#3 History notes that an Ethiopian army was turned back from the gates of Mecca a few weeks before Mohammed's birth. It is interesting to speculate what might have happened had a Christian power been in control of the city years later.
Alternate history genius Harry Turtledove has in fact speculated about it. His fix-up novel Agent of Byzantium is set in the 13th century Byzantine Empire of a world where the Ethiopians had conquered Mecca and Islam never appeared. Instead, young "Mohamet" became a Christian and eventually an Orthodox saint.
Agent of Byzantiumis a rollicking good read, btw, as the hero becomes an imperial special agent and travels about re-writing the history of technology: discovering brandy and smallpox vaccination, stealing the telescope from a Mongol shaman who had stumbled onto it, and making off with the gunpowder formula from a backward Frankish monastery where it was manufactured for use against Byzantine forces. |