interesting to say the least with Islamic forces fighting both the Pagan Lithuanians and Christian crusaders
Islamic slavs vs Pagan slavs vs Christian slavs vs Christian crusaders vs pagan lithuanians vs christian lithuanians vs pagan lithuanians vs other muslims
I think Khan makes more sense for a post-Mongol Muslim Russia. Imagine names like Vladimir Mukhammed Khan, Ismael Vasili Khan, Olga Khatun, etc. Tsars of Russia often used the title Khan in Central Asia and Siberia in OTL as well.1
Novogrod was in the Kievan Rus but it had high autonomy, it was after the Mongols invaded that Novogrod became an almost independent country, and I say almost because the Mongols forced the local Duke to pay tribute to them
But yeah if they didn’t unite I would think there would be less ethnicity wars in the future because right now many Ukrainians think that Russians are just mongols that took over kievan rus
It should be also mentioned that Vladimir's grandmother Olga (also a canonised Saint) was a Christian as well as semi-legenary chiefs Askold and Dyre .
Askold and Dir didn't stick around, since they were murdered by Oleg, and Olga of Kiev's religion was not followed by her son, who feared that his warriors would laugh at him for converting to such a "peaceful" religion.
@@stepanokhrimenko9189 The Rus were traditionally tolerant of other religions, when Sviatoslav I conquered Bulgaria, he allowed the Bulgarian tsar and his state to exist as a vassal under his rule, as he intended to use Bulgaria and its resources to conquer the Byzantine Empire.
Cody Central Asia had plenty of great cities Also the title Tsar exist in Persian (khosro) or they could use the word shah Could be adopted by Russians in case of Persian influence See Persian Central Asia Edit: alcohol is pretty important in sufism (basically mystical islam) so that could be interesting
@@boygenius538_8 I live in Iran so I've seen plenty who do drink (we drink more than Russians do) The sufi literature frequently mentions wine and sufis are not as strict when it comes to sharia
@@johnwbh maybe but truth be told shiaism is basically just Persian hatred for Islam we aren't real Muslims Also a shia russia wouldn't be too good for us since if they think of themselves as true shia state they'll invade more than they did in real life
It would be nice to explore how this may have affected Sweden as well since it was the Great Northern War that ended the Swedish Empire and turned Russia into a major European player, but that war happened in the first place because Peter The Great wanted to be a part of the West, so Russia being Islamic might have changed those ambitions completely (not counting the aspect that Peter wouldn't have ruled in the first place)
One thing is certain, if Russia was a Muslim nation there wouldn’t be anywhere near the amount of alcoholism that has existed throughout their history.
I wonder if Russia's relationship with Central Asia would've change. Central Asia probably is still part of empire. But the "vibes" are completely different.
Vladimir the Great in our timeline: "Drinking is the joy of the Rus. We cannot exist without the pleasure." Vladimir the Great in the alternate timeline: "Okay, but what if it did?" *creates a new sect of Islam purely to allow drinking.*
I don't think the alchohol thing would be as big of a problem as you're thinking. The Hanafi fiqh (school is Islamic jurisprudence) is one which has a long tradition of interpreting the Quranic prohibitions on alcohol extremely literally (i.e. only forbidding wine, not other types of alcohol), and in our reality it's the main fiqh of central asia and the caucases. The school only started prohibiting all alchohol in the 12th century, which is long after the Rus would have converted. I can easily see this not happening due to alternate timeline pressures, and Russians happily going to Masjid on Fridays while sloshed on their halal Vodka.
No looooool even in hanafi it is prohibited What you speak about is another topic about using alcohol in food and it only allow 2 percent All muslim shia and sunni prohibit alcohol
3:25 The Cyrillic alphabet was not made by the Greeks. It was made by fellow Slavs, the Bulgarians under the rule of Simeon the Great, specifically by followers of Cyril and Methodius (the people shown in the image).
So cool! I always was interested in what White Muslim societies would be like - Bosniaks, Albanians, Circassians, and Northeast Caucasians are some of the most intriguing examples
Here's an idea 12:00. You previously noted how Russia is instead being largely based on Byzantine and Roman styles, but would instead have a far closer connection to Muslim Persia. So how about they take on the title of Shah?
@@finalMadfox khan was turkic and the first rus rulers called themselves khagans. their were khanates in eastern europe way before the mongols (like avar khanate)
A very important detail people often ignore in these "ismlamic Russia" scenarios is pork. It would be a far bigger issue than alcohol, medieval Russian agriculture was *really* dependent on pork. So yeah, russian Islam either has a funny quirk of just entirely abandoning Islamic outlook on food and drink or there's a whole lot more famines.
I remember that Islam allows you to eat pork if nothing else is available. So maybe Russia will have pork as the emergency haram food supply. Or they will just try to switch to beef and chicken.
I'd imagine the former, even now many muslims I know simply say "it is only haram if I get completely drunk so a few shots is halal" and chug bottles of alcohol. in this alternate Russia, I could imagine the whole country adopting Islam with a few quirks.
He tried to make himself a God King to a bunch of different Pagan Religions, Norse, Slavic, Uralic, even Persian Paganism ((if Wikipedia is to be believed))
I mean, that' was basically paganism in a nutshell; it's own unique religion. Vladimir converted religions because he didn't want to be isolated, he wanted to be connected w/ the cosmopolitan medieval world.
Great video, as always! I have an idea for a future video that no one has ever done that I can find, what if the Muslim world industrialized with the West or at least during the late 1800s. It would be very interesting, in my opinion to see how Iran, central Asia, and arabia would develop in this timeline.
Honestly it is a wild card? Also for reminder country what killed Teutonic knights was Poland. So they would most likely try size Novgorod instead instead dealing with Russia.
Working off of the idea of Novgorod remaining separate from Kiev, in the 17th century and onward, would Novgorod become Lutheran (or some other form of Protestantism)? Would there be a "Great Northern War of Religion" because of it, involving at least Novgorod, Poland-Lithuania, and Sweden? I really like this general concept of an Islamic "Russia" (really Islamic Kiev in this case) because of how open ended it is. Good job Cody!
What gets crazy to me is how the scenario of Islamic russia uniting (except for Novgorod) and holding together the same way they did in our timeline and how it changes 19th century to present day history. How would that affect WW1? Novogorod being a player also opens up fascinating possibilities. Like the central powers seeing them as basically “true russia” or maybe Novogord gets ambitions of conqu- I mean reclaiming old Russia. Maybe in the past years they petition for crusades again and again. But how does that effect everything with Poland? It’s unlikely because of Poland but what happens if Novgorod embraces the reformation and becomes Lutheran or Reformed? How does it affect WW2? Kinda depends I guess how who they side with in WW1. But imagine this: the Russian civil war still happens in this alternate timeline but it’s against an islamic state. So islam is more widely seen as the imperialist enemy that must be brought down. This could see “white” (or maybe they’re “green” in this case?) army fleeing into Novgorod and bringing islamic influences with them, while the newly established Soviet Union actually looks to spread SOUTH towards other Muslim nations. So what happens to Turkey? What happens to Iran? Etc. and if communism is so busy looking south and not at Europe proper, do the nazis even feel threatened by it? Does Europe? If they don’t or feel threatened by socialism but see communism as a strange eastern mutation of it, then perhaps something like operation Barbarossa doesn’t actually happen. Lebensraum is achieved by conquering Poland and Novgorod and the countries like Estonia and Latvia. I think this whole scenario has Russia facing south and East. Their march over the Urals may come sooner in this time and I imagine more frequent wars with Japan. But does an Islamic Russian army fight the Asians for national purposes or for jihad purposes? And if they succeed? Does Japan become muslim? And what a wrench THAT throws into the 20th century as we know it. Imagine Islamic Russians breaking Japan’s isolation. Or turning them Muslim before they isolated. A Japan without their paganism and emperor worship up and into the 20th century I imagine means potentially no radical expansion into China. It completely changes everything but also if somehow they end up as America’s enemy in WW2, the war takes on a very different view. America is seen as a Christian nation and sees itself the same way just with religious liberty essentially. Does that mean WW2 in the pacific takes on a religious aspect of the Christian West vs the Muslim East? Interesting stuff. The butterfly effect for this one is insane lol.
Some of the best alternate history videos are ones that show you the importance of the real world events. This video is one is them. It shows the Eastern Roman influence on early Russia in a way I never realized before.
I think the two major takeaways from this timeline are that 1) The South of Russia, stretching from eastern Ukraine over the Volga river and into parts of central Asia, would be either some kind of unified Islamic state or a series of smaller countries. Regardless, I think if anything Poland is the one who expands east and sort of replaces Russia, at least west of the urals. What this means for things like German unification, idk. 2) If Japan goes down a smiliar path to OTL, westernizing and industrializing, they might create a huge empire in the east. If China is weakened much the same in the 19th century, there would really be nobody to stand in the way of Japanese expansion into Pacific Siberia, Korea, and probably much of China as well. I can't possibly imagine what this would mean for global alliances etc. Maybe the British would see them as an ally against China, maybe they would view them as a threat. Maybe we get the Emperor of Japan claiming the Mandate of Heaven. Okay that last one is a bit out there. I'd like to give a disclaimer that I am not very smart with history and this was all just thought off on a whim.
The biggest change is that there wouldn't be any german blood in the Russian Tsars. Nicholas ll had 16 great great grandparents. 11 of them were German, 3 where Danish, 1 was Welsh, and 1 was Russian. On top of that Nicholas ll married a german wife. There have been a ton of German emperors of Russia and that cultural interaction would not occur due to the religious differences. Russia would be stuck in the middle of archaic, bizarre medieval Islamic theological conflicts instead of archaic, bizarre medieval Christian theological conflicts. For example, Muslims debated over whether the Quran had to be read in Arabic or if you could allow people to read it in their own native language. Christians had their own debate over whether the Bible had to be read in Latin that was solved for good when Martin Luther translated the bible in German, the language most people spoke. Muslims debated whether the Islamic call to prayer had to be in Arabic. Russia would certainly reject the Cyrillic alphabet in favor of the Persian alphabet. Theoretically, the Russians could convert to the Arabic Alphabet but Persia is closer and more accessible. Aside from the ban on alcohol, Muslims also debated the whether painting a picture of somebody was a sin. Most believed this created a graven image which was banned.
In reality, the Kievan Rus were forced to start conversions to Orthodox Christianity after a war with Byzantium. It was a draw, but one of the terms of the treaty was that Greek merchants and church had freedom of movement and operation in Russia. This is how conversion started.
What interests me is how this would affect the Baltic. Novgorod separating from Russia and adopting Christianity would have two other major effects you didn't mention. First, Novgorod was a republic, and while not democratic in the modern sense, this could have laid the groundwork for a democratic northern Russia in the modern age. As for the Livonian Order, I think they still would've fallen, conquered either by the Poles or the Swedes (or maybe Novgorod if relations break down). But the biggest impact in the north is Sweden. Without Russian pressure from the East, Sweden would face far fewer threats. This means that there is a very real possibility that Sweden doesn't get decimated by the Great Northern War and instead continues on as a major power into the 19th century. Perhaps Finland then never separates from Sweden.
I like the idea of two Russias--one Catholic and Northern, the other Muslim and with links into Central Asia and the Middle East. Presumably, Muslim Russia is able to expand eastward like the historical Tsars did, especially if they're blocked by the Christians in Eastern Europe. We likely see a Muslim Russia with a less ambiguous transcontinental heritage that the modern Russia displays, more comfortably identifying with "Asia" or at least not being European. Ironically, they also feud with the Ottomans even more than historical Russia did. They probably also hang on to Alaska, should they ever stake a claim to it. Would Catholic Russia go Protestant under Scandinavian influence, or would a stronger Poland-Lithuania keep them Catholic? I think the former is more likely, especially due to the Baltic trade. The Swedes wind up consistently allying with the Russians in this timeline, which presumably prolongs their regional dominance into the 18th century. And speaking of the Baltic, Christian Russia probably incorporates what is now Livonia and Estonia into its realm, at the very least following the decline of Sweden. The Northern Crusades having already been redirected somewhat southward towards Moscow means there is a greater history of cooperation between this Russia and neighboring Slavs. By the modern day, Christian Russia presumably has the more impressive recent history due to their closer ties with Europe. In a Great War they probably tried dismembering their Muslim counterpart into spheres of influence like what happened with the Ottomans and Great Britain and France, though with somewhat greater success than the latter powers found.
Part 2 should focus on the economic factors. Financing and trade were frowned upon in our Russia but would have been seen very differently from an Islamic perspective. While rulers are very significant, I don't see the medieval plebs of Russia still existing by the time of the Russian-Japanese war.
Well Islamic world isn't really famous with it's financing and trade. Developed capitalism with banks, joined enterprises, etc. was firstly developed in Western Christian states. And "medieval" peasants were a normal occurence throughout Eurasia. Turkish, Iranian, Armenian, Uzbek etc. all lived in more or less similar conditions as Russians. So I don't see how change of Religion would affect their economic well-being/
@@mastersafari5349 They would still have a "merchant class", kind of like the Ahi guilds in medieval Anatolia. Muhammad, after all, was a merchant who travelled to Syria to sell luxury goods. Charging interest would be sewn as a form of usury, but as this Russia would grow its economy from the Volga river trade with the Persians and the fur trade with the Europeans, they would still have a focus on commerce. Peasants and serfs would still exist at least until the 18th century however.
So, I started thinking a bit about how people could see Brittain from the French coast, what if you did a video on a scenario where Brittain was actually just further enough away that the white cliffs of dover were not visible? Like it could be a non-romanized isle, Brittany could have been more Pagan than Catholic. It is just an interesting thought experiment tbh
Maybe Russia doesn't expand all the way to the Pacific, but shifts its aims towards Persia and the Middle East conquering a good portion of it it or shattering against the Ottomans and the Steppe Tribes
I think one of the most interesting points in this scenario for me are the other slavs, like you said with no Russia to influence them I could see most of the "Yugoslavs" becoming catholic since the beeg slav state is Poland now, and of course I could not mention the Polish lebensraum that would definitely see panslavism being a stronger ideology since there's just Hungary between the balkans and the PLC, and how it's the duty of the poles to do a reconquista of the rus to reunite all the slavs under their true lord Jesus or something like that.
Cody, this is such an interesting scenario! Alcohol amongst Muslims are not unheard off, for instance Alawites and Alevis incorporate it into their rituals and are encouraged to drink, and even before secular Muslim culture was a thing the Ottoman sultan-caliphs indulged with their court. I think you might be very correct that Russians would adopt Islam and get a Sheikh-al-Islam to make a fatwa allowing the consumption of alcohol. It could also be possible Russian Islam becomes something like Anatolian Alevism, a non-standardized syncretic religion that is mostly Islamic but mixes various Sufi theologies and pre-existing local customs and folk traditions (this would allow alcohol to persist, Alhamdulillah) Here’s one conflict to think about and it would be interesting to think about what Muslim Russia would do: Shah Ismail’s inquisition like conversation of Iran into a Shia state and the subsequent Safavid-Ottoman wars formed the foundation of modern Sunni-Shia relations. What would be MRussia’s role in this conflict and the general Sunni-Shia conflict?
That reminds me of Islam in Indonesia, most Indonesians are Muslims but many Indonesians (especially "the traditional Muslims" and especially among the older generations) also incorporate some aspects of Pre-Islamic religions into their worship.
I think one of the biggest changes in this alternate scenario is that Russia would actually hold on to Central quite easily and without long-term resistance to oppression because of the Muslim influence in the area. In fact, if we assume that the ENTIRETY of world history stays the same (Just Russia become Islamic) they would most likely still own Central Asia because of the state religion, not to forget possibly Azerbaijan as well, I think I'm very interesting to take into account that the USSR (most likely not communist though) could've stayed alive and maybe even gain Chinese lands if their medieval relatives took it early on.
I think Russia would be turkified greatly and continue the legacy of the Golden Horde. The Muslim world was already almost entirely turkified by that time. They would definitely adopt the Arabic script. They would still focus on conquering North-East and Central Asia. They would clash with the Ottomans occasionally and compete on controlling Eastern Europe, but they would aid each other against any Western encroachment. They would be very supportive of the Ottomans and the latter would be more aggressive towards the English. Russia would side with the Ottomans in WW1, they would still lose but wouldn't entirely collapse, thus no colonization in the Middle East and no Wahhabism. Communism would still spread most likely but it would be probably islamised instead of being against religion. They would try to be neutral in WW2, but they would still join the Allies due to German and Japanese invasions. I can't imagine what could happen afterwards.
The Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire during the reign of Tsar Simeon I the Great, probably by disciples of the two Byzantine brothers Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, who had previously created the Glagolitic script.The script is named in honor of Saint Cyril.
I will say this- If Russia adopted Islam instead of Christianity, it's entirely likely that Soviet-style Communism would've never rose (At least to the capacity it did in our timeline). Russia would *likely* still have her own language, but with heavy Arabic/Persian influence. East Asia would likely never fall to the reds and Mongolia wouldn't likely form into a "modern" country (I can see it being more of a tribal area, but this is subjective. So much to unpack there and I find the whole area of East and SE Asia fascinating). Overall, E/SE Asia would likely stay the same that it was before 1912 in a noticeable capacity, but with China POSSIBLY holding onto Mongolia until 2012 (or whenever Taiwan wanted to leave it be). I don't think any Islam terrorist organizations would arise (again, in the same capacity they did in our time), and the West would still look on Russia with a different kind of wariness. NATO likely wouldn't have formed, or if it did, it would likely be a twilight-zone EU protecting Christianity. I can see North America (NA) being neutral to somewhat wary of the situation in Europe, although if there are any Pagan holdouts, I can see the possibility of them *possibly* seen as tribal (to an extent) through some lenses, although they'd be skewed. Nazism and Hitler wouldn't have come up why it did in our timeline, it would be more about keeping the Muslims back - there would THANKFULLY be no Holocaust (at least not aimed at the Jewish population- in an ideal world, it wouldn't have been dreamt of). The Cold War would likely be a European affair only, being along the lines of Islam and Non-Islam rather than Communism and Capitalism, but this is hard to predict- there was a lot of incompetence there, thanks to a paranoid nutbar named "Man of Steel". Back to Siberia, I can see it being any number of states, all of which have varying Mongolic (and possibly Chinese in a far-flung image, but it's negligible) influence. I'm not sure how the relationship between the places would be, but I can see some form of cooperation, again, due to Islamic Russia. In short, take this all with a grain of salt. It's just what I think could've happened for a Part II or Part III (If you decide to draw it out that long). Also, I know it's not related, but you've had me as a loyal viewer for YEARS now. You have very interesting content.
Disclaimer: There is a difference between the Rus and modern day Russians. I just didn't want to keep repeating Eastern Slavs for the entire video.
I was about to comment something, but glad you clarified. I imagined you knew, and this decision makes sense
Oh yeah definitely, though while this is probably a stupid question, why is it that you aren’t referring to the “Rus” as the “Kievan Rus”?
The kievan Rus is basically the eastern slavic equivalent of the western roman empire to Spain, Portugal, Italy and France. All east slavs trace their heritage there, but it doesn't belong to any of them specifically.
i reload youtube and am blessed with being able to be the obnoxious fourth reply who doesn’t say anything related to the previous comment
@@carpathianwolf3523 thank you for the clarification.
Vlad vibe checking the worlds religions is my headcanon now
Islam is bad
cope
"Hinduism? *Reads all* This sounds... Gay"
@im sacred that video changed my life
@imsacredtotell go away, bots
Also in other news... if Russia became Muslim, then the Cold War would've become a religious war @.@ (Though the question remains whether or not there would've even been a cold war. Would communism even be incentivized to form in this new russia?)
Lets be honest Cody. This scenario is just impossible because the Rus would never give up on the idea of drinking alcohol for the sake of religion.
God Drinks Vodka Boyar
REMEMBER THAT
I unironically would see the Russian states of the time adopting an pff shoot of islam that allows drinking.
Islam is bad
Not really arabs were more heavy drinkers than other nations before islam
Infact arab created alcohol 😂😂😂😂😂😂
even the bears perfer orthodox
I'm Muslim, and one of my religious teachers at school told me that Russia "almost" became Islamic. I always thought there was something suspect abt that statement, this video explains why.
Russia already is quite muslim. Like 10-15% of the population there is. There are probably more 'devout' muslims there than devout orthodox christians
@@anonymousbloke1 not true, not really devout.
You can visit the current muslim ex soviet states, people drink vodka infront of mosques
@Жидальберт Мойшевич caucasus region is mostly religious Muslims but tartar Muslims are either non religious or liberals
I'm glad Russia didn't
@@karantikoo9302 Chechnya, Tatarstan and the like are pretty devout. I wasn't talking about other "states", if you didn't mean oblasts of Russia, I don't know how devout people in Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and the like are, I was only speaking for Russia. Russia is a pretty damn muslim country. And if we were to judge how muslim countries are by how much people there drink, there probably wouldn't be any muslim countries whatsoever..
As a Slav (Ukrainian but still) Vlad choosing Christianity over Islam because it let us keep drinking is the single most Slavic thing I’ve ever heard. There legit might be no deeper meaning to it, we love our vodka that much
Also his Grandmother. (Oleg, regent to Svilatoslav. The "give me a bird from each of your houses," then ties cinders to them to burn the city down. " and "turn a bathhouse into a pyre for a opposion army during peace negotions" women. ) Was a devout Orthodox. "If its good enough for her. Its good enough for me"
To be fair this story is probably not so true.
Most likely, this is a myth from pop culture. In the Medieval Rus with the capital in Kyiv, Christianity had deeper roots, taking into account the cultural ties with the Eastern Roman Empire and Bulgaria.
I mean, the balkans were able to do it?
@@Natpad_027 hopefully it's true it would be most slavic thing ever
that Christian Novgorod, Islamic Kyiv scenario sounds REALLY interesting! I would love a follow up!
Funnily enough even without being Muslim some Russian tsars used to call themselves sultans when addressing Muslim monarchs and/or nations. They also called themselves padishahs and hakans. There are 2 tughras(calligraphic autograph sort of) of Peter the Great for example. In one he is called "Peter son of Aleksej Sultan of two norths and hakan of two seas" and in another, he is called "Peter the First son of Aleksej, Padishah of Rus".
Alice Caesar is a Roman name
Pedro José is a Portuguese name
What is a Hakans?
@@vuvuvu6291 Hakan is a different spelling of Khan that was used mostly by turkic states.
Padishah is persian title and hakan is turkic
Russian rulers doing this to with western neighbors address themselves with common western title
If Russia picked Islam, CSGO would have a totally different vibe. Funny how you didn't mention that Cody Hmmmmm?
Islam is bad
Aye Stoneworks
Hey man
Ok
The idea of a commercially focused Catholic Novgorod is super interesting, especially considering in the OTL they had a sort of council-based government. Would love to see a video about a Venice of the north. Also I wonder how this would effect the Swedish empirr
Well Novgorod did have a Hanseatic League embassy, so the trade was there.
@@EugenssonNovgorod didn't just have embassy, it was at certain time a member of Hansa
@@PyromaN93 it was never a full member of Hansa. However it had strong commercial ties with it.
@@Eugensson oh,my bad, checked it.
Most hillarious thing - Novgorod was the last Viking state.
Novgorod pirates raided other principalities, and even mongols and Sweden
To quote an Egyptian Army Captain I met while in the Navy years ago. He poured himself a giant solo cup of wine while we Americans were staring. He looked at us and said,"What? Islam is my religion, not my diet." Then he chugged the whole thing refilled it and kept going. And he wasn't the only who did it either. Only one of their cadre didn't drink and he didn't seem to care that his compatriots did.
As they say in Bosnia, "the Quran prohibits drinking wine, but it says nothing about rakija"
Much like the bibles forbids a bunch of stuff and christians still do it, same happens within Islam (although maybe not as common due to the own nature of the religion). Everyone has a different interpretation of the religion, fitting it to their core beliefs, so it wouldn't be THAT crazy to think of a vodka drinking sultanate.
@@rezajafari6395 islam forbids any thing that’s harmful for you. And alcohol and what comes form it intoxication are both forbidden. So any thing that intoxicates you is forbidden in islam. Search about it to make sure.
@@rezajafari6395 Egyptian army is very non religious because you will be imprisoned if you showed signs of religiousness
A lieutenant in the Egyptian army was imprisoned because he memorized the Quran and when he get out of jail he went sprinting into isis hands
@@mustfaaboassd I had to do a double take when you said Isis because I thought you were talking about the Egyptian god Isis. Then I realized you were talking about the terrorist group.
I want to explore the Christian Novgorod divide scenario more. It seems most likely to me that when the Golden hoard was thrown off, it left many areas of Petty Kings, Warlords, and the like. Having a Moscow-like under the banner of Islam start gobbling them up while Novgorod to the north does the same feels like a hell of a game night, at least!
I have my own Alternate History scenarios, and Novogorod surviving as an independant state is already one I've been considering (though still christian russians). Would love to hear someone wo does this more than me consider it.
It honestly seems pretty likely too, given the circumstances. The people of Novgorod aren't just going to stop trading west, so it would kind of be shooting themselves in the foot to distantly tie themselves to the muslim community of moscow, central asia and the middle east rather than just huddling up with more of their immediate neighbours.
I think it would be more interesting to see Novgorod take a fusion of christianity and morph into its Pagan values like what Orthodoxy kinda did off Christians and local beliefs.
It would be interesting if an independent and mighty Novgorod adopted a brand of Christianity totally different, like say beleived and militarily defended the teachings of Martin Luther during the Reformation... like a lot. Could you imagine a Lutheran H.R.E.?
After-posting thought: In this scenario, that doesn't seem all that unlikely, given the "game night" scenario in another reply here*, and the fact that Lutherans and Orthodoxy almost got along at first, and this scenario entirely changes who is in charge of the Orthodox faith at the time.
*proposed by "Tank of Reality"
EU4 save exports from CKII be like:
A Russia with no vodka would be no Russia
If people were told "now u muslim no vodka" february revolution would happen 1000 years earlier
The topic wouldn't be so sudden, of course; our religion starts with prohibitions automatically to avoid any aggressive reactions.
@@davidibidokun2693
@@davidibidokun2693 LOL
Geography is the final arbiter of history. You realizing this and mentioning it in every video sets you apart. Well done.
Hard to imagine Moscow without St. Bails cathedral
* Sheikh Bails Masjid
Ngl I thought it said St. Balls cathedral at first
Islam is bad
Hard to imagine Russia without vodka
Instead it’d be a massive mosque
Gotta love the deep dives into alternative stuff. Very fascinating conversation while also every now and then picking up more knowledge on history that I missed on
I think we would see a Kievan Russ collapse, and divided among different princes, some staying Pagan, some turning Catholic, others Orthodox, and others Islamic in order to either gain foreign support, allies, and trade partners or some stubbornly sticking to their Pagan traditions. In the long term I believe this would consolidate Russia into 2 to 4 nations, with the most likely to stick around in my opinion being Islamic Russia, and Catholic Russia with Orthodox Russian Princes being conquered due to the collapse of Eastern Rome. And the Pagans being pushed out due to the lack of religiously motivated allys smoothing relations. While nations were more then willing to work with other faiths, it made things a lot easier and would have a major impact in my opinion. The interesting thing here is, the Pagan Russians instead of being wiped out, might be forced to migrate east, into Siberia to escape persecutions and become a centerpoint of a Siberian pagan nation or series of nations with the Christian and Islamic Russians focusing on the richer lands west of the Urals and on conquering lands from each other.
Interesting, so how do the mongols factor in? Like Cody said they're coming werther or not Vladimir the Great chooses any religion. Which it's important to say that the conquest east was seen as defensive, "the Tatars can't invade us if we occupy their land"
Rodnoverie Siberia. Have not heared words more based in a long time.
@@Thatonepersonyouheard Id imagine something similar of the occupy them first variety, however the warfare would likely be alot more brutal and a far more gradual march/conquest eastwards in my opinion.
Though there is always the possibility that these Pagan Russians get conquered by the mongols/tatars but I dont believe that would last long term due to the collapseing Mongolian empire/s
@@hakced No way to truly predict how well it would go though, but no matter what it would make for some interesting wars fighting the mongols and other groups to carve out a new nation.
Russian would look like nowadays middle east always at war with each other as they are muslim and islam the 2 worst allah trash cultures who won't see a win in the next war and will be a central target to be wiped out as they have been the cause of everyone's problems and the west is waking up to that and are starting to no want them Canada being one of thos as they pushed terrorist views for the 5 years and its coming to bit terrorist like muslims and islam
Something to keep in mind with Vladimir choosing Orthodoxy is that he was raised primarily by his grandmother, Olga (either a Bulgarian princess or a Viking of Pskov, depending on who you ask), who was a devout Orthodox Christian and even lead a delegation to Constantinople to meet the Emperor. So, Vladimir was likely already Orthodox privately before he enforced Christianity on Kievan Rus.
P.S., the Cyrillic alphabet is a Bulgarian-Slavic alphabet, established by Cyril's pupils during the First Bulgarian Golden Age. It's based on the Glagolic alphabet, which IS a Greek-created alphabet, created by Cyril and Methodius to serve as a alphabet for the slavic peoples the Byzantine alphabet was trying to convert to Orthodox in Christianity power politics.
@@ChristinaAgerskov And Vladmir's reign was from 980 till 1015, r u trolling?
@@ChristinaAgerskov 🤨
He wasn't orthodox, because before adopting christianity he tried to reform slavic paganism, but failed, because different tribes tended to worship different gods
Just because of drink please don't give up Islam only true religion
In sha Allah in paradise Jannat we will drink more greater better drink forever
We don't know when we will die accept Islam and become muslim
May Allah give you hidayat - Aameen
@@muhammadirshadali9487Vodka tho
you mentioned offhand that maybe Russia would develop it's script from Persian, so my friend and i arranged an abjad system for writing Russian and i cobbled together a windows keyboard layout for it. it's really cool to use, and we just realized that the word for "toilet" is written the same way as it is in Farsi, so we must have done something right :p
Look up this thing lol.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arebica
@@Ayyjay1952 Apparently there's a system for writing Belarusian in the Arabic script, that's what we primarily used as a source
@@wolfgang2453 Yeah, I was just pointing out, that a similar system was developed between the 15th and the 19th centuries to transliterate the Serbo-Croatian language, another Slavic language into an Arabic-derived script. The Wikipedia link gives more info
@3.KADEME TEKME Much like any western European language uses the Latin script and has their own alphabet, Persians use the Arabic script and have their own version of it. Pretty obvious what was meant.
@3.KADEME TEKME If you have a complaint take it up with the video. Clearly you didn't finish watching it because I was just quoting him. I'm not going to argue with you about something that is factual.
This video came out so quick. I remember voting in a poll like yesterday.
Still can't believe this dude's grandmother was St. Olga, one the most hardcore lady saints. Like... she's literally the Patron Saint of Vengeance. I remember reading about how she created a trench to burry a bunch of soldiers from a nation that killed her husband and then burned the leaders to death by locking them in her castle.
I honestly think those "vibes" partly came from there. He might've done some research on her.
She was born Russia even Russian women are warriors 🇷🇺
Well, she was Viking/Varangian, of course she was brutal.
Just because of drink please don't give up Islam only true religion
In sha Allah in paradise Jannat we will drink more greater better drink forever
We don't know when we will die accept Islam and become muslim
May Allah give you hidayat - Aameen
As funny as that apocryphal quote about Vladimir choosing the Abrahamic religion that would allow him to drink is, alcohol was and is still drunk in the Muslim world. There are records all over of rulers drinking wine; there were even whole ceremonies and genres of poetry dedicated to wine in central Asia and the Middle East. Just because it's forbidden or at least frowned upon doesn't mean it was always applied. "Thou shalt not kill" wasn't exactly on the mind of a lot of Christian kings after all.
This is one of your most interesting scenarios. My knowledge of eastern European history is limited, so I don't know if I can provide much insight or new ideas, but I thoroughly enjoyed watching this video.
You could've just left a like instead of writing all this
@@kekzealot3568 they don't say "like, comment, OR subscribe." They say "like, comment, AND subscribe."
In all seriousness, the TH-cam algorithm uses engagement statistics, including likes and comments, to decide what videos to recommend on your feed. If you want to help your favorite creators, both liking and commenting on their videos really helps.
@@Christopher_TG but your comment literally said nothing besides that you liked it
@@kekzealot3568 shut up nerd
@@kekzealot3568 your comment adds nothing but making you seem like a dick
I have you one better, Cody:
What if Japan converted to Muslim in 1906?
"In 1906, widespread campaigns were aimed at Muslim nations with journals reporting that a Congress of religions was to be held in Japan where the Japanese would seriously consider adopting Islam as the national religion and that the Emperor was at the point of becoming a Muslim"
Japanese mythology would be changed, Muhammad would be connected to Jimmu, and they will make their mythology a mixture of Monotheism like how Africans kept Orulun as creator God as Muslims and Christians.
Is This For Real Or Its Just a Joke?
@@mr.fishmanman nah, it's true. Just like that time England also considered converting to Islam
@@mr.fishmanman Forreal
@@mr.fishmanman Israel
First good premise you’ve had in a while. Good shit. Glad to see you still got some juice.
I like this change of pace with more unrealistic scenarios. I like the more grounded ones of course, but this brings back some essence of what alternate history felt like when I first discovered it.
One large error I noticed in your video is the lack of Lithuania completely in this scenario, given they had major influence over trade in Eastern Europe and conquered a large portion of Eastern Europe from the Golden horde. Also, the Northern crusades would have massively changed with an Islamic Russia.
You mention Poland a lot, yet they didn't have much of a presence in the area. Lithuanian leaders like Algirdas were the ones to conquer major cities like Kyiv before the union
Ironically enough, an Islamic Russia may have resulted in an Islamic Lithuania as Lithuania would continue to expand and integrate with Islamic culture in this situation
I still dont get how did you defeated mongols and the rus princes while being so small
@Базированный Демократ Lithuanians and other Baltic peoples used to inhabit a much larger area, and were far more battle hardened/militarized due to centuries of fighting and finally unifying
Lithuania rapidly expanded as well, thanks to the Grand Dukes of the Gediminds dynasty, who were able to expand rapidly with the help of diplomacy (marriages, integration, supporting rebels, etc) and the usage of light cavalry
Lithuania was one of the last remaining pagan nations at the time, but they held onto their paganism strongly, so much so that rulers like Gediminas and Algirdas remained pagan, even as they ruled over increasing numbers of Christians, so they had to balance pleasing the pope, their Orthodox subjects, and their pagan supporters. In fact, if Lithuania did convert to Islam, there would be no Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, because as part of a deal to marry Jadwiga, the queen of Poland, the grand duke of Lithuania Jogaila (aka Wladyslaw II Jagiello), converted himself and his people to Christianity.
@@compatriot852 no mention of slavic majority of GDL who populated the ranks of army. Sole baltic noblemen on their horses conquering and controlling vast territories from sea to sea.
you was Russian that time till the Swedes seized these territories.. and all your ancient documents where on Russian
This is one of the few channels that actually makes watching the sponsored bit entertaining. I wish others did that, might actually make me more apt to buy something.
The idea of an independent Christian Novgorod makes the most sense to me, so whilst Russia does unite "mostly" it's split between these two states and thus the rift between Europe and what we think of as Russia is even more vast, with only Novgorod being able to slightly fill that hole.
I mean, Novgorod was beaten and annaxed by Moscovy in our timeline, I don really see how this would change.
@@ZiCUnlivedbirchif they were to become a bulwark of faith, they could have tried to spin this in combination with their economical and political ties to baltic states in order to get help from Western European countries on the Baltic Sea and from Roman Catholic Church.
@@fillosof66689 Novgorod was also a member of the Hanseatic League, and I'd imagine that if anything threatened Novgorod severely, like religion, the Hanseatic states could enticed to muster their forces to defend Novgorod.
@@ZiCUnlivedbirch BS right here the entire Russian history is full of fabricated lies made up by the Germanic Romanovs. All these states that exist in modern day Russia was part of a great forgotten empire called Tartaria.
What if the Novgorod Republic was able to avoid being annexed into Russia?
what if colonial novgorod without forming russia?
@im sacred no, thats a clip of makign a pizza ...
@@calebr7199 With Danish controlling exit from Baltic sea, expansionist Sweden on the west, frozen waters on the north, uninhabitable lands for large settlements on the east and no way to the south? How it can become "colonial"?
It would be annexed)
@@Ocelot835 it was a joke referring to a bunch of fans of an eu4 youtuber asking him to play colonial novgorod
I think the most interesting part of this scenario would be Russia's modern relationship with Afganistan, Chechnia, and Syria, it could even lead to America never declaring the "war on terrorism", beacause they would risk bothering Russia too much
Well, in that perspective Russia would have never allied with Serbia, that alone would already had a great effect on the landscape of the Balkan Wars and relationship with the US.
Bro russian are friends with syria to keep the country dictator i mean president
Islam+Russia=US has left the chat
@@Eugensson Or maybe Serbia would convert to Islam.
BTW, was there any way the US could have become a Muslim-majority country? Such as the founding fathers accepting Islam and convincing people to follow them as to separate themselves from Britain?
I really like this long style videos :), continue doing it
I would imagine that the direction to expande for this new Islamic Russia would be more focused, maybe, on becoming a hegemon in Central Asia and Iran/northern India instead of Siberia, since they could use religious ties to exploit the politics of these far richer regions (at least compared to Siberia).
I would also imagine this scenario really affects the Victorian culture, in seeing a white yet islamic power rivalling at times with the europeans.
On a side note, I'm so glad you went for this scenario and not the done to death Romanov one :3
hmmm perhaps a Muslim Russia would follow a slavicized form of Shia Islam ☪️ just perhaps 🤔
I mean Slavs weren’t really considered white until the 1900s
What do you mean Romanov scenario??
@Mohamed Ahmed the problem with the Russian Sufism idea is, although i agree with you that it probably would be a alcohol-allowing sect, i don't thing it can stay esoteric very long. Esotericism in a religion inherently require a great degree of dedication both spititually and phisically. I think it would more likely istituzionalize into something akin to sunni and shia islam, becoming a third branch.
Then again, religion is not the only factor into play when considering expansion or aggressiveness. Russia is a nation bound to be expansionist since the moment it unites, since the lack of natural borders would always be a factor that would push for a "defensive imperialism" (i would argue the same can be said for nations like Germany)
@@redbear1839 Ehhh I find the defensive imperialism theory (At least the modern one that *insists* Russia in general and Putin in particular want the Carpathians) to be a bit exaggerated.
For an alternate take on the title conundrum: a Muslim Rus that overthrew the Golden Horde and conquered/unified its fractured successor states might see itself as the rightful continuation of the Golden Horde and the legacy of Genghis Khan (which serves as a handy justification for Eastward expansion) and such the Emperors of Russia might take the title Kagan and as a result the Cossacks would be less like autonomous subject and more like a subclass of the Boyars with the same marriage ties that our Russia has with the Byzantines being formed with the surviving Ghenghisids/Borjigins, strengthening the Russian claim as ruler of the steppes.
The golden hord convertd to islam too .....
BASED could be even more if the rus actually adopted the Caliphal succession system...
RUSSO - TATAR - CALIPHATE - COSMOS - UNION
You can hear how painful this scenario is in his voice.
But I do find it as an interesting scenario, perhaps if the Rus go south of the caucases, maybe a military alliance with Persia could stop the Ottamans from gaining a lot of power
The Rus' and Ottomans don't overlap periodically and "Persia" didn't even exist it was dominated by Ilkhanid Mongols, Timurids, and White Sheep Turcomans
@jzjxgxjxshxjx545how did you fail a bot ratio
Don't forget Yugoslavia and one part of Bosnia would be Islamic.
@@nenenindonu it was controlled mostly by the buyids at the time, who were persian. Then later a part of the turkish seljuk empire, who became pretty quickly persianized. The Ilkhanate came pretty later down the line.
@@nenenindonuThe official name of the Ilkhanate and Aq Qoyunlu was Iran or Persia
Actually I think the Russians allying with the Ottomans would make for a interesting part 2. If the Ottomans have a sizable ally in Europe to help them, just imagine how much further their conquests would get them. You could potentially have most of Eastern Europe living under an Islamic government, which would potentially cause Catholic Europe to explode. In fact, if that were to happen I could see most of Europe coming together to help stop the assault, as if it were a 2nd invasion by the Mongols that everyone feared.
Or you end up with Protestant Europe leaving them to their fate, and you get Islam and Protestantism as the main religions of Europe with Catholicism relegated to a few small holdouts. (Maybe Italy)
@@johnwbh I could actually see the Protestant Reformation being put off longer due to the increased presence of Islam. I mean even if the Spanish complete the Reconquesta that still leaves a sizable Islamic presence in Europe which I think would increase the idea of unity among the Catholic Church. In fact I could see the Crusades not happening or happening less because of an Islamic Russian presence
The Ottomans already ruled eastern and central Europe and the Mediterranean countries even western Europe, such as France, and they paid a lot of tribute to the Ottomans to be lenient with them and win them as allies in the 16 c ,,,
Imagine, with the help of Russia, they would rule all of Europe, and there would be no room for colonization trips to take place in the New World ,,,,,
Oh Shit thankfully that didn't happen...
Without colonialism this world wouldn't be what it is today
This is the first alternate history hub video I ever saw and it’s still as good as the first time I watched it
Fun fact, a small principality of Kievan Rus named Tmutarakan near the Crimean Peninsula was partly Islamized via Seljuk influence
For a part two, I think it'd be important to mention the fact that if the Rus were more interested in the Volga river trade that would've accelerated their conquest/colonization of Central Asia, which only took place in the 19th century in our timeline. I don't doubt the fact that Russia probably would've also been feuding with the Delhi/Mughals and the Ming/Qing
that's possible, if they adopted the same kind of politics as they did in real life, which is to focus on land expansion. They could also just not be very interested in going East now, maybe because Central Asia is already Muslim and does not need to be converted. it's just speculation though, could very well see them doing what you said
@@maciejbala477 excellent point Maciej, and yes you are right it does depend on their policies. Whether they were Sunni/Shia, have Tamerlane-like ambitions, or just wanted to control the Silk road all would affect the decision.
I am a Russian with a Central Asian-Muslim origin, preparing to become a graduate of the Institute of History this year, so I will try to supplement the comment above.
If Kievan Rus had adopted Islam, it would have significantly affected its history in the Mongol era. If in reality the confrontation between Russians and Mongols was fueled by differences in faith, then in an alternative scenario their relations could become much closer due to their common faith. Perhaps there would have been a cultural symbiosis between Muslim Slavs and Tatars and this would have led to a less noticeable fall of the Mongol yoke. Not as a result of a major battle like Kulikovo Field, but as a result of an internal coup or the collapse of the state, just as it happened with the Ilkhanate.
In addition, if Russia became Muslim, it would lead the eastern border of Europe along the borders of Poland and the Baltic States. Eastern Europe would become a frontier between Christian and Islamic civilization, just like Spain in the era of the Reconquista. Perhaps this would breathe new life into the Teutonic Order, since after the victory over the Baltic pagans, it could switch to the fight against Islamic Russia and receive support from Poland and the Holy Roman Empire.
Against this background, Russia and the Ottoman Empire could become not enemies, but allies against a common enemy. It is unlikely that the coexistence of these two huge empires would have been completely without conflicts, but Russia clearly would not have been obsessed with the ideology of the liberation of the Balkan Slavs and Constantinople. If Russia had helped the Ottomans capture Vienna, it would have made the struggle very difficult for Christians. But I think in the long term, the technological and economic advantage of the Western world would lead to partial isolation and conservation of Russia. Perhaps major reforms aimed at Westernizing the country would also have taken place, but rather at the same time when they actually took place in Turkey (the era of the Tanzimat).
Finally, the clash of interests of Russia and England would have occurred much earlier. The first attempts to penetrate into Transcaucasia in reality were made by Russians already at the end of the XVI century, and under Peter I they undertook campaigns in Persia and Turkestan. Unity of faith could make the rulers of Afghanistan and Persia allies of the Russians, but would lead to enmity with the Qin Empire for the liberation of the Uighurs. The vector of Russia's territorial expansion in this world would be much more diverted from the more technologically and economically advanced countries of Europe towards Central Asia.
P.S. Instead of the Romanovs, the descendants of the Mongol-Tatar conquerors could be at the head of Russia. Many noble families in Russia in reality (such as the Yusupovs, Godunovs, Golitsyns) were descended from Tatars. In this world, they would not only dominate the Russian political arena, but would also be supplemented by dynasties of Central Asian origin. In reality, the Russian tsars willingly accepted Baltic Germans, Swedes, Poles, Romanian Phanariots, Orthodox Georgians into their service. In this timeline, they could be Central Asian Genghisids, Iranian Kyzylbashi, Afghan Pashtuns and Baluchis.
@@raymonddefoix6017 great scenario there,love the speculation. One thing also that Russian culture would be heavily Turkified,more compared to present. And Caucasus and Persia would be the point of conflict between them and Ottomans.
@@raymonddefoix6017 Fun fact: Central Asian khanates began to perceive Russia as a serious power only by the end of the 17th century. Let me touch on one historical fact: in 1605, Khan of Bukhara, Baqi Muhammad. Preparing to march to Russia with a large army, his main goal was to return the throne of Astrakhan, which he considered his legitimate inheritance. But by chance this young Khan dies
When you got to the ad I was about to skip and leave, and then I was like “no wait, I want to see what happens to Jimmy in this one.” I was not disappointed. These companies should pay you like 10x the usual rate, you’re the only TH-camr who’s ad read I actually sit through.
I don't usually enjoy in-video commercials, but Jimmy having a full-on existential crisis over the third dimension was hilarious. 😂
i come from a majority muslim slavic country (bosnia) and for centuries even though we claim to be muslim, a lot of my fellow compatriots have drank alcohol, so a muslim slavic country which likes alcohol isnt strange at all
this only works if those "muslims" never read the quran, or just dont care about the quran. in which case they are muslims only in name and can just be disregarded as ignorant and useful for true muslims to refer ignant disbelievers to as a way to protect the true intentions of islam (to destroy the world and kill everyone).
See the Quran prohibits wine, but doesn’t say anything about rakija.
@@MCKevin289 it prohibits allcohol in general not specific types, it would be stupid to expect a 50 item list of prohibited alcoholic Drinks in it
Drinking alcohol won't make you an ex muslim you can still go to heaven with being a drunk yard
I’m actually legitimately interested in what would have happened if Russia was a Jewish nation honestly. Imagine how differently history would have played out if one of the most pre-eminent European powers in Eastern Europe was Jewish.
How would that affect diasporic communities in the rest of Europe? Would Russia be seen as a contemporary to Europe? And the biggest elephant in the room: how would the lack of anti-semitism in Russia affect the history of Zionism, as some of the earliest Zionist thinkers find their origins in the Russian Pogroms
On the ideas for part 2, mostly regarding Russian/Slavic culture and their policies against the Ottomans:
In a case of an Islamic Russia, it is a very real possibility that the entire rest of Slavdom and Greece become Catholic.
Before the rise of Russia and the Ottoman conquest, the cultural centres of the Slavic world were in Bohemia for the West Slavs and Bulgaria and more specifically Preslav and later Turnovgrad for the South and East Slavs, furthered by the fall of Kyiv under Mongol rule, to the point that we have surviving letters of Russian nobles negotiating buying religious texts at ridiculous prices ither from Byzantium with Bulgaria as the middleman or directly from them, and the Cyrillic alphabet, which was made by Bulgarians on the basis of the Greek alphabet and the Greek but more Czech-ish Glagolitic alphabet became dominant in the Kyivan Rus and the rest of the Orthodox world.
The point at which this starts to change is when you remember that, back in the 1200s, Bulgaria went Catholic to counter the Byzantines and get their titles recognised before returning to Orthodoxy because of the IV Crusade and that Byzantium did the exact same thing right before being conquered by the Turks.
Without Russia to escape to like in OTL, after the Turks conquer Constantinopole, the Orthodox churches would be forced to escape either to Italy (which admittedly also happened OTL and helped the Renaissance but that's besides the point) or remain alone under foreign, Islamic rule, both options leading to an eventuallity of submitting to Rome's dominion.
I doubt the Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians etc. would instantly give up all of their church traditions, as after all they were already centuries entrenched into the societies, rather I envision something similiar to OTL's Uniats or Eastern Catholic churches, keeping most of the traditions and practices of Orthodoxy but remaining in communion with the Pope, although seeing their disantvantageous possition the Orthodox churches would probably be forced to give up more. This whole ordeal would probably also lead to another domino effect, causing Western Europe to be more like the East culturally, considering that OTL the brain-drain from Byzantium and Bulgaria led to ridiculous things like a Bulgarian being Patriarch of Kyiv, many churches straight up just teaching entirely and exclusively in Greek up until Peter the Great forced them not to and Russian writting remaining almost entirely different from the common speech even of the aristocracy, being a sort of weird mix of South and East Slavic or what we now call "Old Church Slavonic" (which is confusing because it's also different from the original Slavic writting and language even tho it's lumped in with them under the language umbrella term), so I expect similliar effects in the West from Greek aristocracy.
Okay now comes the part that's actually about Russia.
To answer a question you asked in the video, the title of the Russian ruler would remain tsar (or maybe a slightly alternate version due to palatilization like chesar or kesar as was rarely found in OTL) but not because of Roman influence but because the word had already entered into Common Slavic trough Gothic (maybe we're not fully sure) and/or Proto-Germanic by the time the split of Proto-Slavic happened.
Without and Orthodox justification, Russia would probably not be that willing to fight the Ottomans, or atleast over Constantinopole, because while there still would be an incentive, they would have no use for hostile Christian territory that is mostly useful for trade with the unwilling Europeans, or atleast not as easy as, like you said, the Volga river. Same things would probably be true for North and Baltic sea trade. With this boxed in situation, I imagine Russia would probably give up on interactions with the West rather quickly, choosing to focus on pushing trough the Caucasus and Siberia way earlier and way faster than OTL, taking a defensive stance in the West. Most likely, Russia's political centre would also move farther East to, possibly to the rich trading centres of the Bulgars like Bolghar or Kazan or maybe even further into newly founded cities on the frontier. I believe that this earlier expansion would also put Russia in an incredibly strong possition, as having their focus East would probably lead to them reaching China just around the time of the gradual fall of the Ming and rise of the Qing. Subsequently, while I don't think a Russian presence would lead to the Ming being saved, I can certainly see Russia grabbing Mongolia and parts of Manchuria and the Atlantic coast while taking advantage of the Chinese wars, leading to an either even more closed off China or an incredibly aggresive one and a similiar relationship with Japan, I really can't tell since i've already went so far away from the point of divergence in this comment put I think it's an interesting thing to think about.
All while this happening, I think Russia would at some point in the 1600s also start aggresively moving South, but this time not so much towards Crimea (although yeah I think they'd still probably want that) but more towards Persia, who I think, trough being the closest trade partner of Russia and middleman between them and Arabia, would have a great influence on Russian culture and geopolitics. During this time, the Ottomans were starting to greatly weaken the Persian state and conquer much of their Western land, which would in no doubt effect Russia, and as such I believe that they would probably take advantage by allying or even eventually vassalising the Persians and helping them greatly in the wars against the Ottomans, which would probably end in victory for them and eventual conquest of rich lands like Iraq and the Gulf under Persian/Russian control and make the Ottomans focus way more on their Eastern frontiers and probably even weaken places like the Sultanate of Oman trough the resurgance of Persia as a major player in the Persian gulf even before the age of colonialism and **o i l** in the region.
I could go way further with my ideas that this great video inspired, since they truly are many like what would happen with Poland or Sweden but I don't think i'm educated enough on that front (or for basically most of what I said for that matter) and I am really excited to see Cody's ideas on all of this, so i'll leave it off like this.
Incredible video, I hope I have been helpful and I can't wait to see part 2. If you read this Cody, good job big guy.
TLDR: Russia is even more Asian lmao
Brother can me text me that
Hi, I'm from Russia, I'm pleasantly surprised that you touched on this topic, which I myself once thought about.
Same
Москаль, вийшов нахуй
I kinda disagree a lot with Cody since in my opinion Novogorod rebelling is unrealistic as hell if it rebels it would be war for title of Grand Prince of Kyiv, as OTL Jaroslav The Wise was given that land to administer, he would revolt against his father which I dont see happening as Rurikids loved to use that to chip away future lands for themselves when their brothers lost.
What do you think about the cultural differences between the 1500s northern Russians(Novgorod or something similar) and southern Russians (Moscow and crew). It would be important to figuring out if this hypothetical state would even exist
@@Thatonepersonyouheard I'm also Russian and think that Novgorod unfortunately couldn't save itself in any way. Western Europe had its institutions since Roman times and was just remembering them, while slavs never had any.
Novgorod's democracy was more chaotic and unstable, so in 1500s it just became an oligarchy where the richest decide. It resembles of what would later happen with Poland. During that time, absolutism was more effective in these lands, so 'veche' institution kinda naturally died (there were veches in many places, Novgorod just had a stronger one).
Are we not going to talk about the smooth jazz playing throughout this video.
Have you consider the possibility of a Islamic Russia taking the mantle of the Gold Horde directly and declare itself to be both a Tsardom and Khanate? I actually did this cursed Russian Mongol Empire thing in a EU4 playthrough 😂...
Well that actually did happen in real. That place was called Tartaria.
Funny bcs Russia have more claims on golden horde then Rus
@@sircatangry5864 Ehhh. That's an increasingly common kneejerk given the current war, but it's still more "elder abuse" than it is some asiatic invasion,
@@sircatangry5864 What, because you took the Golden Horde's land? I guess Nazi Germany also has legitimate claims to that land considering they reached Stalingrad?
@@Oujouj426 Nope, its because the rus states were under mongol souzerainity . And the way they spread eastwords and how rough their socieiteis are mirrored that of the mongols instead of the byzantines. The only connection russia has with eastern rome was them sharing the same christian sects. Other than that? Hardly any similarities.
A Russian caliph would be wild
Like a Russian Tsar, Russians and Slavs are savage in nature.
7:47 "like non-existent"
Takes a lot to ignore all of Turkey, much of Indonesia, and Iran before 1979
Great video! I can't wait for a potential part 2. I remember hearing the Vlad Vodka story and imagining a scenario like this. The absence of a Russo-Turkish Great Game would be interesting, and there'd be little reason for the Ottomans to enter WW1.
If Russia had picked Islam, I'd imagine the Northern Crusades would have gotten a lot more worldwide and interesting to say the least with Islamic forces fighting both the Pagan Lithuanians and Christian crusaders
Islamic slavs vs Pagan slavs vs Christian slavs vs Christian crusaders vs pagan lithuanians vs christian lithuanians vs pagan lithuanians vs other muslims
I think Khan makes more sense for a post-Mongol Muslim Russia.
Imagine names like Vladimir Mukhammed Khan, Ismael Vasili Khan, Olga Khatun, etc.
Tsars of Russia often used the title Khan in Central Asia and Siberia in OTL as well.1
0:13 Not first. First was Rurik. After him the dynasty of Rurikoviches was named. This dynasty ruled over Russia until Feodor I, who died in 1598.
A whole scenario about if Kievan Rus and Novgorod never united would be interesting.
Novogrod was in the Kievan Rus but it had high autonomy, it was after the Mongols invaded that Novogrod became an almost independent country, and I say almost because the Mongols forced the local Duke to pay tribute to them
Novgorod was the one that made kiev into rus
But yeah if they didn’t unite I would think there would be less ethnicity wars in the future because right now many Ukrainians think that Russians are just mongols that took over kievan rus
@@idkwelp1082 I mean... the last year has shown them to live up to that monicker lol
What union? Novgorod Rus created Kievan Rus
Just like that we never got to see Imam Waleed-amir al-Putin
It should be also mentioned that Vladimir's grandmother Olga (also a canonised Saint) was a Christian as well as semi-legenary chiefs Askold and Dyre .
Askold and Dir didn't stick around, since they were murdered by Oleg, and Olga of Kiev's religion was not followed by her son, who feared that his warriors would laugh at him for converting to such a "peaceful" religion.
@@angusyang5917 Yet Svyatoslav (the aforementioned son) didn't seem to persecute Christians unlike Oleg.
@@stepanokhrimenko9189 The Rus were traditionally tolerant of other religions, when Sviatoslav I conquered Bulgaria, he allowed the Bulgarian tsar and his state to exist as a vassal under his rule, as he intended to use Bulgaria and its resources to conquer the Byzantine Empire.
@@angusyang5917 Yeah, i just thought that it's important to point that out
@@angusyang5917 Olga s son think Christians are peacful? Her son?
Cody Central Asia had plenty of great cities
Also the title Tsar exist in Persian (khosro) or they could use the word shah
Could be adopted by Russians in case of Persian influence
See Persian Central Asia
Edit: alcohol is pretty important in sufism (basically mystical islam) so that could be interesting
Yes Bukhara, Samarkand, Nishapur, Merv, were all great cities with hundreds of thousands of people before the mongol invasion
Alcohol is forbidden, any "sufis" who drink are extreme outliers.
@@boygenius538_8 I live in Iran so I've seen plenty who do drink (we drink more than Russians do)
The sufi literature frequently mentions wine and sufis are not as strict when it comes to sharia
Persian Russia would be an interesting direction to go. Maybe ending up with a larger Shi'a cultural grouping around the Caspian.
@@johnwbh maybe but truth be told shiaism is basically just Persian hatred for Islam we aren't real Muslims
Also a shia russia wouldn't be too good for us since if they think of themselves as true shia state they'll invade more than they did in real life
It would be nice to explore how this may have affected Sweden as well since it was the Great Northern War that ended the Swedish Empire and turned Russia into a major European player, but that war happened in the first place because Peter The Great wanted to be a part of the West, so Russia being Islamic might have changed those ambitions completely (not counting the aspect that Peter wouldn't have ruled in the first place)
One thing is certain, if Russia was a Muslim nation there wouldn’t be anywhere near the amount of alcoholism that has existed throughout their history.
What about Shisha use?
@@user-op8fg3ny3j shisha is no way as alcohol
And less aids too in eastern europe
@@manofwar2354 depends if it has nictotine. I know it's like tobacco where some scholars say it's Haram and others say Makrooh
@@user-op8fg3ny3j Not nearly as bad as alcohol for society
I wonder if Russia's relationship with Central Asia would've change. Central Asia probably is still part of empire. But the "vibes" are completely different.
not just central Asia but the Islamic republics inside of modern Russia
Vladimir the Great in our timeline: "Drinking is the joy of the Rus. We cannot exist without the pleasure."
Vladimir the Great in the alternate timeline: "Okay, but what if it did?" *creates a new sect of Islam purely to allow drinking.*
HEADS UP its not forbidden within the quran doe idk about the no pork ones lol
@@rachard really? Damn, I guess ol Vladdy there was worried for nothing.
@@dank_smirk2ndchannel200 yes remembered it being like the bad(sins) outweighs the good but HEAVY intoxication is forbidden during prayer lol
@@rachard ah, okay. That makes sense. Kind of hard to connect with Allah if you’re completely pissed.
I don't think the alchohol thing would be as big of a problem as you're thinking. The Hanafi fiqh (school is Islamic jurisprudence) is one which has a long tradition of interpreting the Quranic prohibitions on alcohol extremely literally (i.e. only forbidding wine, not other types of alcohol), and in our reality it's the main fiqh of central asia and the caucases. The school only started prohibiting all alchohol in the 12th century, which is long after the Rus would have converted. I can easily see this not happening due to alternate timeline pressures, and Russians happily going to Masjid on Fridays while sloshed on their halal Vodka.
Kinda a weird loophole to ban just wine while all alcohol is fair game.
Islam is bad
No looooool even in hanafi it is prohibited
What you speak about is another topic about using alcohol in food and it only allow 2 percent
All muslim shia and sunni prohibit alcohol
@@kekzealot3568 well he is wrong really the alcohol they accept is only in food less than 2 percent and is cooked
@@manofwar2354 how did they determine 2% is acceptable? If you're cooking with alcohol, almost all of it will evaporate regardless of alcohol content
3:25 The Cyrillic alphabet was not made by the Greeks. It was made by fellow Slavs, the Bulgarians under the rule of Simeon the Great, specifically by followers of Cyril and Methodius (the people shown in the image).
So cool! I always was interested in what White Muslim societies would be like - Bosniaks, Albanians, Circassians, and Northeast Caucasians are some of the most intriguing examples
Here's an idea 12:00. You previously noted how Russia is instead being largely based on Byzantine and Roman styles, but would instead have a far closer connection to Muslim Persia. So how about they take on the title of Shah?
Yes!
Or khan
@@mint8648 Khan was a Mongolian title and I don't think a Russian leader wants to be associated with the same people who kinda oppressed them.
@@finalMadfox khan was turkic and the first rus rulers called themselves khagans. their were khanates in eastern europe way before the mongols (like avar khanate)
@@mint8648 I am putting my perspective on the people who might just associate that title with the Mongols
A very important detail people often ignore in these "ismlamic Russia" scenarios is pork. It would be a far bigger issue than alcohol, medieval Russian agriculture was *really* dependent on pork.
So yeah, russian Islam either has a funny quirk of just entirely abandoning Islamic outlook on food and drink or there's a whole lot more famines.
I remember that Islam allows you to eat pork if nothing else is available. So maybe Russia will have pork as the emergency haram food supply. Or they will just try to switch to beef and chicken.
I'd imagine the former, even now many muslims I know simply say "it is only haram if I get completely drunk so a few shots is halal" and chug bottles of alcohol. in this alternate Russia, I could imagine the whole country adopting Islam with a few quirks.
I appreciate the video, would be a really cool scenario.
What if he had decided to make his OWN religion? Just a pick your own adventure?
Most likely it would have become a highly syncretic religion between Christianity and Eastern Slavic paganism.
He did at some point before turning to Christ.
He tried to make himself a God King to a bunch of different Pagan Religions, Norse, Slavic, Uralic, even Persian Paganism ((if Wikipedia is to be believed))
I mean, that' was basically paganism in a nutshell; it's own unique religion. Vladimir converted religions because he didn't want to be isolated, he wanted to be connected w/ the cosmopolitan medieval world.
"I'll start my OWN religion! With blackjack! And hookers!"
Great video, as always! I have an idea for a future video that no one has ever done that I can find, what if the Muslim world industrialized with the West or at least during the late 1800s. It would be very interesting, in my opinion to see how Iran, central Asia, and arabia would develop in this timeline.
Right as I’m deciding what CK3 achievement to go for next, this video pops up. Vladimir’s Second Choice it is. Thanks for the sign, Cody 😂
best part of the video is when Cody just goes “who fucking knows” after talking about Novgorod
Honestly it is a wild card? Also for reminder country what killed Teutonic knights was Poland. So they would most likely try size Novgorod instead instead dealing with Russia.
@@TheRezro Novogrod had Nevsky tho
Russia making its own Version of Islam kinds sounds more realistic than picking Sunni or Shia (maybe it is called Kiif (Kiev in Arab)
Hi from Russia, Im Muslim (chechen)
Привет из России, я мусульманин из Чечни
Hello, I am a Muslim from Libya. I told Qadir during Ramadan to send his army to Israel.
Working off of the idea of Novgorod remaining separate from Kiev, in the 17th century and onward, would Novgorod become Lutheran (or some other form of Protestantism)? Would there be a "Great Northern War of Religion" because of it, involving at least Novgorod, Poland-Lithuania, and Sweden?
I really like this general concept of an Islamic "Russia" (really Islamic Kiev in this case) because of how open ended it is. Good job Cody!
What gets crazy to me is how the scenario of Islamic russia uniting (except for Novgorod) and holding together the same way they did in our timeline and how it changes 19th century to present day history. How would that affect WW1? Novogorod being a player also opens up fascinating possibilities. Like the central powers seeing them as basically “true russia” or maybe Novogord gets ambitions of conqu- I mean reclaiming old Russia. Maybe in the past years they petition for crusades again and again.
But how does that effect everything with Poland? It’s unlikely because of Poland but what happens if Novgorod embraces the reformation and becomes Lutheran or Reformed?
How does it affect WW2? Kinda depends I guess how who they side with in WW1. But imagine this: the Russian civil war still happens in this alternate timeline but it’s against an islamic state. So islam is more widely seen as the imperialist enemy that must be brought down. This could see “white” (or maybe they’re “green” in this case?) army fleeing into Novgorod and bringing islamic influences with them, while the newly established Soviet Union actually looks to spread SOUTH towards other Muslim nations. So what happens to Turkey? What happens to Iran? Etc. and if communism is so busy looking south and not at Europe proper, do the nazis even feel threatened by it? Does Europe? If they don’t or feel threatened by socialism but see communism as a strange eastern mutation of it, then perhaps something like operation Barbarossa doesn’t actually happen. Lebensraum is achieved by conquering Poland and Novgorod and the countries like Estonia and Latvia.
I think this whole scenario has Russia facing south and East. Their march over the Urals may come sooner in this time and I imagine more frequent wars with Japan. But does an Islamic Russian army fight the Asians for national purposes or for jihad purposes? And if they succeed? Does Japan become muslim? And what a wrench THAT throws into the 20th century as we know it. Imagine Islamic Russians breaking Japan’s isolation. Or turning them Muslim before they isolated. A Japan without their paganism and emperor worship up and into the 20th century I imagine means potentially no radical expansion into China. It completely changes everything but also if somehow they end up as America’s enemy in WW2, the war takes on a very different view. America is seen as a Christian nation and sees itself the same way just with religious liberty essentially. Does that mean WW2 in the pacific takes on a religious aspect of the Christian West vs the Muslim East?
Interesting stuff. The butterfly effect for this one is insane lol.
Yeah Novgorod is really "true Russia", not the Moscow region or Kiev as per others
Some of the best alternate history videos are ones that show you the importance of the real world events. This video is one is them. It shows the Eastern Roman influence on early Russia in a way I never realized before.
Vlad not choosing Islam because of the drinking rule sounds exactly like the Family Guy joke where Cleveland turns Muslim
Very interesting video, excellent work as usual Cody!
I think the two major takeaways from this timeline are that
1) The South of Russia, stretching from eastern Ukraine over the Volga river and into parts of central Asia, would be either some kind of unified Islamic state or a series of smaller countries. Regardless, I think if anything Poland is the one who expands east and sort of replaces Russia, at least west of the urals. What this means for things like German unification, idk.
2) If Japan goes down a smiliar path to OTL, westernizing and industrializing, they might create a huge empire in the east. If China is weakened much the same in the 19th century, there would really be nobody to stand in the way of Japanese expansion into Pacific Siberia, Korea, and probably much of China as well. I can't possibly imagine what this would mean for global alliances etc. Maybe the British would see them as an ally against China, maybe they would view them as a threat. Maybe we get the Emperor of Japan claiming the Mandate of Heaven. Okay that last one is a bit out there.
I'd like to give a disclaimer that I am not very smart with history and this was all just thought off on a whim.
The biggest change is that there wouldn't be any german blood in the Russian Tsars. Nicholas ll had 16 great great grandparents. 11 of them were German, 3 where Danish, 1 was Welsh, and 1 was Russian. On top of that Nicholas ll married a german wife. There have been a ton of German emperors of Russia and that cultural interaction would not occur due to the religious differences.
Russia would be stuck in the middle of archaic, bizarre medieval Islamic theological conflicts instead of archaic, bizarre medieval Christian theological conflicts. For example, Muslims debated over whether the Quran had to be read in Arabic or if you could allow people to read it in their own native language. Christians had their own debate over whether the Bible had to be read in Latin that was solved for good when Martin Luther translated the bible in German, the language most people spoke. Muslims debated whether the Islamic call to prayer had to be in Arabic.
Russia would certainly reject the Cyrillic alphabet in favor of the Persian alphabet. Theoretically, the Russians could convert to the Arabic Alphabet but Persia is closer and more accessible. Aside from the ban on alcohol, Muslims also debated the whether painting a picture of somebody was a sin. Most believed this created a graven image which was banned.
In reality, the Kievan Rus were forced to start conversions to Orthodox Christianity after a war with Byzantium. It was a draw, but one of the terms of the treaty was that Greek merchants and church had freedom of movement and operation in Russia. This is how conversion started.
Just a correction. The Cyrillic alphabet didn't come from contact between the Romans and Russia, but between the Romans and Bulgars
What interests me is how this would affect the Baltic. Novgorod separating from Russia and adopting Christianity would have two other major effects you didn't mention. First, Novgorod was a republic, and while not democratic in the modern sense, this could have laid the groundwork for a democratic northern Russia in the modern age. As for the Livonian Order, I think they still would've fallen, conquered either by the Poles or the Swedes (or maybe Novgorod if relations break down). But the biggest impact in the north is Sweden. Without Russian pressure from the East, Sweden would face far fewer threats. This means that there is a very real possibility that Sweden doesn't get decimated by the Great Northern War and instead continues on as a major power into the 19th century. Perhaps Finland then never separates from Sweden.
I like the idea of two Russias--one Catholic and Northern, the other Muslim and with links into Central Asia and the Middle East. Presumably, Muslim Russia is able to expand eastward like the historical Tsars did, especially if they're blocked by the Christians in Eastern Europe. We likely see a Muslim Russia with a less ambiguous transcontinental heritage that the modern Russia displays, more comfortably identifying with "Asia" or at least not being European. Ironically, they also feud with the Ottomans even more than historical Russia did.
They probably also hang on to Alaska, should they ever stake a claim to it.
Would Catholic Russia go Protestant under Scandinavian influence, or would a stronger Poland-Lithuania keep them Catholic? I think the former is more likely, especially due to the Baltic trade. The Swedes wind up consistently allying with the Russians in this timeline, which presumably prolongs their regional dominance into the 18th century. And speaking of the Baltic, Christian Russia probably incorporates what is now Livonia and Estonia into its realm, at the very least following the decline of Sweden. The Northern Crusades having already been redirected somewhat southward towards Moscow means there is a greater history of cooperation between this Russia and neighboring Slavs.
By the modern day, Christian Russia presumably has the more impressive recent history due to their closer ties with Europe. In a Great War they probably tried dismembering their Muslim counterpart into spheres of influence like what happened with the Ottomans and Great Britain and France, though with somewhat greater success than the latter powers found.
Part 2 should focus on the economic factors. Financing and trade were frowned upon in our Russia but would have been seen very differently from an Islamic perspective. While rulers are very significant, I don't see the medieval plebs of Russia still existing by the time of the Russian-Japanese war.
The Shariah courts would also make a big difference as an alternative source of legitimacy and civic structure
Well Islamic world isn't really famous with it's financing and trade. Developed capitalism with banks, joined enterprises, etc. was firstly developed in Western Christian states.
And "medieval" peasants were a normal occurence throughout Eurasia. Turkish, Iranian, Armenian, Uzbek etc. all lived in more or less similar conditions as Russians. So I don't see how change of Religion would affect their economic well-being/
@@mastersafari5349 They would still have a "merchant class", kind of like the Ahi guilds in medieval Anatolia. Muhammad, after all, was a merchant who travelled to Syria to sell luxury goods. Charging interest would be sewn as a form of usury, but as this Russia would grow its economy from the Volga river trade with the Persians and the fur trade with the Europeans, they would still have a focus on commerce. Peasants and serfs would still exist at least until the 18th century however.
This wasn't the Victorious option in the poll but it's still a fun concept
I had the same thought like... why ask what the next vid should be in a poll if you're just... not gonna do it?
@@Greed26 becaus the poll picked the most boring option
@@boygenius538_8 then why even make it an option?
So, I started thinking a bit about how people could see Brittain from the French coast, what if you did a video on a scenario where Brittain was actually just further enough away that the white cliffs of dover were not visible? Like it could be a non-romanized isle, Brittany could have been more Pagan than Catholic. It is just an interesting thought experiment tbh
Maybe Russia doesn't expand all the way to the Pacific, but shifts its aims towards Persia and the Middle East conquering a good portion of it it or shattering against the Ottomans and the Steppe Tribes
1:10 and he didn't want to be Catholic because he didn't want anyone (the pope) being above him
Jimmy's existential crisis and threatening to shave the cat! GENIUS!
I think one of the most interesting points in this scenario for me are the other slavs, like you said with no Russia to influence them I could see most of the "Yugoslavs" becoming catholic since the beeg slav state is Poland now, and of course I could not mention the Polish lebensraum that would definitely see panslavism being a stronger ideology since there's just Hungary between the balkans and the PLC, and how it's the duty of the poles to do a reconquista of the rus to reunite all the slavs under their true lord Jesus or something like that.
You know, they almost managed to do that. In the end, it is Poles who Russians celebrate their independence from XD
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These videos just get better and better
Cody, this is such an interesting scenario!
Alcohol amongst Muslims are not unheard off, for instance Alawites and Alevis incorporate it into their rituals and are encouraged to drink, and even before secular Muslim culture was a thing the Ottoman sultan-caliphs indulged with their court. I think you might be very correct that Russians would adopt Islam and get a Sheikh-al-Islam to make a fatwa allowing the consumption of alcohol. It could also be possible Russian Islam becomes something like Anatolian Alevism, a non-standardized syncretic religion that is mostly Islamic but mixes various Sufi theologies and pre-existing local customs and folk traditions (this would allow alcohol to persist, Alhamdulillah)
Here’s one conflict to think about and it would be interesting to think about what Muslim Russia would do: Shah Ismail’s inquisition like conversation of Iran into a Shia state and the subsequent Safavid-Ottoman wars formed the foundation of modern Sunni-Shia relations. What would be MRussia’s role in this conflict and the general Sunni-Shia conflict?
That reminds me of Islam in Indonesia, most Indonesians are Muslims but many Indonesians (especially "the traditional Muslims" and especially among the older generations) also incorporate some aspects of Pre-Islamic religions into their worship.
Alawites and Alevis make up a very, very small minority who consider themselves Muslim. So it is still unheard of due to the obvious prohibition.
Those sects aren’t considered Muslim by anyone
Let's not forget about the Omar Khayyam’s persian poems devoted to wine.
@@hwar21sects are not permitted anyways
My favourite leader, Sultan Nicholas II.
*Sultan Al-Nikola ibn Iskender ll
Sultan Iskender Han II
I think one of the biggest changes in this alternate scenario is that Russia would actually hold on to Central quite easily and without long-term resistance to oppression because of the Muslim influence in the area. In fact, if we assume that the ENTIRETY of world history stays the same (Just Russia become Islamic) they would most likely still own Central Asia because of the state religion, not to forget possibly Azerbaijan as well, I think I'm very interesting to take into account that the USSR (most likely not communist though) could've stayed alive and maybe even gain Chinese lands if their medieval relatives took it early on.
I think Russia would be turkified greatly and continue the legacy of the Golden Horde. The Muslim world was already almost entirely turkified by that time. They would definitely adopt the Arabic script. They would still focus on conquering North-East and Central Asia.
They would clash with the Ottomans occasionally and compete on controlling Eastern Europe, but they would aid each other against any Western encroachment. They would be very supportive of the Ottomans and the latter would be more aggressive towards the English.
Russia would side with the Ottomans in WW1, they would still lose but wouldn't entirely collapse, thus no colonization in the Middle East and no Wahhabism. Communism would still spread most likely but it would be probably islamised instead of being against religion.
They would try to be neutral in WW2, but they would still join the Allies due to German and Japanese invasions. I can't imagine what could happen afterwards.
First of all, I won't allow anyone to say Vladimir Putin without title Sheik
and the suffix, ibn Mohammad Abdul Rashid
@@user-op8fg3ny3j Funny coz apparently his recent mistress or apparently, wife is actually of chechen descent hence of Muslim background
Imagine Sultan Putin and The ottoman Empire Will adopt Christianity as its Religion and Their Leader Is Called King Suleiman
@@theunbeatable6598 oh wow, didn't know that
Islam is bad
cope
Let’s go to the comments I’m sure there’s gonna be a civil and peaceful discussion between Muslims and Rus
Well to fair from all Video that having connection to the Islam this one is having more Mature Comment section so far
The Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in the First Bulgarian Empire during the reign of Tsar Simeon I the Great, probably by disciples of the two Byzantine brothers Saint Cyril and Saint Methodius, who had previously created the Glagolitic script.The script is named in honor of Saint Cyril.
I will say this- If Russia adopted Islam instead of Christianity, it's entirely likely that Soviet-style Communism would've never rose (At least to the capacity it did in our timeline). Russia would *likely* still have her own language, but with heavy Arabic/Persian influence. East Asia would likely never fall to the reds and Mongolia wouldn't likely form into a "modern" country (I can see it being more of a tribal area, but this is subjective. So much to unpack there and I find the whole area of East and SE Asia fascinating). Overall, E/SE Asia would likely stay the same that it was before 1912 in a noticeable capacity, but with China POSSIBLY holding onto Mongolia until 2012 (or whenever Taiwan wanted to leave it be). I don't think any Islam terrorist organizations would arise (again, in the same capacity they did in our time), and the West would still look on Russia with a different kind of wariness. NATO likely wouldn't have formed, or if it did, it would likely be a twilight-zone EU protecting Christianity. I can see North America (NA) being neutral to somewhat wary of the situation in Europe, although if there are any Pagan holdouts, I can see the possibility of them *possibly* seen as tribal (to an extent) through some lenses, although they'd be skewed. Nazism and Hitler wouldn't have come up why it did in our timeline, it would be more about keeping the Muslims back - there would THANKFULLY be no Holocaust (at least not aimed at the Jewish population- in an ideal world, it wouldn't have been dreamt of). The Cold War would likely be a European affair only, being along the lines of Islam and Non-Islam rather than Communism and Capitalism, but this is hard to predict- there was a lot of incompetence there, thanks to a paranoid nutbar named "Man of Steel". Back to Siberia, I can see it being any number of states, all of which have varying Mongolic (and possibly Chinese in a far-flung image, but it's negligible) influence. I'm not sure how the relationship between the places would be, but I can see some form of cooperation, again, due to Islamic Russia.
In short, take this all with a grain of salt. It's just what I think could've happened for a Part II or Part III (If you decide to draw it out that long). Also, I know it's not related, but you've had me as a loyal viewer for YEARS now. You have very interesting content.