Talk:Moghul National Realm

AFGHANOPAKISTAN

Old name of the Moghul National Realm.

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Afghanopakistan is a constitutional monarchy of some 17.9 million persons(estimated), not counting nomads who frequently cross the borders with India, Persia and other Asian states. The capital is Herat, and other important cities are Kabul, Ghazni, Shahr-i-Gholghola, a site of some historical importance. The main train station is at Kabul, and the country's only aerodrome is in that same city.

Other countries in the immediate region include Persia, Turkestan, Uyguristan, Kashmir, Panjab (Sikh Confederacy), the Disputed Area (both Queen Gohar IV and her predecessor have offered to mediate in the dispute), Sind and Tibet. The official language is Pashto, the usual language of diplomacy & trade is Arabic (except that all diplomatic or trade missions, regardless of nationality, must speak Pashto to the Crown. Other languages include Dari, Urdu, Zorastor Farsi, Hazaragi, and Turkish (both western Turkish & Sino-Turkish). The Civil War has caused the emmigration of several minorities; in the recent decade, an influx of Russian and Hindi speakers is noted.

The State religion is Alevi Islam; other religions include Shi'ite Islam, Zorastorianism, Buddhism and Christianity. The unit of currency is the bir-sahm; though other nations' currencies circulate, including various rupees and mohars of India and a wen, or yuan, based on 16th century Chinese currency.

The official sport is Archery; other popular sports are oil wrestling, polo, and cirit or "jereet", an ancient equestrian wargame imported from Turkey.

The Constitutional Monarchy was established in 1875, under the weak King Dost II, who was quick to grab on this idea to quell the tide of dissent against his father's absolutist regime. The Inner and Outer Councils consist of tribal leaders from each region; the Crown retains veto priviledge and may ignore any lawmaking or policy suggestions that either Council brings up. The Inner Council for a long time was comprised of predominantly Alevi tribal representatives; in 1913 Shi'ites were admitted to the Inner Council. The Outer Council is comprised of the Inner Council members, as well as representatives of other provinces and Crown territories. The 1934 Decision nearly dissolved the Outer Council, as it was considered unneccessary. It was retained, however, in the event that new territories came under Crown authority.

The historical founder of what is now Afganopakistan was Mohammed Zahir-un-din, also known as Babur. In the early 16th Century, he led his armies to great victories against the Safavids, extending his kingdom all the way to the Persian Gulf. While not conquering Persia, he very much weakened the Safavids, opening a fifty-year window which the Ottomans were unable to take good advantage of, as a strong Shah was able to hold back the Ottoman tide.

Babur's successor, as he was preparing to hand over power to his own successor late in life, established trade and diplomatic ties with China that have continued with few interruptions since. It is from this period that the Afghani yuan (wen) as a currency derives. In the mid-17th Century, several Indian provinces liberated themselves from Baburid rule, declaring their independance from the central government. While two of them were briefly re-captured (1697-1719) by Queen Gohar II [r. 1691-1711], they were lost once more during the reign of Babur II [r. 1715-1729]. This is amongst the reasons Indo-Afghani relations are so often tense.

In the mid-18th Century, the National Civil War took place, with several competing rivals for the throne contending with great armies [1745-1767], and various tribes from outside the country took advantage of the chaos for a chance at some of the spoils of a weakened country. For over a century following the Civil War, the game of cirit was heavily suppressed, as it was feared to be a way for potential rivals to train their troops. After the war, the Second Baburid Dynasty was instituted.

In the late 18th Century, a flowering of Turkish art and philosophy took place following the ascension to the Baburid throne of the self-professed Turkophile Babur IV [r. 1789-1821]. The reigning religion at this time changed to Alevi Islam. The ancient sigil of a coiled dragon was placed onto the national flag at this time.

There is a story told among the inhabitants of the region around Shahr-i-Gholghola, that in 1825, Timur II, the successor to Babur IV, visited the "City of Sighs" and for three weeks prayed for the souls of those who died there. While there is no written documentation certifying this visitation actually took place, there is also none to say that the visitation is a falsehood.

Timur II's own successor, Dost the First [r. 1837-1847] encouraged settlement of the regions near Shahr-i-Gholghola, to form both a New and an Old City side by side. Dost also sent emmissaries to the Ottoman Empire, with the proposal of a Holy War against the Safavid Persians, though no reply was received, as the Ottomans were too busy at home to wage war. The idea was set aside.

Recently, in the wake of the 1922-33 civil unrest in the Zorastrian provinces, King Dost III made concessions to the tribal leaders of those provinces. The concessions allowed their representatives a seat on the Inner Council, which had previously been restricted to Muslims. The move was not a very popular decision with Alevi Muslims, but it did restore a degree of stability to the land, and kept the nation strong enough to discourage foreign adventuring in Afganistan.

In mid-1991, the Crown issued a proclamation, informing one and all that the religious agitator Osama bin Ladin, if he ever entered the nation, was to be arrested immediately and executed without trial - for his crimes against religion such as misrepresentation and mistranslation of scripture.

Beginning in the mid-1990s, the Crown has begun taking notice of increasing unrest in Afganopakistan's eastern province, particularly of the increasingly vocal demands of the local Buddhists who want a seat on the Council. Few Council members openly support this action, as the demonstrators are either immigrants from the Indian states, or are the children of immigrants from those Indian states.

Afganopakistan has also begun to emerge from its long isolation, and it has already begun to make diplomatic proposals to other Turkic states (Uyguristan, Turkestan) for diplomaticv relations and closer alliances.

Sport

I don't know if anyone's paying attention to this place anymore, but another national sport might be buzkashi. Benkarnell 07:20, 8 February 2008 (PST)

Duchy-sized?

Can you be more precise than 'duchy-sized'? The duchy of Mantua is 6,903 sq. km.; the duchy of Massa 129. That's quite a bit of variation. Charlie 14:31, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

Alevi vs. Shia

Technically Alevism is a branch of Shia Islam *here*. Should I change the article to reflect that? Juan Martin Velez Linares 09:38 22 September 2015 (CDT)

I would say no - *there* it's specifically broken out. BoArthur 07:42, 22 September 2015 (PDT)

Narsids/Safavids

Before you start changing things -- make sure that it's not something specifically changed as a POD. My understanding that the whole of the Moghul National Realm was developed by a denizen of that region, *here*, or at least with ethnic ties to the area, if I'm remembering correctly. BoArthur 08:45, 8 February 2016 (PST)

Jihad

"Timur II's own successor, Dost the First [ruled 1837-1847] promoted settlers to move into the area next to Shahr-i-Gholghola, to form both a New and an Old City side by side. Dost also sent emmissaries to the Ottoman Empire, with the proposal of a Holy War against the Safavid Persians; no reply was sent to Dost, as the Ottomans were too busy at home to wage war, so Dost shelved that idea."

I don't agree Dost the First would intend to wage a holy war against Persia in a time Persia was under a muslim dynasty (Qajar, not Safavid, as we can find in Persia article). At that time also the Moghul National Realm was already with Alevism as state religion so I don't think they would ally with the Ottomans (who are Sunni) to fight the possibly Shiite Qajar Persia. If a jihad against Zoroastrian Persia was intended guess it would be some decades before Dost the First, during persian Zand dynasty, of Zoroastrian religion.--Pedromoderno 19:17, 12 March 2017 (PDT)

Inventing Our Own Alevi Faith

This started on Turkey's talk page, but I'll transfer it here. Here's my timeline.

• 1200's: Muslims bomb the shit out of the Hashashins' castle in Alamut and scatter the Ismaili Shia to roam the world in exile forever. This is the greatest defeat to the Ismailis since the fall of the Fatimid caliphate to Saladin.
• 1340's: explosion of Sufi tariqas across the world through trade routes set up by the Mongols. Haji Bektash Veli's own order makes it back to the land of his birth, Afghanistan. The Ismailis follow these trade routes and make their way to India. Taken from Wikipedia: "The Isma'ili Imams, and their followers would wander Iran for several centuries in concealment, The Imams would often take on the garb of a tailor, or mystic master, and their followers as Sufi Muslims. During this period Iranian Sufism, and Isma'ilism would form a close bond. Shamsu-d-Dīn Muḥammad succeeded Ruknuddin Khwarshah as the 28th Imam, escaping as a child and living in concealment in Azerbaijan. The 29th Imam Qāsim Shāh, 30th Imam Islām Shāh and 31st Imam Muḥammad ibn Islām Shāh also lived in concealment. Here the Ismaili Imam became a Sufi master (murshid) and his followers mureeds which are terminologies that are used today." We just need to change "Iranian" in that paragraph to maybe "Afghan" or "Indian" or even"Turkish."
• The Ismaili imamate sets itself up in either Afghanistan or northern India by 1400 instead of Anjudan in Iran as per OTL.
• Babur makes his way down to India as per our world. Many Kizilbash refugees flee Anatolia, Kurdistan, and Azerbaijan to meet the new imams in their place of exile.
• An alternate Akbar takes the throne with the help of this imamate whose last reigning imam appoints him the new heir to the succession as he had only daughters after he marries one. He takes this a step further and changes the faith, incorporation Zoroastrian and Hindu precepts to get new converts to this religion, and he stresses the mystical and Sufi aspects of his faith as opposed to the hard Islamism. It works, with many Zoroastrians in the north and Hindus in the south of this realm joining this ever-changing, highly syncretic form of Shia Islam.
• Embittered Sunni scholars in the Ottoman world and elsewhere pejoratively call this new sect "Alevism" after its worship of Ali and his descendents (with Akbar being adopted in). Western scholars adopt this phrase to describe this distinctly Indian sect, still using the phrase to describe the Kurdish and Turkish Alevis and a similar term for the Arab Alawites. Maybe we can make this Alevism the alternate version of the Ahmadiyya since they sound like they'd have similar ideas about prophets of other religions past as Akbar's doppelgänger would.

Misterxeight 16:27, 3 January 2018 (PST)

Hey! Sorry it’s taken me such a long time to respond, just wanted to get me two cents in on the idea.

So I like the general idea you’ve come up with. I do think it’s a good way to “cheat” the system and give an explanation as to why Alevism is the faith followed in the MNR. I should note that *here* Din-i-Ilahi is a little odd as far as religions go; for one, it had no scriptures, no real priests (unless you count Admiral Akbar himself), and no real establishment of religious institutions. In some ways it was more a political system or an attempt to reform Islam than it was a proper “religion” (of course, that’s a muddy, complicated, and fraught definition). Not sure how that factors into your plans, but it seems like you resolved that pretty well.

The major issue here is that... this unfortunately doesn’t seem to square with QSS. (At least I think it’s QSS... IDK) In the article itself, it says that the state religion became Alevism under the “self-professed Turkophile Babur IV”, which would seem to imply to me that the original author meant the Turkish kind of Alevism. That being said, there’s still a lot of wiggle room, since the original author didn’t specify whether he meant the Turkish kind of Alevism, and the actual act of changing the state religion might just have been a gradual thing rather than something that happened on a whim by a Turk-loving emperor. I should also note that apparently the original author was from the region (i.e. Afghanistan/Pakistan) or had roots in the area, so it’s entirely possible that he didn’t actually know much about Alevism beyond “it’s some form of Islam that they practice in Turkey”. Honestly, I don’t think any contradictions with QSS in your idea are your fault; I feel like in this case it’s yet another instance of the Old Guard accepting something unrealistic as QSS without any considerations as to how it would actually pan out. Something that frustrates me a lot about QSS is how static it is sometimes; it seems practically impossible to get anyone else to agree with a retcon even when a retcon really should be made (not to mention that sometimes it feels like they’re biased against realistic retcons...) Anyway, maybe we should just go up to Daniel and tell him “we can’t work with this, there’s no way we can make this realistic without going into the realm of improbability” and see if we can get his blessing to rework this article. IDK. Canon is frustrating. I really do like your idea though; I say to hell with QSS and write it in. We’ll sort out the problem later. Juanmartinvelezlinares 06:31, 26 January 2018 (PST)

Great, I’m glad to hear it. We can maybe use the phrase “Din-i-İlahi” as yet another term for reformed Nizari Ismailism. The Alevis in real life have mutliple terms for themselves and the Druze call themselves just “monotheists,” so more than one term for a religion by its followers isn’t that out of the ordinary. That still doesn’t seem to be that hard to fix. While I do find it kind of weird that Babur’s great-grandson is a Turkophile since he is a Turk, we can still roll with it by said leader inviting in more radically Ghulat Alevi religious leaders who are unwilling to take the Ottomans’ olive branch of Sunni-Alevi rapprochement. They might be Nizaris on paper as guests of the sultan, but I doubt what they’re teaching at their schools or preaching at their worship meetings is much different from what they were teaching and lreaching back in Anatolia.

I agree with all your statements. I think you’d agree with me that consistently pagan, Gaulish-speaking Jersey Islands is just a bit too much even if the creator back in 2003 was a neopagan and wanted to feel represented in this fictional world. A lot of it is a bit much, especially when all I’m asking is like say that the Circassians stay majority Orthodox or something really minor that doesn’t step on anyone’s toes and is boring to the rest of the audience as a whole (those read receipts on the Facebook group are rather telling). Misterxeight 20:51, 27 January 2018 (PST)