What if all of Spain remains under the control of the Moors until the late 19th Century.

Sailor.X

Sailor.X

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In this timeline the Spanish Empire never comes into being. All of the events that lead to the downfall of the Moors in Spain never take place and the Moors cement their control over the Iberian Peninsula. How does this affect the timeline from the 1400s forward. Do the Moors listen to Irish and Viking rumors of the North American Continent and go to travel to it. And if they do. How do they handle first contact? How does the rest of Europe reacts to the Moors effectively controlling both sides of the Straits of Gibraltar? Do all the future rivalries between various European Empires play out like they did in our timeline?
 
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What is the limit of Arab conquest?
The Moors stop on the Douro-Asturias line?
The Pyrennes?
 
So the Pyrennes then.

I doubt the Iberian Moors reaching North America. And - more importantly - doing something about it. For some reason, in spite of being next to them for half a thousand years, the Arabs did not discover/exploit/settle the Canaries (although stone age Gauches did) or Madeira.

Gibraltar? Christian Europe does not care. Look at OTL - the English crusaders who helped capture Lisbon and murdered its Moslem population had no problems with getting to the Levant.

With such a POD by 1400 Europe - western Europe in particular - is so different from OTL as to make all projections pure conjecture.
Having Moors next to what later became France changes events in France, and that has knock-on effects on (alphabetical order) Britain, Germany and the Low Countries, Italy ...
 
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The discovery and colonization of the Americas would almost certainly be delayed, possibly significantly delayed, and "Latin America" might instead be a fusion of either French or British and Native American culture rather than a fusion of Spanish and Native American culture.

I also wonder if Spanish Muslim culture might be influenced by the Enlightenment that is occurring next door in places such as France. If so, we could have Spanish Muslims become considerably more secular over the centuries, similar to, say, Kazakh or Albanian Muslims. Though in the meantime, maybe some radical Spanish Muslim might try killing whomever Voltaire's equivalent is in this TL for publishing this play:

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en.wikipedia.org

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There may very well be no British ever ITTL. The English-Scotch union was an accident which may not be repeated here.

If the stories about "Basque/Breton/Welsh/Portuguese etc. fishermen in the Great Banks" are true then NA will be "discovered" in the 1500s and explored from the top down, by NW European polities. North America, mind you. Finding South America may happen several decades later.

Figuring out the currents and winds may take longer than in OTL with no Portuguese precedent of the Volta do Mar. Example - to go from France, England or Netherlands to New York you do not sail due west - you sail SSW as to catch the southern part of the North Atlantic gyre and favourable winds in the neighbourhood of the Canaries. The triangular trade - Europe to West Africa, then North America, then Europe - followed the winds and currents.
It took the Portuguese decades of systhematic, state funded exploration to figure out how to get to West Africa by sea and back. With their camels the Maghreb Arabs never cared about a sea route - in spite of being able to raid Iceland for slaves. Or set up a slavers' base in the Bristol Channel. If it ain't broke don't fix it - salt went south, gold came north across the Sahara just fine.

Enlightment? That's 1700 in OTL. And this is such a different world that there may be no Reneiscance, no Reformation, no whatever :)
 
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