Arabian Federation (Principia Moderni II Map Game)

The Arabian Federation (Arabic: الاتحاد العربي) is a nation located in the east of the Arabian peninsula.

History
Following the collapse of the Hashemite Caliphate in 1575, chaos engulfed the Arabian peninsula and anti-Islamic ideals spread. The Emirate of Shaybah had emerged from the fall of the Mahdiate relatively unscathed. Its leader Emir Osama bin Said who was still very religious, began to expand his Emirate to take over Arabia and spread Sunni Islam to stop the growth of anti-Islam and atheism. Emir Osama by forcibly spreading Sunni Islam and denying the rights of many people. This annoyed many military chiefs, local Sheik rulers, merchants and importantly, Emir Osama's son, Muhammad bin Said. These people met up and plotted to assassinate Emir Osama so that his son Muhammad would inherit the throne and be able to make a much more liberal state out of the intolerant, oppressive state that his father Emir Osama was creating.

In 1585 Emir Osama of Shaybah was assassinated. The assassin was captured and exiled for his crime, this was done to show the heir to the throne - Muhammad - had nothing to do with the assassination and thus him inheriting the throne was legitimate. The conspirators agreed alongside the new Emir Muhammad bin Said to reform Shaybah to give Omani, Yemeni, Bedouin and Arab Sheiks a higher degree of autonomy as they were given control of their own Sheikdom states, capable of self rule and participation in the larger federal government of Arabia. This split up the Emirate of Shaybah to its pre-Osama borders and the other territories of Shaybah were split into Sheikdom states, united under the federation.

The new federation split Arabia up into many states, each ruled by a Sheik lord who imposed local rule over his Sheikdom state and participated in the federal government as part of the Sheik council. Shaybah remained an Emirate within the federation, meaning that the Emir of Shaybah had more power in the Sheik council than the other Sheik members. This tiered system of government within the Sheikh council eventually saw the powerful Nabhan Dynasty, who used to rule Oman when it was last independent, managing to unite some of the Nabhan clans to merge several Omani Sheikdoms into an Emirate state to ensure Omani dominance within the Federation.

Several other places have joined the Arabian Federation since it was founded in 1585. Several Bedouin tribes have agreed to join the Federation and have become Sheikdom states within the federation. The Federation also invaded the Persian Empire so that some rebel Sheiks in the south of the Persian Empire could join the federation. The colony of Socotra was allowed to join the federation as a Sheikdom state in 1643.

The Federation has also established a powerful mercantile trading empire across the Indian Ocean; establishing colonies in Africa with the Zanj islands colony based on the islands of Mafia, Zanzibar and the smaller Tanzanian spice islands. The Federation's colonies in the East Indies include the Bengkulu colony and the Timor-Kupang colony.

The rise of the Emirate of Muscat, business competition, tribal conflicts and rivalries, the Federation entered a period of internal strife in 1652 as rival Sheiks attempted to increase their power, other Sheikdoms entered dynastic union following years of alliances, some Sheiks were assassinated to allow annexation of some states by states which had commissioned these assassinations and in the southern Ash Sharqiyah region, the tribes all entered a bloody conflict and destroyed themselves. This civil war period ended in 1660.

After the civil war period ended, neighbouring Yemen was invaded by Ethiopia. Fearful of the creation of a dangerous warzone so close to his borders and the Sheikdoms of the south wanting to expand their own states at the expense of the crumbling Yemeni nation. Hence the Arabian Federation joined the war to expand its own territories and to help ensure the warzone didn't create masses of refugees in Yemen.

During this war, and the years after it, other Sheikdoms joined together mainly dynastic union and without violence. The Bedouin Sheikdoms also expanded inland into the northern Nejd but following a lot of northern expansion and the formation of the Sultanate of Nejd after the Sheikdom of Riyadd's expansion into Nejd. Now the Federation had firmly established borders with major nations and the Federation was free from being dragged into nearby warzones.

The Federation also expanded its colonial empire, the major expansion being the invasion and annexation of the Scandinavian colony in East Africa. The expansion happened after the Federation took advantage of Scandinavia being dragged into a large war which took place across its global empire. Following this war the Zanj Islands colony expanded onto the African continent itself, and renamed the Zanj coast colony.

This growing power of the Federation, coupled with the Sheikdoms states increasing in size, made individual states more economically competitive and allowed the colonial empire to expand, and importantly, the Sheik council could come to decisions much faster than before thanks to the reduced amount of Sheiks and Emirs. The federation's vassals also grew in power and became larger players on the world stage, becoming important economic partners and centres of economic trade for some industries. However problems arose as nearby countries continued to marginalize Muslims and many migrants came to the Federation seeking a life where they could worship freely.

The Federation took advantage of this global marginalization of Islam by funding an influential moderate-Muslim Iman to become Caliph of the Arabian Caliphate. The future Caliph Ali made a deal with the Federation who would support his campaign in return for the Caliphate becoming effectively a vassal of the Federation and having the Caliphate sell off land to neighbours. The new Caliph also followed a path of moderate Islam to stop growing extremism caused by Islam's marginalization across the globe. This new more peace-focused Islam allowed the Federation to pursue its liberal, merchant-led, democratic national ideal and helping to spread these ideals to other Muslim nations.

However eventually one of the nation's which the new Caliphate sold land to, the Sultanate of Nejd, and its vassal owner, the Persian empire, slowly turned against the Arabian Federation and relations soured. This was caused mainly by the Persian empire with its ally the Roman empire, attacking the Levantine Kingdom: an important ally of the Federation. The Levant managed to beat off its invaders thanks to help from its allies. During this period, a new education system was introduced which forced each Sheikdom state in the Federation to have its own university, and each Emirates 3 universities. Following this a new school system was introduced to bring more children to a higher basic level of education to increase future university application numbers.

As relations soured with Persia, the Arabian Federation made the decision to join up with the Roman empire, Dimurats and Netherlands in invading the expansionist Persian empire who was proving to be a problem to all of its former allies. During this war, the Caliphate moved from being a vassal of the Federation to in a personal union with it, following a series of constitutional changes as Sheik lords within the Caliphate demanded greater autonomy from the Caliph and from the Federation. This new deal gave the Caliphate more autonomy, more democracy and made it technically part of the Arabian Federation, but it remained a separate part of it thanks to its own constitution. The war against Persia ended with the Federation acquiring most of the Nejd and these were organised into new Sheikdom states. Some of the Sheikdom states also expanded in size in the Nejd and the Persian Sheikdoms expanded as well thanks to the war. The Caliphate regained the lands it had sold to the Persians as well, and some more land in Nejd.

Another important gain from this war was the Persian's Mesopotamian vassal moving into the Federation's sphere of influence. The Federation split the Mesopotamian Sultanate back to how it was before the Persian's took over, re-establishing the Sultanates of Baghdad and Kuwait. These two new Sultanates became vassals of the Federation. This paved the way for the creation of the Muslim bloc, a new alliance of Muslim nations led by Caliph Ali officially, but the Federation was the dominant power in the bloc. The bloc included the Arabian Federation, Caliphate, Sultanate of Kuwait, Sultanate of Baghdad, Sultanate of Maldives, the Republic of Comchellak, the Dimurats and the Somali Sultanate. This bloc was created in response to the Great war of the 1700s and helped create solidarity against the war spreading into the Middle East.

A new set of business incorporation laws were introduced in 1699, which helped boost the economy of the Federation further. Another massive boost came from the dynastic union between the Caliphate and Levantine Kingdom in 1703 following the marriage of Emir Ahmed of Medina and Princess Mary of the Levant. This helped the Muslim bloc to easily trade with Europe thanks the new trade deal brought in thanks to the dynastic union causing lower trading tariffs making the Federation one of the largest suppliers of spice to Europe.

The Federation's trade network continued to expand as the Zanj coast colony expanded in land to make more plantations and acquire more slaves. This then helped the Federation to acquire a trading pact and alliance with China too. Using this new money, the Federation helped its vassals in their wars, be it Baghdad expanding into Persia or Comchellak trying to kick Wales off Madagascar. The Federation got further involved in the war against Wales by trying to buy the Welsh colony but this plan was ultimately unsuccessful.

Government
The Arabian federation is a federation of hereditary monarchies governed on a national level by the Sheikh council. The head of state is the Caliph, though the two nations in the union (Arabian Federation and Caliphate) have separate constitutions. There are currently 7 Emirates and 41 Sheikdoms in the Federation. The Caliphate has 7 Sheikdoms. The map opposite contains names and labels of each of the states.

The Caliphate's constitution's primary differences are that the Sheiks and Emirs of the Caliphate's Sheik Council elect an Emir to rule for 10 years. Whereas the Federation's Sheik Council elect a Sultan to rule for 10 years. Some laws do differ between the states but the fundamental laws and governing principles remain the same. However in the chain of command for the whole of the Federation, the Sultan of the Federation is the supreme leader, with the Caliph being a symbolic head of state, who had large influence and say on governance but no real legal power.

Below is a table showing the Sultans of the Arabian Federation:

Culture
The Culture of the Federation is a largely peaceful one, built upon the secular constitution which governs the Federation. It is very tolerant society and social etiquette is of a very high standard, which can be quite daunting to foreigners.

Religion
The Arabian Federation is a secular state, with no official state religion. However the Arabian Federation's main religion is overwhelmingly Islam, with many branches of Islam including Sunni, Shi'ite and Ibadhi Islam being the most popular practices of Islam in the federation. A few Christians, Jews, Hindi and other religions are practised in the federation, but Islam is the vast majority for approximately 85% of the population. However it is also worth noting that many people who see themselves as Islamic, are not strict and the majority of people loosely follow Islam in a liberal form, with many of the stricter rules being ignored and considered un-Islamic and simply those put by rulers to control the populace. This is largely due to the large anti-religion movement saw after the demise of Mahdi Islam after it was seen to be false. Furthermore, following the collapse of the Caliphate in 1575 and the rejection of fraudulent Mahdi Islam, many people abandoned religion all-together and became atheist. Atheists account for 12% of the population of the federation.

Languages
The main language in the federation is Arabic and its different dialects. Other popular languages include various Indian dialects following the large migrant of Indian Muslims from Orissa who felt oppressed by the anti-Muslim government.