I agree that it's really unlikely Islam would arise in the world as described, since it does not seem that Christianity could have existed. (or was there a Jewish prophet/king Yeshua in Barnes' world.)
However, if you go with an infinite branching worlds theory, Barnes could just pick the one universe out of an infinite set that happened to have no Rome yet a mostly untouched Arabian peninsula where a really charismatic Prophet was born who was influenced by the dominant Monothesitc faith of his time- Judaism.
Also, you are kind of showing a cultural bias (as am I)- if we were practicing Muslims, the inevitable existence of Islam in any timeline would be taken as a given.
Re: a comment on the worldbuilding
bruce munro (from livejournal.com)2016-03-04 12:33 am (UTC)(link)
Well, of course. If we were believing Muslims it would be clear Allah wouldn't tolerate it being otherwise, the same way if we were believing Christians it's clear He gets nailed to something by someone in every TL.
Excusing it as "anything can happen given infinite TLs" strikes me as setting things up for a TL where the British lose the Battle of Britain because almost all of their planes are grounded or destroyed by mid-air goose collisions.
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james_davis_nicoll) wrote2016-03-03 02:36 pm
a comment on the worldbuilding
However, if you go with an infinite branching worlds theory, Barnes could just pick the one universe out of an infinite set that happened to have no Rome yet a mostly untouched Arabian peninsula where a really charismatic Prophet was born who was influenced by the dominant Monothesitc faith of his time- Judaism.
Also, you are kind of showing a cultural bias (as am I)- if we were practicing Muslims, the inevitable existence of Islam in any timeline would be taken as a given.
Re: a comment on the worldbuilding
Excusing it as "anything can happen given infinite TLs" strikes me as setting things up for a TL where the British lose the Battle of Britain because almost all of their planes are grounded or destroyed by mid-air goose collisions.
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The second one even more so than the last.
The author didn't know enough about the history of the US and the history of the economics of cash cropping agriculture to make it make sense.