Theocratic Europe

I'm fairly new to this alternate history thing, but I was trying to work out some ideas for a story when I realised it might work better set in an alternate present, rather than a purely fantasy land as originally intended.

The idea, by the present day, is to have a Europe that is much more religious, to have the Catholic Church as more of a politcal entity, kind of as it was during the Dark Ages.

Also, I'm trying to have it so that one of the Arab Muslim empires in the Middle East survives.

The only real ideas I have at the present are:
- The Umayyad dynasty keeps power and either survives through to the present day (unlikely, I know), or passes power over to a similar sized and placed state. The only important bit is to have an Arab Muslim state there of that sort of size by the present day.
- The Crusades are launched against a more united Arab Muslim empire, rather than against a more dissaparate Turkish one.
- Every few decades, war breaks out between Christendom and the Muslim world.
- The Catholic Church becomes a lot more powerful thanks to the war (and the absence of Protestants; it can rely on the support of European Christian nations to fight its holy war in the east.

I expect this is fairly flawed, but does anyone have any ideas about ending up with a similar set-up in the present day?

Thanks in advance for any help.
 
If a Caliphate survived and kept the Turkic lords as their vassals ?

That would mean that Constantinople would fall to a vassal of the Caliphate ?

Maybe we could do something with Charles of Anjou effecting something from all his claims and varied powers, and having a Pope all the time who supported him ?

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
Allow Innocent III's ideas of papal supremacy in the secular realm to succeed (this means that several strong kings in France and England i think, have to be butterflied away some how). But it sounds interesting.
 
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