What if there was a Muslim Industrial Revolution?

[Gary Oswald]

Discuss this article here

 

[Thande]

Sorry this took a while to post on sershal meedja, been stuck lecturing all morning.

 

[Alex Richards]

You see, my first question when seeing Morrocco is 'where's the coal' (turns out there actually is some in the Atlas mountains within the modern boundaries, so that's fine).

Only then it turns out to be solar powered portable water heaters capable of moving vehicles or ships at significant speeds.

Which is... well honestly I'm just going to have to handwave that as 'magic'. It's an interesting version of magic technobabble I've not seen before mind.

 

[I Saw A Red Sky]

Capitalism developing in the Maghreb first is more interesting than the tech stuff which is always gonna be magic.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

I don't think there will be enough slaves or enough arable land in the Maghreb to sustain this.

(You need a thriving chattel slave trade to have an industrial revolution)

Maybe this was Islam's industrial revolution, and hardly anyone noticed.

 

[RyanF]

An interesting idea but towards the end there felt Morocco was just rolling six after six after six. What happened to that Ottoman Empire thingy they were concerned about at the start?

 

[Gary Oswald]

I don't think there will be enough slaves or enough arable land in the Maghreb to sustain this.

(You need a thriving chattel slave trade to have an industrial revolution)

Maybe this was Islam's industrial revolution, and hardly anyone noticed.

The conquest of Mali was with the aim of securing the moroocan slave trade, its failiure is what led to the trans atlantic slave route taking priority over the trans saharan one. Places like the ivory coast literally rewired their trades from going to timbuktu to instead going to the atlantic. With the trans saharan lines reinforced and the portuguese atlantic traders undercut by corsairs, a lack of slaves will not be a problem.

Like this is not a plausiable ah, its fantasy magic steampunk empire wanking which has a place in ah, but doesnt really survive examination.

But that particular problem isn't a big one.

 

[Arthur_Phuxache]

Like this is not a plausiable ah, its fantasy magic steampunk empire wanking which has a place in ah, but doesnt really survive examination.

One of the big drawbacks of steampunk, IMO, is a refusal to face up the facts of who suffered and was enslaved to make this tech level possible.

"Nice tech you got there, who mined the iron & copper necessary to make it?"

 

[Coiler]

Steampunk ranges from using actual 19th century struggles as part of its theme (best in that regard but least common) to just plopping on a retro-Victorian-sci-fi aesthetic and not really exploring the period for better or worse (not as good, but forgivable and quite understandable, especially if you just want a cheap thriller) to, worse, relishing in being an upper class/colonial overlord.

As for this timeline itself, it'd be a good backdrop for a "World Turned Upside Down" story. Those are rarely "hard" AH-and it rarely matters because the reason for their soft divergences are obvious.