I don't think the Arab invasion had much of a demographic effect; most Egyptians were and are descended from ancient Egyptians.
DLC idea - Qabila - Desert tribes, Slaves, Cadet branches and enhanced islam
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I don't think the Arab invasion had much of a demographic effect; most Egyptians were and are descended from ancient Egyptians.
Different cultures in game don't necessarily mean different ethnic composition.
Personally, I don't see a need to separate Copts and Masri in this game. They were ethnically identical, wore the same clothes, and coexisted mostly peacefully during the time prior to the Mamlukes. Maybe make some of the upper tier headgear different and have crowns as opposed to varieties of Turbans.
I don't think there was any religious aspect to that, so it doesn't really make sense. IIRC, some of the Kings of Jerusalem took to wearing turbans and robes as they were much better for withstanding the heat than what they usually wore (probably not in combat though)
I'd imagine that anyone living in the area would take the opportunity to "go native" and avoid the heat. Kings and emperors would also probably not always wear crowns all the time. But, the portrait system only grabs a 'slice' of time and therefore it's kinda symbolic.
Whether or not a crusader king took to wearing turbans occasionally doesn't change the fact that they had a crown and a coronation as a badge of office and symbol of kingship. Muslims certainly did also wear crowns in various contexts (the Persian set I made, for instance, reflects this fact), but they were mostly in the earlier period (as an example, there are depictions at Qasr al-Gharbi of the caliph wearing the taj) and occasionally persisted into the middle of the game's timeframe at least in representations (like the coins/medallion of some 10th century Buyids).
By the time of game's main 1066 start date, though, turbans and a connection to Islam have already been strongly established to the point that they were know as the "Crown of Arabs" and/or the "Badge of Islam." Part of this was likely advanced by the early Shi'a who sought to undermine the legitimacy afforded to the Umayyads and then the 'Abbasids by their purported possession of Muhammad's burd. If we look to Egypt's Christian population and their neighbors to the south; we see that very often their leadership and art were depicted and wore traditional symbols of kingship in the form of crowns.
I'd be fine with Copts of the lower levels wearing turbans and the various types of other hats/headgear in the region, whether one of the many forms of qalansuwa or usage of various body/headwraps like a burd, izar, milhafa, or taylasan; but the 'royal' tiers should probably mostly have crowns. For the rest of their clothes they'd basically be wearing the same thing, though, outside of the Fatimid penchant for certain ceremonial garb.
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This is correct. The Arab invasion left 10% of Egypt's population heritage in the best possible scenario and <5% to absolutely nothing in the vast majority of the modern Egyptian population.
Furthermore, what Crackd is saying should be heeded. There was essentially no distinction besides religion between Muslim and Christian Egyptians- both dressed alike, looked alike, and all even spoke the Coptic language. Coptic would not stop being the primary and majority language of Egypt until centuries beyond CK2's timeframe.
This sounds pretty surprising to me; I thought the change occurred during the CK2 era.
It was replaced by Arabic as the majority in the 11th Century (or at least reached parity), and was oft persecuted against by the Mamelukes in various forms from the 13th Century onwards (with the first big anti-Copt riots in 1259). The big date where the change was complete was in 1354, where the normal anti-Christian policies against the Copts were expanded to include even those Copts who claimed to have converted or were (possibly) only nominally Muslim. Accusations abounded that they were crypto-Christians and essentially almost all of their waqf lands were confiscated and their churches burned. Since then, Egypt has pretty much retained the 90%/10% ratio it currently has.
This is interesting, I must have misinterpreted whatI had read. Certainly, though, the Coptic language was still being spoken in the 17th century, and it is worth noting that, at least outside the capital, Coptic still held a fairly prominent position for at least half of the CK2 timeframe. It is of significance that the Egyptian culture in the game is shown as being Islamicized but still using Coptic names.
The importance of Coptic in religious life cannot be underplayed either, as the language of liturgy, if still spoken, often makes killing of said language as a native tongue a long and brutal process. For example, while many say that Hebrew died as a spoken language in Alexandrian times or even earlier, giving way to Aramaic, we have a lot of evidence to support its survival into the 4th century of the Common Era. Aramaic had use, certainly, we see loanwords into Hebrew (bar-), an Aramaic-origin script in use, and Aramaic names coming from Judea, but they held stubbornly to their language and became bilingual in the lingua franca and the local tongue instead of wholesale abandoning the Hebrew language despite government working in Greek and Latin as trade worked in Aramaic.
I can say that during the 9th century, Coptic was still the language spoken by near all of Egypt beyond the capital. It was Pope Gabriel II who would first introduce Arabic into the Egyptian liturgy in the 12th century. I have also read that the Fatimids, apart from Caliph al-Hakim, were quite tolerant and led the Copts to relatively flourish. As far as I've read, the big era of persecution and conversion was more the 14th-15th centuries. There's also to be considered the contrast between urban populations (which by the start of the 20th century were ~15%, recorded as ~6% by the 1950s) and rural populations. Until somewhat recently, like much of the world, the majority of the population lie in rural regions.
I know Severus ibn al-Muqaffa wrote in Arabic, and stated his concern about his fellow Copts speaking it, and I will admit here that I am not extensively familiar with this man, but would it be unreasonable to assume he is speaking of a more local issue? After all, the 10th century was hardly the end of Coptic language, we are quite sure of that. There are texts that we know in Arabic but once likely held Coptic language versions as well, ironically some lamenting the loss of Coptic to Arabic. The Apocalypse of Samuel is one example, though it has been dated anywhere from the same century as Islam was birthed, an extremely unlikely option to be losing Coptic given that this was a period of intense resistance with a vast Christian majority, while some of the text itself indicates a setting during the Crusades.
Bohairic Coptic is still considered spoken widely enough by the 14th century that Copts are still writing their bibles in it, though they have bilingual versions in Arabic as well dating to the 12th century. Though, some from this era (12th-14th centuries) are also bilingual in Coptic and Greek instead of Arabic. The shift from Sahidic to Bohairic is also quite significant, as it would indicate (at least to me) that the language was prevalent enough still to care about the dialect used and, indeed, to actually have another dialect to switch to at all. Of further note, while many texts are bilingual in Arabic and Coptic throughout the Mamluk era, there are still monolingual biblical texts being produced as late as the 16th century. In a time near the end of the Mamluk rule, when restrictions and riots weren't as bad, and when the Ottomans came knocking and actually took over the place, a monolingual Coptic language translation of a biblical book is produced.
Honestly, I'd say that if Coptic were truly dying that fast, then there might be more priests complaining about it, but all I can find are those two. Severus and a text we can't even properly date or assign authorship. That seems to be it. I can't find with ease any hard figures concerning the ratio of Christians to Muslims throughout the Middle Ages, but we have evidence to suggest that there were many Muslim converts who continued to speak Coptic- namely due to all the persecutions and paranoia surrounding them.
While there was an ongoing shift during this whole period, it is difficult to determine when precisely it dropped out of majority. The presence of bilingual texts seems to me to indicate that, in some part, there was still a group large enough to warrant it. When you go back to being monolingual, it means either that it is dead and the text is only for priests to read, or that there is still a following that the translation is meant for. Their general flourishing at times as well would tell me it didn't see much decline during said times. Lastly, Egypt is one of the first places to seem to have built up an actual nationalism, based on modern concepts of ethnicity, and to this very day they will stand adamantly and deny being Arab. Considering the long period of conflict throughout the Early Middle Ages, I think it is safe to say that they would not be loosing their identity too fast.
I suppose the Assyrians would be Christian highland Qabilas. Would there be any others?
I believe that AFAIK Armenians were pretty much a clan society, then there are the Irish and Scottish.. not sure about the Basques and Georgians.. but I suppose that at least 3-4 out of these would be Christian highland Qabila cultures
Historical maps show such areas as often being part of much larger states (e.g. England for the Irish, Byzantium for the Armenians.) How did that work exactly?
you mean how it worked historically, or how it would work if they are clan societies (Qabilas) under feudal government?
Now that you mention it, how would it work in game? On the first page you say qabilas could only be made tributary by bordering kingdoms, but in tame many kingdoms control area deep into what you have said is qabila land.
Well, how did it work? I don't see a reason why it would not work, to be honest, that's why I was surprised by the question.
Clan societies had their leaders and these leaders were their nobility. As for Armenians about whom I know a little, their leaders became part of Byzantine aristocracy.. at least the most powerfll clans.
I'm not an expert on British history, but as far as I learned, when the clans of Scotland and Ireland learned that English military power is superior to theirs, some of them cooperated in exchange for feudal offices and others did not.
That statement on the first page was in early stages of this concept and in situation when this was meant more like a small adjustment. Therefore I operated with vasalage as something lasting and tributaries as "temporary vasalage".
The possibilities of subjugation or subordination of the Qabila tribes is explained in more detail in later posts, partialy here, but more propperly in this post dedicated to internal workings of the Qabila tribes. And now with latest developments where we see various possibilities of tributaries, I think there is no problem that this DLC could introduce a "temporary vasalage".
so would it work? The Qabila tribes' leaders can be vasalized by external powers, but the vasalization would only last until the death of the ruler [1]. After that the vasalage would need to be re-introduced.
At various places in this thread, I tried to explain that the Qabila confedderation does not operate with vasal obligation, but instead introduces other kinds of obligations, which are tied to Asabiya - (Tribal coherence). The Qabila tribal confederation can work even if 3 of its tribes are vasals of kingdom A, another is vasal of kingdom B, two are independent and the last one has conquered a "settled" kingdom for itself and has settled/feudal vasals. The Qabila still exists, though the conditions described are not ideal for it and if lasting for longer time period (i.e. 20 years), it would be very likely that the Qabila confederation would break into more and smaller Qabila confederations, unless there are very intensive ties amongst the tribes of the confederation.
Does it make sense, is it understandable?
EDIT: to make things little clearer I edited that post in the first page. Apologies for inconsistencies.
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No, it's just theory-work on how to better model Arab and similar cultures in CK games. It requires access to hardcode to do, so is mostly a resource for devs should they see it.
Not to say you're alone in the wish it was a mod. I think more than one of us would throw money at an attempt to turn this into reality. Unfortunate that paid modding is illegal or I'd suggest it. So we're down to just hoping Paradox adds it to a hypothetical CK3.