Mujibur/SK
Color: Dark Green
Government: Oligarchic Republic (The Sangshad - Rastrapati Khaleda Rahman)
History: Long before this age, the Sylheti people migrated to this island of Inlyanda, from a faraway land known only as Bangladesh. They mostly settled in quarters in the eastern section of Mahalandana, center of the world. While they were not rich, but they held onto their culture and traditions, and came to feel at home. Then, the world was turned upside down. During the starvations that followed, many of the Sylheti were forced to migrate eastwards to take up an agricultural life and survive, while some stayed behind to brave the starvation and found a new city in the ruins of east Landana.
Location: East London/Kent/Essex/that general area - I'll just fit myself around whoever else is in the region.
Society:
-The center of Sylheti life is the great city of Mujibur [roughly in Dagenham-Belvedere]. The bounty of the Sylheti farming towns largely goes to feeding the Mujiburis. Agricultural lands are theoretically held as tenants and granted by the Sangshad, but in reality, they are dominated by jamidars, or landlords. Various recent Rastrapatis have gained popularity amongst the rural peasantry by promising to depower the jamidars, but they are universally deposed before this can happen.
-Mujibur is where the Sangshad [parliament] meets to elect the Rastrapati [president] for a five-year term. The Sangshad is comprised of about two hundred prominent jamidars and urban patricians, though theoretically anyone can join, except slaves. The Rastrapati can be deposed by a Sangshadi vote at any time. However, recent Rastrapatis have grown increasingly despotic and absolutist.
-While they all speak the same language and share a common faith, the appearance of individual Sylheti can vary tremendously, with complexions and hair colors ranging the entire spectrum, though most are dusky-skinned and black-haired. This is due to the fact that a great number of non-Sylheti in the early days converted to Islam and assimilated into Sylheti society.
-Slaves exist, mostly in the countryside, or as household servants. They aren't exceptionally common, though.
-Gender roles exist and are strong - but legally, there is some degree of gender equality. Women can inherit and hold property, wield great public influence, become members in the Sangshad, and the current Rastrapati is a woman.
Religion: See below.
Economy: Predominantly agricultural; some fishing villages on the coast; a thriving merchant and artisan community in Mujibur; scavenger communities further west in Barking, Greenwich, Newham, and as far as Tower Hamlets
Person Names: Use OTL Bengali names
Place names (including names for some nearby areas):
-Kantha: Kent
-Kanthapur: Canterbury
-(Maha)landana: (Greater) London
-Saksha: Essex
-Temasa: River Thames
Decamper - it'd be cool to talk sometime since we're in the same area
Inlyandi Islam
Islam as it is practiced in Inlyanda today is very recognizable to the faithful of the age before. But it is now different - to the extent that some of the more hardcore faithful of that age, such as those of al-Islia in their great, misdirected struggle against the infidel, would consider it alien and blasphemous.
All the ulema agree that, some years after the Event, a woman named Rushanara established a degree of unity, and the faith had a single leader for the first time in many years. It was a chaotic time - many competing schools of thought and ideologies, such as the powerful, hardline al-Isila, various sects who claimed the holy city to be in various locales in the north, and the popular, esoteric sects of Gautammah and Rammah. Rushanara called together multiple ulema councils to determine the final direction of the Faith, and used force to quash others who threatened to use force. The other sects scattered, now only to be found in small communities in the woods. It was thus that Rushanara, and her daughters and successors Fatima and Shefali, established the tradition of powerful female political leaders, especially amongst the Sylheti. This centrality would not last - after Shefali's khalifate, infighting meant that the status of khalifa was reduced to guardians of the holy city of Kanthapur, a position further solidified by the fact that the Mujiburi Sangshad began growing in power, and began exercising that power over Mujibur's imams and ulema. But Rushanara's legacy dominates the entire faith today.
Rushanara's other great legacy was her endorsement of rationality. Those of al-Isila in particular decried her as a blasphemer, for this, and many other things. But there can be no question today; much of what is written in the Karaan and especially the hadiths makes little sense when compared to what is observed in the real world. It can only be concluded that they were written based on Allah's teachings, by very temporal humans - and it up to humans to find Allah's original meaning within them. After all, Allah did avow humans with rationality and wisdom for some purpose - what is the point if humans do not use it? It is the purpose, then, of scholars, to interpret the sacred texts, which hold advice on every aspect of life. Grand houses of debate exist to faciliate these discussions, which are often ridiculed for being over the most minute of details, such as what the proper method of indoor urination is. Some of these - such as the Great House of Maria in west Mujibur - have transformed into scholarly communities and centers of learning, producing texts on mathematics, the sciences, and history, in addition to religion. Most imams have a favored scholar, whose writings and doctrines they disseminate to the worshippers at their local mosque.
Rationality, learning, and education are Allah's light, meant to illuminate the unfaithful masses of infidels and kafirs in the darkness. On that note, Arabic survives as a liturgical language. Debate and writing must be conducted in Arabic to be recognized by anyone, as it is the original writing of the Karaan and the hadiths, and after all, an illiterate person cannot be an intellectual. Almost every other possible sphere in life uses Syleheti (Bengali).
All that being said, much has not changed. Despite the power of women in the public sphere, gender roles are still strong. Warfare is almost strictly the domain of men, and the household almost strictly the domain of women. There is almost no crossover in this regard - the hijras of the cities notwithstanding. The use of the headscarf is almost ubiquitous amongst Sylheti women. One's local mosque is, as it has always been, the center of their religious life, where one goes to get advice and wisdom. Prayer is carried out five times a day, even in winter. Alcohol and pork are still absolutely haram, agreed upon by virtually every scholar. The calendar is slightly different - it is now fixed to the solar calendar. But Ramadan is still celebrated as it always has. And every spring with the blossoms, a train of pilgrims plies their way to Kanthapur.
On that matter, the coastal city of Kanthapur has been the holy city, ever since Rushanara witnessed a star fall from the sky there and deposit a black rock in the heart of the town, destroying an old temple of the heathens of the cross. It was interpreted as a sign from Allah, whose original black stone had been long ago lost to the mists.
But the most striking change has been the addition of an entirely new canon of tales and legends to Islamic folklore. Sylheti literature today is descended almost entirely from these tales, which are frequently put on as public plays. One of the grandest - and most controversial - includes the tales about a mysterious figure - possibly a djinn - known only as the "Doctor," who had the capability of travelling to far-off realms mere humans could only dream off. Every night, for a whole year, he would appear to a young noblewoman and take her on varied adventures, ultimately culminating with her running away from her world, her family, and her impending marriage, and joining him. Another is the tale of the faithful Marlina, who devotes his life to protecting the unwilling prince Arthara at the behest of a djinn, even though Marlina's faith is forbidden in Arthara's father's kingdom. Still another is the story of the adventurer Sharlak the Wise, who, alongside with his life partner Yahya, uses his wits to fight criminals and wrongdoers.
Nice.
