CRUSADERS, TEMPLARS AND FREEMASONRY
CRUSADERS, TEMPLARS AND
FREEMASONRY
Freemasonry was
officially established
and recognized in England in the 18th century but actually,
the roots
of the organization reach back to the Crusades in the 12th
century.
At the focal point of this old story is an order of
crusaders called
the Knights of the Temple or the Templars, for short.
No matter how much many people may believe that the Crusades
were
a product of Christian faith, they were basically wars
undertaken
for material gain. In a period when Europe was experiencing
great
poverty and misery, the comfort and wealth of the East,
especially
of the Muslim Middle East, attracted Europeans. This
motivation took
on a religious appearance decorated with the symbols of
Christianity
but actually the idea of the Crusades was born out of a
desire for
worldly gain. This was the reason for the sudden change
among Christians
from their former pacifist policies in earlier periods of
their history
to a tendency towards military aggression.
The initiator of the Crusades was Pope Urban II. He summoned
the Council
of Clermont in 1095 in which the former Christian doctrine
of pacifism
was changed. A holy war was announced that was to wrest the
holy lands
from the hands of the Muslims. Afterwards, a huge army of
Crusaders
was formed composed both of professional soldiers and tens
of thousands
of ordinary people.
Historians
think that this venture of Urban II was prompted by his desire
to eclipse
the candidacy of a rival for the papacy. European kings,
princes, aristocrats
and others greeted the Pope's call with excitement but their
intentions
were basically worldly. "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 killed many Muslims and even Jews
just hoping
to find gold and jewels. The crusaders even cut open the
stomachs of
those they had killed to find gold and precious stones that
the victims
may have swallowed before they died. The material greed of the
crusaders
was so great that they did not hesitate to sack the Christian
city of
Constantinople (Istanbul) in the 6th Crusade during which they
stripped
off the gold leaf from the Christian frescoes in Hagia Sophia.
So, this band called Crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099
after burning
and looting many places and putting many Muslims to the
sword. After
a long siege of five weeks, the city fell and the Crusaders
entered.
As one historian put it, "They killed all the Saracens and
the
Turks they found... whether male of female.2
One of the Crusaders, Raymund of Aguiles, wrote these
words in
praise of this savagery:
Wonderful sights were to be seen. Some of our men (and this was more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into the flames. Piles of heads, hands and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one's way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are normally chanted ... in the Temple and porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins.3
 |
| The Crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099 after burning and looting many places and putting many Muslims to the sword. |
According to the same
historical source,
the number of Muslims pitilessly slaughtered was 40,000.4
The crusaders made Jerusalem their capital and founded a Latin
Kingdom
stretching from the borders of Palestine to Antioch.
Later, the crusaders began a struggle to hold their position in
the Middle
East. In order to sustain the state they had founded, they had
to organize
it. To do this, they established military orders, which had
never existed
before. Members of these orders came from Europe to Palestine
and lived
in a kind of monastery where they received military training to
fight
against Muslims.
One of these orders was different from the others. It underwent a
change
that would influence the course of history. This order was the
Templars.
From the
Templars
to Freemasonry
The Templars, or, their full name, The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of
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 Frenchmen,
Hugh de Payens and Godfrey de St. Omer. At first there were 9
members
but the order steadily grew. The reason that they called
themselves
after the temple of Solomon was that the place they chose as a
base
was the temple mount where this ruined temple had been
located. At the
same time, this place was where the Al-Aqsa Mosque stood.
The Templars had called themselves "poor
soldiers",
but within a short time they became wealthy. Christian
pilgrims coming
from Europe to Palestine were completely under the control of
this order
which became very rich on the money collected from the
pilgrims. In
addition, for the first time they set up a cheque-bond system
similar
to that of a bank. According to the BBC commentators, Michael
Baigent
and Richard Leigh, they established a kind of Medieval
capitalism and
led the way to modern banking by their management of interest.5
The Templars were the ones mainly responsible for the
crusaders' attacks
against 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 pardoned a large
number
of Christians. Although they lost Jerusalem and suffered heavy
losses,
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 on other countries, they
became
a state within a state.
There is no doubt that this political power made European
monarchs uncomfortable.
But there was another aspect of the Templars that also made
the clergy
uneasy: the order had gradually broken its ties with Christian
faith
and while in Jerusalem, they adopted a number of strange
mystical doctrines.
There were also rumors that they were organizing strange rites
to express
these doctrines.
Finally, in 1307, the French king Philip the
Fair and
Pope Clement V jointly decided to arrest the members of the
order. Some
of them managed to escape but most of them were caught.
Afterwards,
a long period of interrogation and trial began and many of
them admitted
that they were actually heretical, that they had rejected the
Christian
faith and insulted Jesus in their masses. Finally, the leaders
of the
Templars who were called "grand masters", beginning with the
most important of them, Jacques de Molay, were executed in
1314 by the
order of the Church and the King. The majority of them were
put into
prison, the order dispersed and officially disappeared. But
although
the order "officially" ceased to exist, it did not mean that
it had actually disappeared. During the main arrest in 1307,
some Templars
escaped and managed to cover their tracks. According to a
thesis based
on various historical documentation, a significant number of
these escaped
Templars took refuge in the single kingdom in Europe that did
not recognize
the authority of the Catholic Church in the 14th
century-Scotland. There
they reorganized under the protection of the Scottish king,
Robert the
Bruce. A while later, they found a good method of camouflage
to allow
them to continue their existence: they infiltrated the oldest
guild
in the medieval British Isles-the wall builders' lodge.6
The wall builders' lodge changed its name at the beginning of
the modern
era and called itself the "Masonic lodge". (The dictionary
defines the term "mason" as a master wall builder.) The
Scottish
Rite is the oldest branch of Masonry and goes back to the
beginning
of the 14th century to those Templars who took refuge in
Scotland. And
the names given to the highest degrees in Scottish Rite are
titles that
were given to knights in the order of Templars centuries
earlier. It
is still the same today.
In short, the Templars did not disappear and their philosophy,
beliefs
and rituals still continue under the roof of Freemasonry. This
thesis
has many historical proofs and is accepted today by a large
number of
Western historians whether they are Freemasons or not.
The thesis that the roots of Freemasonry go back to the
Templars is
often pointed out in magazines published by Turkish Masonry
for its
own members. On this topic the Freemasons are very open. One
of these
magazines is called Mimar Sinan which describes the
relationship between
the Order of Templars and Masonry 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, the activities of the Templars ceased. The great majority of the Templars took refuge in Masonic lodges that were operating in Europe at that time… Scottish Masons, who inherited the Templars' heritage, gave it back to France many years later and established there the basis of the rite known as the Scottish Rite.7
Again, the Mimar Sinan magazine gives much information about the relationship between the Templars and Freemasonry. In an article entitled "Templars and Freemasons", it says that "the rituals for the initiation ceremony of the Order of Templars are similar to those of present-day Masonry."8 According to the same article, "just as in Masonry, the members of the Order of Templars called each other 'brother'."9 Towards the end of the article we read,
The Order of Templars and the Masonic organization have influenced each other to a noticeable extent. Even the rituals of the corporations are so similar as to have been copied from the Templars… To summarize, as we said at the beginning of this essay, we can say that the starting point of Masonry's royal art and initiatic-esoteric line was the Templars and its end point is Freemasonry.10
The Impact of the
Crusade Philosophy
to Our Day
It
is clear that the roots of Masonry stretch back to the Order
of Templars
and the Masons have adopted the philosophy of this order,
which was
established by the Crusaders. While considering the impact of
Crusaders
to our day, we need to remember this point and the
far-reaching influences
of Masonry on the world. The aims of Masonry are explained by
one of
the most well-known Turkish Freemasons Selami Isindag in his
book Masonluktan
Esinlenmeler (Masonic Inspirations):
According to Freemasonry, it is necessary to rid people of a character inspired by metaphysical divine sources, and instead establish a character based on the love of man, which is free from relativity. In its basic ethical principles, Masonry considers the inclinations of man, his needs, satisfactions, the laws and order of social life, consciousness (conscience), freedom of speech and thought and finally, the entire plan of nature, and therefore aims to establish and develop values centered around man in all societies.11
This is the final purpose of Masonry: to
eradicate religion
and to establish a humanist and godless world where the
concept of
"man" will be held sacred; where people will deny God Who
created them, and take themselves as "idols".
For this reason, it is essential to protect the society from
this
disaster by shattering the godless suggestions of Masonry
and thus
save the faith of people. What we have to do is tell people
about
the existence of God and the values of religion by
supporting them
with the facts revealed by science. When Muslims undertake
this responsibility,
by the will of God, this verse will come true: "Rather
We hurl the truth against falsehood and it cuts right
through it and
it vanishes clean away!" (Qur'an, 21:18)
When this is realized, the representatives of the evil will
"vanish
clean away" and the 21st century will be the age of Islamic
values
rather than the evil's alliance as they presume.
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, translated by Rosalind Hill, London, 1962,
p. 91
3 August C. Krey, The First Crusade: The Accounts of
Eye-Witnesses
and Participants, Princeton & London, 1921, p. 261
4 Ibid., p. 262
5 Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, The Temple and the
Lodge, London,
Corgi Books, 1990, p. 78-81.
6 For more detail about this thesis on freemasonry,
please see
John J. Robinson, Born in Blood: The Lost Secrets of
Freemasonry,
New York, M. Evans & Company, 1989
7 Ender Arkun, "Masonlarin Dusunce
Evrimine
Katkisina Kýsa Bir Bakis" (A Quick Look at the
Intellectual
Evolution of Masons), Mimar Sinan, 1990, No. 77, p. 68
8 Teoman Biyikoglu, "Tampliyeler ve Hurmasonlar"
(Templars
and Freemasons), Mimar Sinan, 1997, No. 106, p. 11
9 Ibid., p. 9
10 Ibid., p. 19
11 Dr. Selami Isindag, Sezerman Kardes IV, Masonluktan
Esinlenmeler
(Masonic Inspirations), Istanbul 1977, p. 62
