Europe stays in the dark ages and Islamic world goes forward

I have been thinking what if Christian Europe insteed of liberalising society stays in the dark ages? Thereby creating a Christian Fundamentalist Europe. But then we see Islamic society in Middle East going through the changes which Europe went. So we in the late 20th Century end up with a Mid-East which is still Islamic, but as secular and democratic as Europe is today in OTL.

What do you think my line of thought?
 
I don't think you can turtledove this. The development in the Islamic world would look different from that in Europe, and the Dark Ages were actually fairly 'liberal' in the Whig sense. Europe's rise to preeminence owes much more than is commonly acknowledged to its uniquely repressive and regimented society.

You may have an chance if you take out the rise of the papacy and maybe create a pagan counterweight to the Northwestern European powers. That way, the Islamic world could continue to be the cultural center of gravity for the Mediterranean and civilised Europe will lack strategic depth. Then, if you just project the 'Arab humanist' tradition forward (not easy to do, but probably doable) you can get an alt-Renaissance
 
There's a number of reasons the Islamic world didn't develop any further, namely primarily that it's intellectual centers were wiped out. Primarily this concerns two events, namely the downfall of Al-Andalus at the hands of the Reconquista, and secondly, probably more tragic, the Mongol conquests, which resulted in the depopulation of Persia and the sacking of Baghdad, the latter which was at it's time the intellectual heart of the Islamic world. In general, I'd say that the sacking of Baghdad put an end to what one might dubb the Islamic "golden age". Although one might say that there was an Islamic "silver age" under the Ottomans. ;)

As for sticking Europe in the Dark Ages, that bit is probably a bit easier. No reformation, and no development of the scientific method would probably do.
 
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