The Origin of Freemasonry: The Crusaders & Templars

  

By

Harun Yahya

The common perception of the majority of historians of Freemasonry is that the origin of the organization goes back to the Crusades. In fact, though Masonry was only officially established and recognized in England in the early eighteenth century, the roots of the organization do reach back to the Crusades in the twelfth century. At the center of this familiar tale is an order of crusaders called the Knights Templar or the Templars.

No matter how much some may insist that the Crusades were military expeditions carried out in the name of the Christian faith, fundamentally, they were undertaken for material gain. In a period when Europe was experiencing great poverty and misery, the prosperity and wealth of the East, especially of the Muslim in the Middle East, attracted the Europeans. This inclination took on a religious facade, and was ornamented with the symbols of Christianity, though, in actuality, the idea of the Crusades was born out of a desire for worldly gain. This was the reason for the sudden change among Christians of Europe from their former pacifist policies, in earlier periods of their history, towards military aggression.

The founder of the Crusades was Pope Urban II. He summoned the Council of Clermont, in 1095, in which the former pacifist doctrine of the Christians was abandoned. A holy war was called for, with the intent to wrest the holy lands from the hands of the Muslims. Following the council, a huge army of Crusaders was formed, composed both of professional soldiers, and tens of thousands of ordinary people.

Historians believe Urban II’s venture was prompted by his desire to thwart the candidacy of a rival to the papacy. Furthermore, while European kings, princes, aristocrats and others greeted the pope’s call with excitement, their intentions were basically mundane. As Donald Queller of The University of Illinois put it, “the French knights wanted more land. Italian merchants hoped to expand trade in Middle Eastern ports… Large numbers of poor people joined the expeditions simply to escape the hardships of their normal lives.”[1] Along the way, this greedy mass slaughtered many Muslims, and even Jews, in hopes of finding gold and jewels. The crusaders even cut open the stomachs of those they had killed to find gold and precious stones the victims may have swallowed before they died.

After a long and difficult journey, and much plunder and slaughter of Muslims, this motley band called Crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099. When the city fell after a siege of nearly five weeks, the Crusaders moved in. They carried out a level of savagery the like of which the world has seldom seen. All Muslims and Jews in the city were put to the sword. In the words of one historian, “They killed all the Saracens and the Turks they found… whether male or female.[2]

In two days, the Crusader army killed some 40,000 Muslims in the most barbaric manner.4 The Crusaders then made Jerusalem their capital, and founded a Latin Kingdom stretching from the borders of Palestine to Antioch.

Later, the crusaders initiated a struggle to maintain their position in the Middle East. In order to sustain the state they had founded, it was necessary to organize it. To this end, they established military orders, the alike of which had never existed before. Members of these orders came from Europe to Palestine, and lived in a type of monastery where they received military training to fight against Muslims. One of these orders, in particular, was different from the others. It underwent a transformation that would influence the course of history. This order was the Templars.

The Templars, or, their full name, The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Jesus Christ and the Temple of Solomon, was formed in 1118, that is, 20 years after the Crusaders took Jerusalem. The founders of the order were two French knights, Hugh de Payens and Godfrey de St. Omer. At first, there were 9 members, but the order steadily grew. The reason they named themselves after the temple of Solomon was because the place they had chosen as a base was the temple mount where this ruined temple had been located. This same location was where the Dome of the Rock (Qubbet as-Sakhrah) stood.

The Templars called themselves “poor soldiers,” but within a short time they became very wealthy. Christian pilgrims, coming from Europe to Palestine, were under the complete control of this order, and by whose money they became very rich.

It was the Templars who were mainly responsible for the Crusaders’ attacks of and murder of Muslims. For this reason, the great Islamic commander Saladin, who defeated the Crusaders’ army in 1187, in the Battle of Hattin, and afterwards rescued Jerusalem, put the Templars to death for the murders they had committed, even though he had otherwise pardoned a large number of Christians. Although they lost Jerusalem, and suffered heavy casualties, the Templars continued to exist. And, despite the continual diminution of the Christian presence in Palestine, they increased their power in Europe and, first in France, and then in other countries, became a state within a state.

Finally, in 1307, the French king Philip le Bel decided to arrest the members of the order. Some of them managed to escape but most of them were caught. Pope Clement V also joined the purge. Following a long period of interrogation and trial, many of the Templars admitted to heretical beliefs, that they had rejected the Christian faith and insulted Jesus in their masses. Finally, the leaders of the Templars, who were called “grandmasters,” beginning with the most important of them, Jacques de Molay, were executed in 1314 by order of the Church and the King. The majority of them were put into prison, and the order dispersed and officially disappeared.

The trial of the Templars ended with the termination of the order. But, although the order “officially” ceased to exist, it did not actually disappear. During the sudden arrest in 1307, some Templars escaped, managing to cover their tracks. According to a thesis based on various historical documents, a significant number of them took refuge in the only kingdom in Europe that did not recognize the authority of the Catholic Church in the fourteenth century, Scotland. There, they reorganized under the protection of the Scottish King, Robert the Bruce. Sometime later, they found a convenient method of disguise by which to continue their clandestine existence: they infiltrated the most important guild in the medieval British Isles-the wall builders’ lodge, and eventually, they fully seized control of these lodges.[3]

The wall-builders’ lodge changed its name, at the beginning of the modern era, calling itself the “Masonic lodge.” The Scottish Rite is the oldest branch of Masonry, and dates back to the beginning of the fourteenth century, to those Templars who took refuge in Scotland. And, the names given to the highest degrees in Scottish Rite are titles attributed centuries earlier to knights in the order of Templars. These are still employed to this day.

In short, the Templars did not disappear, but their philosophy, beliefs and rituals still persist under the guise of Freemasonry. This thesis is supported by much historical evidence, and is accepted today by a large number of Western historians, whether they are Freemasons or not., (For detailed information see Harun Yahya, The New Masonic Order)

The thesis that traces the roots of Masonry to the Templars is often referred to in magazines published by Masons for its own members. Freemasons are very accepting of the idea. One such magazine is called Mimar Sinan (a publication of Turkish Freemasons), which describes the relationship between the Order of the Templars and Freemasonry in these words:

“In 1312, when the French king, under pressure from the Church, closed the Order of Templars and gave their possessions to the Knights of St. John in Jerusalem, the activities of the Templars did not cease. The great majority of the Templars took refuge in Freemasonic lodges that were operating in Europe at that time. The leader of the Templars, Mabeignac, with a few other members, found refuge in Scotland under the guise of a wall builder under the name of Mac Benach. The Scottish King, Robert the Bruce, welcomed them and allowed them to exercise great influence over the Masonic lodges in Scotland. As a result, Scottish lodges gained great importance from the point of view of their craft and their ideas.

Today, Freemasons use the name Mac Benach with respect. Scottish Masons, who inherited the Templars’ heritage, returned it to France many years later and established there the basis of the rite known as the Scottish Rite.” [4]

Finally, we say, it is clear that the roots of Freemasonry stretch back to the Order of Templars, and that the Masons have adopted the philosophy of this order. Masons themselves accept this. (For further reading, see “Global Freemasonry” by Harun Yahya)<

Notes:

[1] World Book Encyclopedia, “Crusades,” Contributor: Donald E. Queller, Ph.D., Prof. of History, Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, World Book Inc., 1998

[2] Geste Francorum, or the Deeds of the Franks and the Other Pilgrims to Jerusalem, trans. Rosalind Hill, London, 1962, p. 91

[3] For this thesis about Freemasonry, see. John J. Robinson, “Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of Freemasonry”, New York, M. Evans & Company, 1989

[4] Ender Arkun, “Masonlarin Dusunce Evrimine Katkisina Kisa Bir Bakis” (A Short Look at the Contribution of Freemasonry to the Evolution of Thought), Mimar Sinan, 1990, No. 77, p.68

Harun Yahya is a prominent Turkish intellectual.

The Rahbar’s analysis of the Iraq war: "The emerging Hitlerism of America"

Sayyid Ali Khamenei

Speaking in Mashhad on March 23, the Rahbar of Islamic Iran, IMAM SAYYID ALI KHAMENEI, gave a detailed analysis of the reasons for America’s war on Iraq. Here we reprint an abridged extract from that speech.

In the Name of God, The Merciful, the Compassionate. . .

Our dear people should realize that the dimensions of the American attack on Iraq are greater than Iraq. Under any circumstance, an attack on any country, be it Iraq or another, by a distant and powerful country on the basis of false and fabricated grounds is wrong. World public opinion has condemned this action. You can see it on television. You see their huge anti-war rallies in all corners of the world, even in America itself. But the issue is even more dangerous for the Islamic world. It has even greater implications. You shouldn’t just think that a certain regime with a certain motivation is attacking a certain other country.

The Americans want to portray the situation in a different light. They pretend that their objective is to dispose Saddam because he has weapons of mass-destruction, or because he supports terrorism, or because the Americans want to help the Iraqi people. This is what the Americans are pretending, but this is deceit. Many people around the world know this.

The fact is that a new, shameless and very dangerous Hitlerism has emerged in history. America is now creating a situation like what Hitler created at the start of World War II. Hitler attacked his European neighbours with the justification that Germany needs a vital space, "Lebensraum". He said Germany is too small for the German people; they need greater space to survive. It was a matter of vital national interest. This was the justification to his people and the world public opinion, but it was a false and ridiculous justification.

Today, the American justification for attacking Iraq—and before that for attacking Afghanistan—is that "we want to safeguard our own national interests, we want to remove threats against us". This is their justification today. But how far is Iraq from America? What sort of threat can Iraq pose? What are American interests which require and allow the American regime to use arms against another country?

The American definition of national interests is similar to what the ancient landowners and the old bullies did in the old villages and neighbourhoods. If a village girl weaves a pretty carpet and the landowner likes it, the girl’s father has to take the carpet to him. The justification is that he needs the carpet. If there is a valuable item, they have to give it to him. This was the culture of the landowners, the culture of the bullies. "I like what you have and you should give it me whether you like it or not." This is precisely how Americans are interpreting their national interests now.

First they define something as being in their interests. These things could be in the possession of another nation in a distant part of the world. But because America has power and weapons, it considers itself entitled to achieve those interests in any way necessary. It does not matter how much suffering is caused, it does not matter how much destruction is brought about, or how lives are trampled on. This is how the Americans define their national interests.

Let me briefly define the general objectives of the Americans in this region. The fact of the matter is that this region, i.e. the Arab and then the Muslim world, is rich in terms of oil—a valuable commodity—and America wants this oil. There are also other mineral resources, under the ground and under the sea. There are also geo-strategic considerations—anyone who controls this region has access to other parts of the world. America wants all these things. It is the same story as the pretty carpet that the landowner wanted, and had to secure.

The other thing that the Americans want from the region is the consumer market. They want to sell their own products there. The region is well populated. The population must use American products, so that American and Zionist capitalists can fill their pockets.

If they want to achieve these things and if they want to keep the region for themselves, they need a type of regime which is totally subservient to them, which accepts their policies, which produces oil at a price which it is told, which consumes certain goods, which cuts its ties with American rivals, which establishes ties with the friends of America, and so on. In order to keep their rule in the region they need totally subservient and dependent regimes which don’t resist the pursuit of American interests. Of course, already there are regimes like that in the region. But there is another phenomenon which they have to take into account.

Today reactionary regimes, monarchical regimes or despotic regimes are of little use to America even though they serve American interests. They now need regimes which have a facade of democracy. So the danger of America is not limited to Iraq. Many regimes in the region, which have good ties with America but are not popular or dependent on people’s votes, are going to be challenged by America soon. These types of regimes are of no use for the Americans: they don’t want regimes like the Pahlavi taghut that provoked people into revolution. The Pahlavi regime was a reactionary regime and a stooge of America. The Americans failed to reform it, so the people rebelled and destroyed it in order to establish their desired Islamic system. The Americans are worried that the same thing is going to happen in other Arab and Islamic countries.

They realize this and they have said so. One of their senior politicians, a member of the Senate, said recently in the American Senate that if democracy is created quickly in any of the Arab countries and people are given the vote, Islamic regimes will come to power. They know these things. They want to bring in a type of regime which has a facade of populism and has come to power by popular vote. This is their next requirement.

But in order for people to elect individuals who serve American interests they also need another thing. And what is that? It is a promiscuous culture which is careless of social and moral values. They want people to grow with an American culture, so when they vote, they vote for an individual favored by the American regime.

The sum of all these factors requires an extensive effort in the domains of politics, culture, propaganda and, as a last resort, military action by America. Today you witness the military phase in Iraq. Saddam Hussain cooperated with America. If America and its allies had not supported Saddam Hussain, he would not have survived against our brave and steadfast people. Then they helped Saddam, but now he is no longer required. They realize that Saddam is a dictator and if he remains in power there could be a popular revolt that would leave America totally out of the picture. Then it will be like the system of the Islamic Republic in Iran. It is here that the true nature of war against Iraq becomes clear.

This war, therefore, is a most foul war which is under way in Iraq. It will become more intense. This is only the beginning. The objective is totally devoid of humanity. The Americans say they are fighting for democracy, but they are lying. They are fighting for oil. They are fighting to bring another subservient regime to power. They want to occupy Iraq. They want to control this ancient country and nation, this sensitive region, and its rich resources, completely. They want to loot it without difficulty. This is the reality of the situation in Iraq.

What is more, this plan is not limited to Iraq. All Arab countries, even those who are helping America today and who are allowing America to use their airports, soil, airspace or other resources will be challenged by the Americans soon. We understand this from evidence provided by the Americans themselves. What I am telling you is not what we believe; it is what the Americans have said themselves, which reveals their aims and objectives. This is the reral situation. In the first stage, Arab countries, and in the later stage, Muslim counties are to be challenged.

Is there any obstacle on the path of their plan? Yes. The main obstacle in the way of the Americans is the awakening of the Muslim world. The Muslim world is wakening up. Don’t look at the false propaganda of the radios which are managed by the arrogant powers. The culture of Islamic Revolution has infiltrated the Islamic world. They know that they cannot do anything as long as the Islamic world and Muslim peoples believe in Islam, as long as the Qur’anic culture dominates our minds, and as long as the pure Muhammadi Islam is an ideal for us.

That is why they have tried to degrade Islam in the public mind. They realize that Islam is the main obstacle in their path. Islam and the Qur’an teach us that it is possible to live independently, courageously and powerfully free of the superpowers. This is what we have to learn from Islam.

US imperialism

Adopting lessons from the Seerah: a radically new way of marking the Prophet’s birthday

Zafar Bangash

 ZAFAR BANGASH, director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought, suggests another way to mark the birthday in this Islamic month of Rabi al-Awwal of the Last and Seal of all Allah’s Messengers (as).

Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala describes the noble Messenger, Muhammad, upon whom be peace, as the "best of exemplars" (al-Qur’an 33:21). His Seerah (life-history) and Sunnah (life-example) are guides for humanity till eternity because he embodied, in his life, all the teachings of the Qur’an. Long before his formal commission by Allah as the last and final Messenger, he led such a pure and clean life that he earned the title of al-Amin ("the trustworthy one") even from the tribalism-ridden, quarrelsome society of Makkah. He was soft-spoken, kind and compassionate. Allahsubhanahu wa ta’ala, in His Infinite Wisdom and Mercy, calls him a "mercy to all the worlds" (21:107). The Creator has also commanded His faithful servants to "Obey Allah and obey the Messenger" (4:59) in all matters. In fact, Allah reminds us that when we obey the Messenger, we are actually obeying Him (4:80).

Muslims are generally aware of these lofty qualities of the noble Messenger because these are repeated in jum’ah khutbas every week as well as in khutbas on other occasions, especially in the month of Rabi al-Awwal, when the birthday of Allah’s Messenger (saw) is celebrated with great joy and fervour. There are elaborate programmes of nasheed and na’at recitals, as well as passionate speeches highlighting the great qualities of the Prophet. The idea is to express love for the Prophet as well as remind Muslims of his qualities in order for us to emulate them in our own lives. By approximating our behaviour as closely as possible to that of the noble Messenger, we Muslims hope to achieve Allah’s Pleasure, and thus nearness to Him.

Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala says in the Qur’an that He sent His Messenger (saw) to bring those who commit themselves to Allah, and do good deeds, out of darkness into light (65:11). One great Muslim thinker and writer, Syed Qutb Shaheed (d.1966), said that any action or behaviour that does not conform to the command of Allah must of necessity belong to the domain of darkness; similarly, all action and behaviour that is in conformity with Allah’s prescribed path is good and wholesome. Thus a simple act of kindness to one’s family, friends, relatives or even total strangers becomes an act of ibadah (worship) because it is pleasing to Allah. But Rasool-Allah’s Seerah is much more than an aggregate of instructions about individual behaviour. As the last and final Messenger, his example embodies all aspects of human existence, whether it relates to private or public life, to the individual or society and state. Thus the Seerah must be looked at in its entirety and not confined to the aspects of taharah (purity) and najasah, important though these are in the life of a Muslim. The Seerah must be studied beyond the aspects of miswak and perfume.

It is at this level that one finds a huge gap in the understanding of Muslims when deriving lessons from the Seerah. Today the Muslim Ummah finds itself in a cleft stick; Muslims are oppressed, persecuted and terrorised everywhere, yet they are the ones who are blamed for almost all the problems in the world. If there is violence in Palestine, it is the Palestinians who are blamed; there is seldom even a hint that it might have anything to do with the alien occupiers of Palestine. There is an astonishing degree of intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy in dealing with the root causes of the world’s problems, almost all of which affect the Muslims. One can, however, berate the rest of the world for its hypocrisy and injustices, yet that will not help the Muslims unless we also understand what we are required to do with regard to applying the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah of the noble Messenger (saw).

Let us consider two ayaat from the noble Qur’an that clarify the role of Rasool-Allah (saw):

[He is] a Messenger reciting unto you the revelation of Allah made plain, so that he may bring those who make a faith-commitment to Allah and do righteous deeds, out of darkness into light. (65:11)

He [Allah] it is Who has sent the Messenger with clear guidance and the Deen of Truth, so that it becomes dominant over all other systems and beliefs, however much the mushrikeen may detest it. (9:33).

These ayaat, among many in the Qur’an, establish the centrality of Allah’s Messenger in reorganising and guiding the affairs of Muslims. They highlight his role as the one who brings humanity out of darkness into light (65:11). If "darkness" is that state in which human beings are not in conformity with Allah’s principles and purposes, then light would place them mentally, physically, emotionally and intellectually in tune with Allah’s commands and in a state when they are consciously striving to adhere to them at all times. Allah has also promised that He will make Islam dominant in the world (9:33). This was realised during the lifetime of the Messenger but did not end with his earthly mission; this promise is also made to those who follow the Prophet’s Sunnah and Seerah. As Dr Kalim Siddiqui has observed, the role of Abu-Qasim (saw) as the last and final Messenger of Allah (33:40) and as the "best of exemplars" (33:21) was not confined to a specific time period (KS: Political Dimensions of the Seerah, ICIT, 1998, p.1); his method is applicable to all times and in all situations. This is Allah’s infinite mercy because we Muslims can always hope to emerge from whatever darkness we may have fallen into, provided that we follow the Qur’an and the Prophet’s Sunnah and Seerah.

We Muslims must, however, first have a clear understanding of our present situation. While we declare endlessly that we are one Ummah, the sad reality is that the Muslim world is divided into nation-states although there is no provision for nation-states in the divine scheme. Allah says in the noble Qur’an that He has created humankind from a single male and female and spread us into tribes, communities etc, "so that they may recognise each other" (49:06); this does not mean that people should then divide themselves along cultural, linguistic or racial lines or consider one group superior to another. There are many ayaat in the Qur’an referring to Muslims as one Ummah; this imposes certain obligations upon us but, far from living up to these, we accept our division into nation-states, like cages in a zoo, and then wonder why Allah’s promised help does not come when we face difficulties. Our energies and resources are not only divided but at the disposal of the kuffar, who use them to terrorise Muslims.

The other sad reality is that, for the first time in history, many of us find ourselves in a minority situation under non-Muslim rule. In the past, even as minorities, Muslims were the rulers. This was true in Spain as well as in India, for instance. The Muslim rulers guaranteed the rights of other people, and ensured that they were neither exploited nor molested. One would be hard-pressed to find any parallels to that situation in the world today. In fact, most people who benefited and thrived under Muslim rule, are today the most hostile to the Muslims; the Brahmin rulers of India, the zionist occupiers of Palestine and the Serbs in the Balkans come readily to mind. Their record of barbarism against Muslims is atrocious.

There is one other point from history worth considering. When Muslims found themselves as non-ruling minorities, they made every effort to return to the larger reality of the Islamic state. There is a hadith of Allah’s Messenger (saw) stating that Muslims must either live in the Islamic state or strive to establish one. The option of living in an Islamic state is not available at the moment, because although most of the 1.5 billion Muslims live in states with Muslim majorities, they are not governed there by Islamic law. Similarly, Muslim minorities in other countries have no place to return to because, under the divisive system of the nation-state, nobody will take them in or give them shelter. So we Muslims have to make some painful intellectual adjustments in our understanding of the present reality.

We need, however, to return to the contemporary situation, in which the power of kufr has become so totally dominant that Muslims feel weak and vulnerable. There were instances in the past as well when Muslims found themselves in such a predicament. Even in the life of Allah’s Messenger (saw) there were many years, especially in Makkah, when he was isolated and vulnerable; one is reminded of his lament to Allah after the chiefs of Taif rejected his message and set the hooligans of the town on him: he turned to Allah (swt) to complain of his helplessness. But this was not because he was worried about his personal comfort; his larger concern was that Allah not be displeased with him. Today we Muslims lament our helplessness but fail to consider whether we are striving for Allah’s pleasure or for our own comfort and ease. Although Muslims’ concern for the plight of their brothers and sisters in Palestine, Kashmir, Afghanistan, Chechnya and Iraq is genuine, we fail to take the next logical step: to support them properly. This is especially true of the attitude of regimes in the Muslim world. Most Muslims know that these regimes are an impediment to our efforts to solve the problems of the Ummah, yet we do not support and help those struggling to remove them from power to usher in responsible Islamic government.

Seldom or never in history has any ruling class voluntarily relinquished power or accepted responsibility for the injustices of the system it has set up (or taken over and reorganised). Whenever the inequities of a system are exposed, the elites of that system react violently to suppress attempts to rectify those inequities. The struggle to transform a society, based on man-made laws, into an Islamic state cannot be without human or material costs. It demands great sacrifices because those who have vested interests in the established order will use every means at their disposal to crush any challenge. But the Seerah shows us that, by sustained effort, change can be brought about. We Muslims need to make the mental leap from passivity to activity, based on a clear understanding of the Seerah.

The Prophet (saw) faced numerous difficulties and challenges in his quest to convey the message of Islam and to establish the Islamic state. A reign of terror was unleashed against him and his small group of followers, including a three-year siege in Shi’b Abi-Talib, leading to a plot to kill him; yet he persisted and eventually triumphed. Much the same thing is happening against committed Muslims today; those who are terrorising and killing Muslims accuse their victims of indulging in ‘terrorism’. The situation is made worse by the fact that almost all means of communication are also controlled by the kuffar. But the Seerah shows that the struggle for truth and justice will not be easy; in fact, Allah points out in the Qur’an: "do people think they will be left [at ease] and will not be tested once they say they have believed?" (29:02). The test of those who are truly committed is precisely to bring out their strength of iman and shed any lingering doubts in their minds. It is like forging steel; it has to go through phases of hot and cold and much beating before its true strength comes out. Our struggle with numerous difficulties is meant to bring out the best in us, not to depress or discourage us.

Just as the Prophet’s declaration of Islam at the popular level was necessary to deconstruct the socio-political order in Arabia, in order to pave the way for the Islamic order with its own ideology and power-base, so too must Muslims go through a similar process today. We will have to mount an ideological challenge to kufr because it has come to dominate much of the world today. Without such a challenge, the true potential of the Ummah will not be realised. Islam requires total commitment, not half-measures. Some Muslims recoil in horror from the suggestion that the Prophet had anything to do with politics, but this is based on a lack of understanding of the Seerah. If we believe that he was sent as an exemplar and leader for all of human history, then his life must encompass every aspect of life, political activity included.

In this month of Rabi al-Awwal, as we Muslims celebrate the birthday of Allah’s Messenger (saw), it would do us immense good to go beyond the ritualistic and formalised representation of his virtues, and to begin to address the struggle that he went through and the difficulties that he dealt with and overcame in establishing the Islamic state in Madinah, and then in extending it to the whole of the Arabian Peninsula.

 

Zafar Bangash

Fundamental historical realities explain Muslims’ present plight and the way forward

Zafar Bangash

 At a time when Muslims are reeling from the cumulative effects of numerous attacks, ZAFAR BANGASH, Director of the Institute of Contemporary Islamic Thought (ICIT) puts our plight and struggle in historical perspective

Most Muslims feel that the Ummah is undergoing one of the most difficult phases of its history so far. Whether one considers the plight of the Palestinians facing zionist atrocities, Afghans being burned alive by 15,000-pound bombs and killed by "thermobaric bombs" that suck air out of lungs, or millions of Iraqi children being starved by the world’s "sole superpower", the feeling of helplessness is not entirely misplaced. This made worse by the cowardice of Muslim rulers before the Muslims’ tormentors. There are 56 "Muslim nation-States", yet their combined success in helping Muslims anywhere is negligible. So what can be done to rescue the Ummah from its present predicament?

It is not the first time that the Ummah has confronted such problems. In the past, however, the problems were mostly from outside the House of Islam; now we are confronted by an enemy who has penetrated the House of Islam and recruited Muslims to its anti-Islamic campaign. This makes the task of recovery much more difficult. While the Ummah will no doubt recover from its present predicament (there is no better place to start than at the bottom), a necessary prerequisite is a clear understanding of both the external and internal enemies. Similarly, the Ummah must shed the intellectual disabilities that it has acquired in its downward slide into darkness.

Before identifying our enemies, it would help to review the setbacks suffered in the early days of Islam which have helped since then to weaken the Ummah. The first breach in the system established by the Messenger of Allah (saw) in Madinah, and followed by his rightly-guided khulafa, occurred at the Battle of Siffin, when Mu’awiyah rebelled against the legitimate authority of Imam Ali (ra). Malek Bennabi, the Algerian scholar (d.1973), has said that "the battle of Siffin, in the year 37 of the Hijrah [657 CE]... already contained — so soon after its birth — an internal contradiction: the Jahili spirit contending with the Qur’anic spirit. It was, moreover, Mu’awiyah, who broke a synthesis — in principle established for a long time, perhaps for evermore, thanks to the equilibrium between the spiritual and the temporal [life in Islam]" (Islam in History and Society, 1991. p.9).

This rupture was to manifest itself again between the children of the two protagonists of Siffin: like his father, Imam Husain (ra) stood for truth and justice, while Yazid ibn Mu’awiyah represented everything that Islam considers reprehensible. The tragedy of Karbala, although it enabled the jahili spirit to triumph at the time, was not really a victory for Yazid. By making the supreme sacrifice of his life and his family, Imam Husain denied to all future tyrants the opportunity to cloak their illegitimacy in the garb of Islam. The world of Islam has suffered a long line of tyrants and their court ulama masquerading as "Islamic saviours". It is this mindset that needs to be exposed and banished from Muslim political thought if Muslims are to regain their rightful position as leaders of humanity, a position assigned to us by Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala Himself, provided that we are faithful to the path laid down by Him for us.

The conversion of khilafah into mulukiyah (hereditory kingship) put the Ummah on a downward spiral whose logical conclusion was its disintegration, first into competing empires, then into colonies of a resurgent Europe, and finally as nation-States still subservient to the kuffar. The intellectual disintergration of the Ummah —helped by the injection of alien ideas into the body politic of Islam and foreign habits into the social and collective life of the Muslims— was more devastating than its physical subjugation. Today Muslims are like animals in a zoo, in the words of the late Dr Kalim Siddiqui; worse still, they have accepted these cages (the nation-States) as their permanent condition. And, like animals in a zoo or circus, Muslim rulers jump when the ringmaster cracks his whip. No longer do Muslims think in terms of the Ummah, a concept given to us by our Rabb (Sustainer) in His Book (21:92). Yet Muslim rulers continue to confuse the Ummah by such constructs as the Arab League, or the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), as if these can be substitutes for a unified Ummah. Such groupings reflect the intellectual and political bankruptcy of the ruling elites in the Muslim world.

A quick comparison between the Muslims’ past and present shows that the present is much worse than even the darkest days of the past in several vital respects. In 1099 CE the Crusaders invaded Palestine, sacked Jerusalem and perpetrated a bloodbath: more than 70,000 Muslim men, women and children were killed in one week. This dark period in Muslim history was reversed in 88 years: in 1187 CE Salahuddin Ayyubi reclaimed Jerusalem. Before doing so, he first had to deal with the rulers surrounding Palestine who had aligned themselves with the invaders. A similar situation occurred with the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongol/Tatar hordes under Halaku Khan in 1258 CE. The largest library in the world, with priceless manuscripts, was torched; Mu’tassim Billah, the Abbassid ruler, was executed.

Despite this setback, the Muslims recovered. The barbarians who had defeated the Muslims themselves soon embraced Islam. This is a unique event in history: the victors accepting the religion of the vanquished. From Baghdad, the Tatars surged northwest into Russia, where, after defeating the Dutchy of Muscovy, they ruled for 200 years. In its entire history Russia has not been ruled by any foreigners except the Muslim Tatars. The last of the Tatar rulers were finally defeated by Ivan the Terrible in 1556 when he sacked Kazan, their capital, and executed all their leaders. The turban-shaped domes of the Cathedral in the Red Square, Moscow, stand for the severed heads of the eight Kazan rulers. The defeat of the Tatars occurred barely 60 years after the loss of Cordova (present-day Spain) in 1492, but Islam continued to show its resilience in the face of repeated defeats. When Andalus (Spain) was lost, the Turks had already established themselves in the Balkans by defeating the Serbs in the Battle of Kosova (1389). Their rule in the Balkans lasted more than 500 years.

It is important to note that Muslims made these remarkable gains despite the corruption that had seeped into Islam’s core since the tragedy at Karbala. In fact, soon after Karbala, Muslims made spectacular gains geographically and went on, especially during the Abbassid period (750-1258 CE), to make major contributions in science, astronomy, mathematics and medicine. This remarkable intellectual flowering also influenced and inspired much of Europe, which was still in its Dark Ages. The early Abbassid years are often referred to as the golden period of Islam.

Today, however, Muslims would be hard pressed to point to even one such recent achievement; at one level, there appears no hope in the foreseeable future. Some have even characterised it as the Muslims’ darkest period, with poverty, misery, suffering and defeat being the lot of the vast majority. Yet this is a superficial diagnosis of the Ummah’s condition. The question we should be asking is: who represents the Ummah today? Perhaps it needs to be put differently: who understands and shares the aspirations of the Ummah? the rulers of the nation-States, or the Islamic movement, struggling to retrieve the honour and dignity of Muslims in the face of internal and external onslaught? With few exceptions (Iran, for instance), the Muslim regimes are subservient to kufr led by the US. The degree of control and manipulation exercised by external powers in the House of Islam is humiliating to any Muslim with even a shadow of conscience and self-respect. The Muslim masses, however, have played little or no part in bringing about this humiliation.

Let us name the Muslims’ external enemies first: the US, Israel, Britain, Russia, India et al. Under their jurisdictions— Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines etc. (under US), Palestine (under Israel), Chechnya (under Russia), and Kashmir and Gujarat (under India) — Muslims are being brutalised and terrorised. In many places the external powers have also co-opted Muslim rulers into their agenda. The most recent manifestation of this is the so-called "war on terrorism". It appears that whatever the US says is terrorism is terrorism; the others simply jump to do America’s bidding. No distinction is made between people struggling to regain their fundamental rights, such as the fighters in Palestine, Lebanon, Kashmir and Chechnya, and those indulging in violence: the zionists in Palestine and the Serbs in Kosova and Bosnia not so long ago, for instance.

Israeli state terrorism is financed by the US, and the zionist state is protected from international opprobrium by America’s use of its veto at the UN Security Council, while the Palestinians’ legitimate struggle, whether waged by Hamas or Islamic Jihad, is labelled "terrorism." The Hizbullah fighters were called "terrorists" for struggling to liberate their land, but zionist state terrorism is defended as "security measures." In the eighteen months of the second intifada more than 1,400 Palestinians (a third of them children) have been murdered by the zionists, while 400 dead Israelis, most of them soldiers, are considered a major crime.

But should we expect anything else from the Muslims’ avowed enemies? Our real problem is internal: the ruling elites who are pursuing the agenda of the enemies of Islam. Most Muslim societies are governed by laws that were imposed during the colonial period to serve the interests of the colonial powers, unchanged since except in trivial details. Even in societies where Islamic laws are in force, such as Saudi Arabia, their application is selective and intended to terrorise the populace, rather than guide by the spirit of adhering to Allah’s commands. There is effectively one law for the rich and powerful, and another for the rest of society; this is clearly unacceptable from the Islamic point of view. Societies that are not governed by Allah’s Laws are in open rebellion, as the Qur’an makes clear (5:46 and 47). The Muslim ruling elites fall into this category.

At a time when the Palestinians are being subjected to fire and steel by the zionists, and the Afghans are being pulverized by the Americans and their allies, there are Muslim rulers who want to offer the zionists ‘peace’, while others have joined the US’s campaign for "moderation", "toleration" and "sense." Never before have Muslims heard more nonsense from their rulers; expecting anything different from them, however, would be naive. The ruling elites are a product of that period in history when Muslims were under subjugation; their inferiority complex is born of such subjugation, and their ambition is to find acceptance with their slave-masters. They are, in the words of Malcolm X (Al-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz), the "house negroes" of today, identifying totally with the slave-master’s well-being instead of struggling to free themselves and their own people.

The solution to the Muslims’ current problems cannot come from faulty thinking or with tools acquired during the colonial era. True liberation will only come from thinking within the framework of the divine message revealed to the noble Messenger (saw) and put into practice by him, and by following his example. For this the Muslim world is in need of an intellectual revolution before external change can be brought about. In fact external, physical change will follow once our thought-processes and understanding have been corrected. This is the greater challenge facing the Ummah today, despite the immense suffering to which it is subjected by its enemies.

 

Zafar Bangash

Dr Kalim Siddiqui: Muslim political culture as a basis for the unity of the Ummah

Crescent International

This month marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Dr KALIM SIDDIQUI, one of the leading intellectuals of the contemporary Islamic movement. Here we reprint an abridged version of an article first published in 1983.

It is my object to indicate some of the ways in which the unity of the Ummah has taken shape through history. Despite the issues that appear to divide us, a solid mass of the Ummah is united at many levels. The apparent causes of division operate only on the surface. It is my view that the history of Islam has produced a political culture that is common to all Muslims. Muslims throughout the world, whatever their political, cultural, linguistic or ethnic origin, or whatever their other preferences may be, all belong to a common political culture.

By political culture I mean a combination of a common set of memories, a common historical experience, a commonly defined and felt current situation, a common enemy and a common expectation of the future. Within this framework we can go as far back as Adam (a.s.). It is part and parcel of the political culture of Islam, the ‘stored’ memory of the Muslims. The earliest common experiences of history itself were shaped by Allah subhanahu wa ta’ala, through a long chain of prophets. We are the people who are responsible for the defence and promotion of this Divine tradition of history and history-making.

Within this framework we have certain primary roots. The primary roots of this political culture, which has found expression in various ways throughout history, go back to the Qur’an and to the tradition of revealed knowledge as a whole. The secondary roots of our political culture are spread throughout Islamic history. Some of us prefer to rely on some secondary roots, others to rely on other secondary roots. As a result of these preferences over our secondary roots, we have "schools of thought" in Islam, but the primary roots of our common political culture are the same and commonly shared, and about them there is no dispute among the Muslims: there has never been, there is not today, and there never will be in the future.

Having said that, I want to move to the contemporary situation, and deal with the unity of the Ummah, which has been severely damaged by the colonial system. The colonial rulers over Muslim lands have taken great care to divide the Ummah in a way that will prevent the Muslims from acting together as a single force in the making of history. It is this scheme of the colonial powers and the western civilization that has been defeated by the power of the Muslim political culture expressed in the Islamic Revolution in Iran. I have over the last few years defined and analyzed the Islamic Revolution in terms of its four major characteristics. The first of these is the Islamic Revolution’s commitment to unite all Muslims into a single movement.

The complete mobilization of all Muslims in the pursuit of a single set of goals is the first basic characteristic of this Revolution. If we go right back to the time of the Prophet Muhammad (s.a.w.) we would find that this was also the primary characteristic of the Ummah that was created by him in the Hijaz. The goals were revealed to the Prophet and they remain unchanged to this day for all Muslims. The mobilization of the Ummah of all Muslims in pursuit of a clearly defined set of goals is the basic quality of the Islamic Revolution in Iran today, and this was also the basic quality of the original Islamic movement that was led by the Prophet 1,400 years ago.

The second feature of the Islamic Revolution in Iran is that the people of Iran produced from among themselves a leadership which was committed to the goals of Islam. This was not a middle-class leadership, or a leadership created by a particular class of people or political party in order to pursue their particular interests. This is a leadership which is muttaqi. There is one basic characteristic of taqwa: that it is contagious. The taqwa of the leadership has been transmitted to the young generation of Iran today. There are some in Iran, in their middle age, who seem to be in a no-man’s-land as far as taqwa is concerned. But the young people in Iran are a muttaqi generation, and this, I think, is a very hopeful pointer to the future of the Ummah, the future of the Islamic State and of the Revolution. Thus the mobilization of the masses and the emergence of a muttaqi leadership are the first two of the basic characteristics of an Islamic movement. A movement that fails to produce a muttaqi leadership or fails to mobilize the Muslim masses cannot bring about an Islamic Revolution or establish an Islamic State.

The third characteristic of the Islamic Revolution is produced by the combination of a muttaqi leadership and the mobilized masses of Iran. This combination has released the energies of the people and committed these energies to the restructuring of the entire socio-economic and political order of Iran. It is no longer a case of merely changing the government of Iran, which is what people like Bani-Sadr wanted. This is a question which has been positively decided in Iran in favour of a complete change in the socio-economic and political order at every level, from the colonial culture that had become dominant.

In this field Iran has another very important role to play. For the first time in modern history we now have a living, dynamic laboratory where policy options based on Islamic concepts can be tried out. When we say that Iran is Islamic, we do not for one moment mean that everything in Iran is right. Iran is Islamic because a genuine attempt is being made to find policy options from the prescription of the Qur’an and the Sunnah in order to solve the problems of a modern society. Of course, much of what is happening in Iran is experimental and provisional; these are experiments shaped by Islam and controlled by a muttaqi leadership. Alternative hypotheses will be tried out until successful models can be created at all levels of the socio-economic, political and cultural order of the Islamic State of Iran. If we refer back to Madinah we find that this is precisely what happened there. Every single existing relationship was changed by Islam. Families were divided, fathers against sons and sons against their fathers, and properties were redistributed. Change is the basic and permanent condition of Islam and the Islamic Revolution. This we find in the Sunnah of the Prophet Muhammad, upon whom be peace, and this is what we have witnessed in Iran since the Islamic Revolution.

Finally, I would draw your attention to the confidence and ability with which a social order controlled by the Islamic movement, led by a muttaqi leadership, deals with the outside world. It is not possible for the superpowers, or any other powers, close or distant, to divert a Muslim people who are mobilized in the pursuit of the goals of Islam. One of the major achievements of Islam throughout history has been that Islam has defeated all those who have tried to stop it from becoming dominant in its immediate environment. Islam is not, and cannot be, subservient to other civilizations. An Islamic State cannot be a colonial State, it cannot be a State controlled or manoeuvred from outside. Islamic civilization cannot be half Iranian, half Afghani, half Arab and so on. It is perhaps inevitable that even today we still suffer from the disease that we are trying to cure. But the basic and fundamental point is that the Islamic civilization and the State cannot be subservient to any other kind of civilization, or any other kind of State, either a single State or a combination of States. The Islamic State and Islamic civilization must always be dominant over their environment. If the Islam of an ‘Islamic State’ is in any way subservient to some other social or cultural value, there is some weakness in its particular application of Islam. Islam does not allow any form of compromise, or some kind of ‘working relationship’, with its enemies, particularly not with those who are committed to the destruction of Islam.

These being the core values of Muslim political culture, I view the Islamic Revolution in Iran as a powerful expression of Islam in the world today. The Muslim political culture has been shaped by history itself. Nonetheless, we have to take account of another stream of history which has become powerful and hence controls a large part of the world. This particular stream of history is known to us as the western civilization. In my view, the western civilization stands for everything that Islam does not stand for. If there were any, or there have been any, or there can be found any similarities between the Islamic civilization and the western civilization, these are entirely accidental and superficial: these must not mislead us to believe that there is anything common between us and them. This is the mistake that was made by some Muslim thinkers when the powerful western civilization, emerging from Europe, overtook the lands of Islam. Some Muslims took the view that the western civilization was a Christian civilization and that we would be able to adopt and convert it into an Islamic civilization. As a result of this totally mistaken view, men like Sayyid Ahmed Khan in India, and many others in different parts of the world, preached that Muslims could profit from working within the western civilization. The result is that the west has found among us people who serve their interests; this has also enabled the west to destroy a great part of our heritage, our history and our society.

Now, however, we are well on our way to destroying the western myth that Islam is medieval, out-dated, and unable to create and support a State or society in the twentieth century. According to their history and historiography, religion was merely a product of man’s ignorance and superstition. Man, they said, had now grown up, become scientific and rational. They wanted to consign Islam to the same void as they cast Christianity.

The Islamic Revolution in Iran has shown that, despite the emergence of men like Mustafa Kemal, the Saudi royal family, and the leaders of Pakistan and many other countries, the Muslim political culture is still capable of restoring history to its original intended course. What Muslims everywhere must realize is that of all the nation-States and their political and economic systems that exist today, none is a creation of Islam or can serve the interests of Islam. All these so-called Muslim nation-States are the creation of imperialism and have nothing whatever to do with Islam or Islamic history. We have destroyed one pillar of western civilization in Iran, and all the others are destined to meet the same fate. There can be no difference of opinion among the Muslims on this particular point.

The western civilization controls the world by its economic policies. There is an alliance between the rich of the rich countries and the rich of the poor countries. It is through the latter that the former control our societies, our countries and our cultures. The Islamic Revolution in Iran has shown that when the Muslim political culture takes hold of the society, it takes us beyond the reach of the western civilization. The Islamic Revolution in Iran has destroyed the whole bag of political tools that the western civilization has used against Islam for the last 200 years. The colonial powers and the communist terrorists had hoped that the economic hardships created by trade sanctions would persuade the Muslim masses of Iran to overthrow the Islamic leadership. We have seen, however, that the Muslim masses, once they are mobilized by a muttaqi leadership, are prepared to undergo any amount of hardship in order to achieve the goals set by the Qur’an and the Sunnah of the Prophet, peace be upon him.

In the case of Iran, two other points may be noted. One is a total commitment to do the right thing, whatever the cost. For instance, the Islamic Revolution in Iran has its own Constitution. It has been adhered to completely by everyone in Iran. Whatever the external consequences, the people of Iran have steadfastly believed that they should carry on with the internal working of the Constitution. The second is the emergence of a new set of institutions, such as the Sepah-e Pasdaran-e Inqilab-e Islami (the Revolutionary Guards), the Jihad-e Sazindagi (the Jihad for Reconstruction), and the Baseej (Mass Mobilization for War), among many. These institutions are slowly but surely taking over from the old institutions set up by the monarchy. I hope that the Islamic State of Iran will now help to create new institutions in the Islamic movement outside Iran. This is its natural role as the leading edge of the global Islamic movement.

[This article was first published in Crescent International, March 1-15, 1983. It is based on Dr Kalim Siddiqui’s speech at the International Unity Conference in Colombo, Sri Lanka, from December 28, 1982 to January 2, 1983.]