Could a surviving Ottoman Empire at least get to otl India levels of development?
If it got hit with a few nuclear weapons maybe?
You do realize that India is one of the poorest and least developed countries parts of the world? Aggregate the former Ottoman successor states in OTL, and that region is on average already more developed by a considerable margin than India is on average.
More likely Egypt than Palestine. The only problem is that if a foreign power (especially one controlled by the British, a Christian colonial empire) takes over Mecca and Medina, it's going to send ripples throughout the Islamic community worldwide.
Egypt had been the protector of the Holy Cities before, and Egyptian charity (mostly grain donations) was the main support for the holy cities throughout the Ottoman period. The issue here is British control of Egypt. If Egypt were independent, I can't see any reason why there'd be any particular problem with them being custodians of the cities.
The Arabs states have failed to deliver prosperity to their populations, that’s the reason for the instability in the Middle East.
I disagree. So long as people are not starving and feel things are generally improving, prosperity doesn't seem to have a whole lot to do with stability.
If we compare the Muslim world to the Christian world, is one or the other more reactionary? I've not seen any data that has looked into this, but I would not be confident to say the Muslim world was more reactionary, which we would assume if there was a strong link between prosperity and reactionary politics.
I think the instability has much more to do with geography, more geography, climate, foreign meddling, the break-up of the Ottoman and Persian empires and the general malaise that generally afflicts cultures when they go from number 1 to something further down the totem pole.
A former catholic, some use 'lapsed' but i don't belive in those thing, either you're active in your faith or you're a atheist/non theist.
Eh. I think there's a real big difference between different kinds of atheists and agnostics. So sure, there's a difference between people who practice a faith and those who don't practice a faith, but there's more than just those two categories in the world.
And even in families who have been atheist for generations, cultural context counts heavily. I live in a country that is majority atheist or agnostic, yet the our culture is full of unquestioned assumptions inherited from an age where just about everyone on these islands were Christian. Today we are very much a Christian atheist country.
With any pod after 1900, make it so that the Muslim world at large is as secular and socially progressive as the west. This is for things regarding stuff like gay rights, apostasy laws, etc. And make it so that the laws in most/all Muslim countries are completely secular.
And if you're really up to the challenge, make it so that the Muslim world is more progressive than the west
So keeping it to post 1900 PoDs, I can think of 3:
1) Ottoman Empire survives. The fertile crescent isn't cut up into unnatural states and remains part of a single economic unit with Anatolia, millions of people are not subjected to colonialism under Christian Europeans, Saudi Arabia is likely stomped, Jewish settlement in the Holy Land likely doesn't degenerate into such extreme inter-communal violence. There's just a whole lot less to react
against in this scenario.
2) No schism between Hindu nationalists and Muslim nationalists in India, leading to less anti-Muslim violence in India, no partition of India, no Pakistan. Again, we have a situation where there's just less to react against.
3) No successful Islamic Revolution in Iran. Khoumeini's success not only showed would-be copycats that Islamic Revolution could bear fruit, Iran also heavily supported various groups in order to gain pan-Islamic cred, which also led to various Sunni states upping their support of some of the same groups and a few different groups in order to contain what they saw as Iran trying to spread their revolution (not unfairly, since often the Iranians really were trying to spread their revolution). So this as PoD would mean an important example of success for reactionaries is removed and resources for reactionary/reactionary fostering groups is reduced.
And as a bonus:
4) A more ideologically heterogeneous Soviet Union where movements like the Jadids and other "Islamic Socialist" groups are allowed to prosper, rather than being fed into the gulag by Stalin. Then, as the Soviet Union became more wealthy and more engaged with world politics, the example of a mature Jadid movement in the USSR can not only serve as a model for people elsewhere in the world, but there is a superpower interested in opening Jadid schools hither and yon as a way of competing for influence, not only resulting in a better educated next generation, but also be another example giving a lie to the idea that the only way to adapt to the modern world is to give up Islam as is the reactionary thesis. I could also throw in a whole bunch of other more education-oriented PoDs along similar lines.
fasquardon