St. Francis of Assisi and the Sultan Al Kamil
Why Freemasonry remains silent about the indiscriminate Christians in the East?
regular visitor who is Freemasonry Topics knows the contents of this blog is my sole responsibility and does not commit any Masonic Obedience. It is worth mentioning this issue given the sensitive issue, this time, I want to take account of the reading public, particularly the Freemasons, whatever their condition or obedience.
The question this article tries to answer is simple: How is it possible to address the alarming growth in attacks against Christian communities in the Middle East and Africa, Masonry remain silent? How possible that the majority of European Masons are more concerned with religious processions in the streets or the annoying noise of the bells of the churches for the killings of innocents in Gaza, Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Sudan, Somalia etc.? How is it that Freemasonry liberal, always concerned about secularism and the right of every individual to live in their own faith has not said a single word of these crimes? And what's even more inexplicable, how we may not pronounce Christian Masonry?
many years keep a special concern about the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in the West. Promptly published an essay entitled The Paradox of Good and the Sultan, [1] expressed my opinion on the Middle East conflict, the Palestinian issue and efforts made by the Masons after Peace . efforts that cost the lives of two famous Masons from both camps, such as Anwuar Egyptian President Sadat, following the Camp David Accords and the premier Olof Palme, this time because of their fundamental involvement in so-called Oslo Accords.
article mentioned in the same positions radical Islamic fundamentalist groups have about Freemasonry, positions have come to the facts on several occasions, as the attack against the headquarters of the Great Lodge of Turkey.
Recent hostile acts against Christian communities, which have been exacerbated in these early days of 2011, make my concerns and exceed the framework of the penetration of Islamic fundamentalism in the West, and add a more urgent: The obvious desire of many radical groups to destroy these communities. In other words, clean the Islam of Christians. This seems to be happening and say such limitation, many clerics linked to the most violent of the radical wing of Islam. However, it has created such a taboo about Islamic issues, is so politically incorrect to mention the backbiting of the Moors, that nobody dares to say a word for fear of a fatwa, or who called him a fascist.
So far in 2011, just days, the press began to echo, shyly, on this issue.
Some historical data:
The meeting in San Francisco of Assisi with the Sultan Al Kamil
; In August 1219, Francis arrived in Egypt a few kilometers from the mouth of the Nile's Eve, the Christian army of the Fifth Crusade, led by Cardinal Pelagius and John of Brienne, king without a throne of Jerusalem, had tried once again, without success, to bend the Mamluk fortress of Damietta, in the hands of Sultan Al Kamil, the son and heir of the powerful Sultan of Cairo, Al Adil.
He found the scene of an immense tragedy. Christian camp or what was left it-showed traces of a number of calamities. First, a brutal flooding as a result of the advent of the rainy season, then fever and harassment of the Mamluks. Just hours ago, in a new and desperate attempt to overcome these walls, nearly one hundred of the best warriors of the Order of the Temple and the Hospital had lost their lives under the banners of al-Kamil challenging.
The news of the arrival of Francisco caused a profound shock to the decimated camp. The moral of the thousands of miserable soldiers, stunned by the war and the plague could not get a better balm: One of the most holy of Christianity, an icon of peace and piety reached the center of the cruel wound in which Muslims were consumed Christians.
Such was the extent of this calamity, until the Duke Leopold of Austria, one of the great champions of the cross-weary so much death as he had seen in his life, had decided to return to Europe with his troops, further weakening the army of Pelagius.
But this other man from Assisi brought with no reinforcements or supplies for these troops hungry. His appearance also differed greatly from that of the crusaders surprised crowded around to hear the most famous monk in Christendom.
Francisco could not understand this war that took more than a century and devoured the best of both cultures. Let me cite here an ironic and shadowy reflection of the historian: "He came to East believe, as so many good and naive people had believed, before and after him, that a humanitarian mission could lead to peace" [2]
The first problem came with the papal legate. Cardinal Pelagius was a great concern about how it might affect their authority on the presence of a man so virtuous and respected. But what astonished Francisco was that he demanded an immediate authorization to meet with al-Kamil.
Sultan's men were not so convinced about the desirability of such a request, but most historians agree that finally ended that such a simple man, pious and extremely dirty, by choice, should be completely crazy.
Cardinal Pelagius, in turn, wanted to continue their war as soon as possible, so he decided to despatch an embassy and white flag to the court of Al Kamil ASAP. The Sultan received the monk and listened attentively, was firmly convinced, as his guest that peace was necessary for conviction this would give samples in the future. But the main obstacle to this desired peace was Jerusalem.
Al Kamil and Francis held extensive discussions. A Francis impressed a wise man and refined as the Sultan repudiated, considering it a heresy, the doctrine of the Trinity, while Al Kamil, enthralled by the charisma of his enlightened visitor, was struggling to tolerate his smelly dirt. When positions became unyielding, Francisco proposed to the Sultan undergo fire ordeal to prove the truth of Jesus Christ. But Al Kamil, delighted with his friend Christian, refused to allow such an act of faith, convinced of the damage it would cause the monk. Some historians claim that the kindness of the Sultan was that Islam requires its faithful for the insane. Others believe that, in their eyes, Francisco was a kind of "dervish" considered a man saint in the Muslim world.
The fate and significance of these two men, paradoxically united by their desire for peace in midst of a violent world, followed very different paths. Francis returned to Italy, he preached until his death, which occurred in 1226 - and was elevated to the altars in 1228 to be honored among the great saints of the West. Only a year later, in 1229, Al Kamil signed the Treaty of Jaffa with Federico II, commander of the Sixth Crusade, and recognized for ten years, the sovereignty of the Franks on Jerusalem. This earned him the condemnation of Islam for treason.
The Egyptian leader Anwar Sadat suffered, before he was murdered more than seven centuries later, the ridicule of being compared to Al Kamil, when sealed peace with Israel. Amin Maalouf in his book on the Arab point of view of the cross reads: "It is true that the similarities are disturbing. How do I stop thinking about President Sadat when he heard Ibn al Jawazi Sibt denouncing, to the people of Damascus, the betrayal of Mr. Cairo, Al-Kamil, who had the courage to recognize the sovereignty of the enemy in the Holy City ? [3]
one way or another the uniqueness of the encounter between the saint and the sultan speaks of an immense lack of dialogue between the two cultures that are fighting each other, with different luck, "since it began, fourteen centuries ago, the expansion of Islam. However, Maalouf placed in the center of the dispute to the axis of conflict: The sovereignty over the Holy City, the control over their sanctuaries, particularly the former site of the Temple of Jerusalem, which is the ultimate symbol of allegory Masonic and rationale of the Order of the Knights Templar.
Paradoxically, weighs about the Templars on suspicion of having closer ties to Islam as strong as their fighting.
Huston Smith, perhaps the greatest of all scholars in comparative religions of the twentieth century says: " ... Of all religions West, Islam is the closest to the West for their next location, but also by their ideology, and that from the religious point of view belonging to the Abrahamic family, while the rest in the Greek philosophical ... But despite this mental and spatial proximity, Islam is the religion most trouble understanding in the West ... " [4] This difficulty has been accepted by many Americans. A few years ago-long before the Pentagon advisers imagine a welcome music and flowers for the invading troops from Iraq "Meg Greenfield wrote in Newsweek" ... No other part of world is misunderstood by us so desperate, systematic, and obstinate that structure religious, cultural, geographic and known as Islam ... " [5]
The same misunderstanding pervades the Islamic world against the phenomenon that, for them, has always represented the Christian West. The historical reality would seem to confirm the prevalence of an adversarial relationship with Islam for over a relationship of understanding and exchange.
The civilization that developed in Europe and gave birth to what we call the West, has had on the basis of Christianity triumphant historical phenomenon and a solid, methodical and expansionist permanent vocation. Freemasonry has been accompanied not only the process but has contributed well to its construction. Islam, meanwhile, is one of the most interesting expansive processes of history.
Philip Hitti in his History of the Arabs, "writes " ... Around the name of that breath shines Arabs belonging to the conquerors of the world. Not a century has elapsed since the onset, became masters of an empire that stretched from the Atlantic to the borders of China, an empire greater than Rome at its height. In this period of unprecedented expansion, integrated into its creed, language, and even physical type, most strangers to them than before, and since then has been any other race, including Hellenistic, Roman, Anglo and Russian ... " [6]
When Francis of Assisi and Al Kamil met in Egypt, these two cultures with different development times and, as manifested most disturbing similarities than their differences. Abrahamic both came from the trunk, was a revelation both inclusive, shared a penchant for war and conquest, and both before and after seeking to expand their borders and their faith over another. And if we analyze the relationship of confrontation between the West and Islam, we see that the Islamic world was not just the West but closer to the border itself, and this has been hostile throughout its existence.
War of 1400 years.
Islam was a military front for Christianity from its very birth. The city of Jerusalem remained in the hands of the Romans from the time of Hadrian that he had taken in 135 renaming it Aelia Capitol, erected on the ruins of the ancient Temple two statues: that of Jupiter and his own. In 324 the Emperor Constantine, with the enthusiastic support of her mother, returned to the city its name and built the Basilica of the Holy Sepulchre and the Church of Eleona on the Mount of Olives. Thereafter the city became a center of pilgrimage for Christianity and Christian developed a strong profile. Byzantine occupation continued the next three centuries, during which time many churches were built. Only between 614 and 629 the city came under control of the Persians who occupied an army commanded by General Razmis.
Emperor Heraclius recovered it for Byzantium, but in 638 would be a fact that would radically alter the history of the Middle East. Omar ben al-Khattab, second Caliph after Mohammed, Islam conquered for the Holy City after the battle of Karmuk inaugurating an era that is to say-just-watched measure of tolerance toward Christians and Jews who were able to maintain some temples. But soon after, in 661, the Umayyad dynasty, with its capital in Damascus, Palestine annexed territories and appointed as governor by Caliph Muawiya. In the following years did something that shocked Christians and set the stage for a bloody conflict: In 668, the successor of Mawiya, Caliph Abd el Melik began construction of the Mosque of the Dome of the Rock; years later, and on the same site of the ancient Temple of Solomon, his son Walid built the Mosque of Al Aksa.
While this was happening in the Middle East, Arab opened another front against the Christian West. The conflict began in 711, when the Arab governor of North Africa, Musa ben Nusayr, sent his deputy, the Berber general Tariq bin Ziyad, the Iberian peninsula to conquer Al Andaluz. After conquering Spain crossed the Pyrenees willing to expand its borders in Western Europe. Under the command of Abd al-Rahman bin Abd Allah al Gafidi invaded Aquitaine in 730. There, in the plains of Poitiers, in a dramatic battle, Carlos Martel stopped the invasion. The reconquest of Western Europe would require nearly eight years.
Muslim armies would take two hundred years of constant war to regain its former border. The last Templar Crusaders left the fortress of Castel Pellegrin on August 14, 1291. That day, the Arab historian Abu l'Fida wrote "... With these conquests, all the territories of the sea were returned to the Muslims ... So the Franks were driven out of all Syria and coastal areas. Want to Allah that never again set foot there !..."
But
not pacify eastern border. A new and bloody Islamic expansion would come with the armies of the Ottoman sultans. Constantinople would be demolished. Suleiman the Magnificent would shake the east European and would besiege the city of Vienna in 1529. The power of the Turkish sultans They might as well, until 1924, the title of caliphs of Sunni Muslim world and "heads of the believers."
The recapture and liberation of Hungary, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Greece and Albania demanded an effort of centuries. Let alone that of Spain. In that distant
August 1219, Al Kamil confessed to Francis of Assisi who was willing to sign the peace with the Franks, and to give some ports and bases on the coast of Palestine. But he could not give up Jerusalem. By the late nineteenth century, when the Zionist movement had its bow to the Middle East, the Arab mayor of Jerusalem, Yousef Al Khalidi Diyyandín Bacha sent a letter to the Chief Rabbi of France in which it called "... On behalf of God, let Palestine in peace ... "
In 1917 the British general Edmund Allemby entered Jerusalem at the head of a division of the English army after defeating the Ottoman Turkish troops. Since 1224 no Christian army had stepped Al Quds, the Holy, the name the Arabs give to Jerusalem, city \u200b\u200bwhere the Prophet ascended to heaven. This event was held in London, as related by John Robinson with a ceremony of barristers, the name is known to lawyers who pass the area of \u200b\u200b"Temple Bar" with headquarters in the ancient Temple Church, located between Fleet Street and the River Thames.
Robinson says that "barristers marched in procession to the circular church of the Templars and placed the laurel wreath of victory over the effigies of knights, to convey a message without words: You are not forgotten ..." [7] Before a year later, Latin principalities former Greater Syria were again occupied by Christian armies.
few years later, West would redouble the commitment to support the establishment in Palestine of a Jewish state and Israel would annex what remained of the Palestinian Arab territories, including its capital, Jerusalem. Since then commonly found in sectors lapidary definitions radical Islam to the freemasonry:
" ... Associated with the universality of all religions - says Umar Ibrahim Islamic Community of Mexico is the idea of brotherhood of humanity. The brotherhood of man is the antithesis of brotherhood in Islam. Capitalism requires a distinct identity to religious identity. Freemasonry is a brotherhood in which the religious denomination does not matter. They are all Masonic brethren beyond the different religions. The brotherhood of mankind is the universality of the Masonic brotherhood. The brotherhood in Islam excludes the kuffar (non-Muslims). The kuffar are not our brothers or our friends ... "and adds and for the avoidance of doubt " ... Look at what Allah, the Exalted, says in the Qur'an: You who believe! Take not the Jews and Christians as your friends, they are friends with each other. So whoever of you takes them as friends is one of them. Truly Allah guides not the unjust people ... " [8] (Qur'an 5.53).
Freemasonry has not ignored the issue of the Middle East. The late King Hussein of Jordan, occupying the office of Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of his kingdom, had an important participation in the process culminating in the Camp David agreements. Much of the success was due to both Anwuar Egyptian President Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were also Masons. Those who know the details of negotiations that mention the existence of a "Masonic taken" convened in Jordan by King Hussein, attended by leaders and Begin and Sadat in which it was decided to "surprise trip" that you would make Sadat Israel and would bring him-as we have said, the accusation of betrayal of the Arab cause, an accusation which, on the other hand, cost him his life.
King Hussein continued to engage in peace until his death. Masons were two deceased, Olof Palme and Yitzhak Rabin, who made possible the so-called Oslo Accords, and not everyone understood the true extent of the words spoken by the old and ailing King when the funeral of Rabin, assassinated by intolerance also said that "he was saying goodbye to a brother." [9]
Islam has always viewed Freemasonry as a fearsome enemy. But it should not surprise the hatred of radical Islam sectors to Freemasonry, for this, in principle, represents the quintessence of European civilization. From Europe to America was designed to support and covering the revolutionary process that built the foundations of political and social systems currently governing in America.
For its part, the British Empire facilitated the penetration of Freemasonry in the vast territories of the Middle East, India and the Far East. Could be considered to Freemasonry as the most effective tool in expanding the secular Christian universalism. The problem is that the process of secularization has gone Christian West has no counterpart in the Islamic world and, like the West, Islam sees his own idea of \u200b\u200b"universality." But neither Christian nor the universality of Islam are "universalized."
Amid the crisis of the war in Iraq, a powerful bomb blew up a headquarters of Freemasonry in Turkey, one of the few countries with Muslim majorities in which Freemasonry has been able to penetrate. The attack occurred in the Kartal district of Turkey, near Istanbul, just hours before the slaughter perpetrated in Madrid on March 11, 2004. The next day the London daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi published a statement in which the Abu Hafs Al-Masri, linked to Al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the bombing in Madrid and Istanbul. They recognized that the latter was directed against the masonry and regretted not having killed all Masons assembled due to a technical failure. Authorities turcas atribuyeron el ataque al odio islámico hacia todo lo judío y por la filiación de los ritos masónicos a los ritos judaicos y a Israel. [10]
La brigadas de Abu Hafs al Masri –que llevan ese nombre por un egipcio, lugarteniente de Osama Bin Laden, que murió en Afganistán en noviembre de 2001, en los primeros días de la guerra contra ese país, donde supuestamente se escondía la plana mayor de Al Qaeda- son las mismas que se atribuyeron los atentados de Londres del 8 de julio de 2005 [11] .
Desde entonces hasta hoy las cosas han cambiado. El proceso de paz en Medio Oriente se encuentra detenido while from Alexandria to Islamabad Christians aggression does not stop. And Masonry is always ready to fight bigotry, silent. May the Great Architect inspire us all
[1] Callaey, Eduardo, "The other Christian Empire" (Madrid, Nowtilis, 2005) Chap. 2 p.15 to 28.
[2] Runciman, Steven, "History of the Crusades " , (Madrid, Revista de Occidente, 1957) Vol II p.156
[4] Smith, Huston; "The World Religions " (Spain, Thassàlia, 1995) p. 231 et seq.
[5] Greenfield, Meg, "Newsweek " (March 26, 1979) p. 116
[6] Hitti, Philip, "History of the Arab " , (New York, St. Martin's Press, 1970) p. 3
[7] John Robinson, " mazmorras, fire and sword" (Editora Planeta SA, Barcelona, \u200b\u200b1994), p. 505.
[8] Umar Ibrahim Vadillo ; http://www.islammexico.org.mx/Textos
[9] Callaey, Eduardo R.; "contemporary figures of Masonry" Revista Todo es Historia, No. 405, Buenos Aires, April 2001
[10] The interested reader can see such information from 10th March in the Turkish newspaper Hurriyet, and the Chicago Tribune (Section 1, pg. 3) USA Today (pg. 10A)
http://www.clarin.com/diario/2005/07/09/um/m-1010940.htm
