Continued from part 16…
The Moors and the Enlightenment
The Islamic Golden Age refers to the years during which the “Classical Knowledge” of Antiquity (Mystery School knowledge) flourished in the Muslim world. The Islamic Golden Age predates Europe’s Enlightenment by several centuries. Wikipedia’s article on the Islamic Golden Age explains that,
“The Islamic Golden Age was a period of scientific, economic and cultural flourishing in the history of Islam, traditionally dated from the 8th century to the 13th century… [S]cholars from all over the Muslim world flock[ed] to Baghdad, the world’s largest city by then, to translate the known world’s “Classical Knowledge” into Arabic and Persian…
Some scholars extend the end date of the golden age to around 1350… while others place the end of the Islamic Golden Age as late as the end of 15th to 16th centuries..- Wikipedia – Islamic Golden Age
Researcher David Livingstone’s article “Eastern Mystics” states,
“Modern Europeans are not direct inheritors of classical civilization. Contrary to popular belief, the arts and sciences of antiquity were introduced to them by way of the Muslims…
From the Greek philosophers, the Muslim scholars… created a school of philosophy that had a profound and recognized influence on Christian philosophers of medieval Europe. By the middle of the ninth century the main works of Aristotle, Plato, Euclid, Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galen, and Hermetic works, had been translated into Arabic…[they were] primarily interested in mathematical and astronomical [astrological] works.” – Dr. David Livingstone
Wikipedia’s article, “Islamic World Contributions to Mediæval Europe,” states,
“During the High Middle Ages, the Islamic world was at its cultural peak, supplying information and ideas to Europe, via Al-Andalus, Sicily and the Crusader kingdoms in the Levant. These included Latin translations of the Greek Classics and of Arabic texts in astronomy, mathematics, science, and medicine. Translation of Arabic philosophical texts into Latin ‘led to the transformation of almost all philosophical disciplines in the medieval Latin world,’ with a particularly strong influence of Muslim philosophers being felt in natural philosophy, psychology and metaphysics.” Wikipedia
I’d learned about the Islamic empires of the Moors and the Ottomans in history class, but it was in a way that detached them from Europe’s “Enlightenment.”
The Moors and Scholarship
Curious about the Universities that the European Enlightenment influencers attended prior to the Scientific Revolution, I came upon the article; Universitas Magistrorum et Scholarium: Higher Education in the Middle Ages by journalist and historian Matthew A. McIntosh. McIntosh tells of the re-emergence of philosophical and scientific texts in European universities, pointing out that scholars connect the earliest European universities to the Universities (Madrasahs) of these Islamic empires.
“Some scholars such as Syed Farid Alatas have noted some parallels between Madrasahs and early European colleges and have thus inferred that the first universities in Europe were influenced by the Madrasahs in Islamic Spain and the Emirate of Sicily.” – Matthew A. McIntosh
That was news to me, but apparently it’s well known. Here’s another example by professor, Dr. Dag Nikolaus Hasse of the Institut für Philosophie in Berlin. He writes,
“The influence of Islamic philosophers in Europe was particularly strong in natural philosophy, psychology and metaphysics, though it also influenced the study of logic and ethics.” – Dag Nikolaus Hasse, Influence of Arabic and Islamic Philosophy on the Latin West – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
The Moors controlled much of North Africa and the Iberian Peninsula (Spain) from 711AD until their expulsion in 1492(!) They were known for their architecture, science, philosophy and the high value they placed on education. But their chief interests were mathematics and astronomy.
“The Moors, who ruled Spain for 800 years, introduced new scientific techniques to Europe, such as an astrolabe, a device for measuring the position of the stars and planets. Scientific progress in Astronomy, Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, Geography and Philosophy flourished in Moorish Spain” – Black History Studies
Enlightenment Thought and Primitive Islam
Our impression of Islamic civilization is complex and shrouded, especially since 2001 in the weeks following the 9/11 “attacks” on the twin towers, when you couldn’t turn on a television without seeing holograms of planes supposedly crashing into buildings. Intermingled were repeated images of barbaric Muslims playing polo with dead goats, serving to create a public perception of Islam as primitive and ignorant.
But, compare that with Islamic architecture today, which is unparalleled in advancement and beauty.
This is significant, since there’s evidence to indicate that the stage is being set for an Islamic “AntiChrist” figure.
For example, in this interview, the late Archduke Dr. Otto von Habsburg (1912-2011) discusses advanced Muslim civilizations, declaring his admiration for Muslims for believing in God and identifying the lack of that belief as “one of our basic weaknesses.” Habsburg concludes that “We are made to understand each other.”
Anyway, here’s more amazing Islamic architecture.
In line with what Habsburg states, the architecture during the Golden Age of Islam / Europe’s Dark Ages was also highly advanced.
During the Golden Age of Islam / Europe’s Dark Ages (5th–10th centuries), there appears to have been a pause in construction in Roman Catholic Europe.
So, everything was lining up nicely and making great sense…
And then I ran into something that upset the applecart.
The question I posed was this:
What was it that plunged Europe into the Dark Ages that “alternate history” enthusiasts are in such a rush to leave on the cutting room floor?
Setting aside currently trending conjecture, most historical accounts point to the “Barbarian invasions” of the (Germanic) Franks, Goths & Alemmani, (North Eastern) Huns, (Turkish) Bulgars, (Hungarian) Magyars etc… (AD 375 – 568) as the culprits behind the weakening and fall of the Roman Empire.
Eminent Middle Age scholar and Belgian educator Henri Pirenne (1862-1935) saw a problem with the historical accounts of the end of Antiquity and beginning of the Middle Ages. In the book, Mohammed and Charlemagne (1938), he shows that the “Barbarian invasions” were NOT responsible for Europe’s Dark Ages at all. Rather, Europe’s economically blighted, pitiful condition was the result of LATER attacks by ISLAMISTS.
I haven’t finished reading it yet, so I’ll share excerpts of the summary that inspired my purchase, entitled “Did Islam Destroy Classical Civilizations?” by researcher John J. O’Neill.
“After the Barbarian Invasions of the 5th century, we are told, the peoples of Western Europe reverted to living in thatched, wattle-and-daub huts. Cities were destroyed and abandoned, the art of writing virtually lost, and the mass of the population kept in a state of ignorance by an obscurantist and fanatical Church, which effectively completed the destructive work of the Barbarians. Into this darkened stage, the Arabs arrived in the 7th and 8th centuries like a ray of light. Tolerant and learned, they brought knowledge of the science of antiquity back into Europe and, under their influence, Westerners began the long journey back to civilization…
That, in a nutshell, is the story told in an enormous number of scholarly treatises and academic textbooks. It is a story implicitly accepted by a large majority of professional historians, both in Europe and North America; and yet it is a version of the past that is completely and utterly false…
The truth is that when the Arabs reached southern Italy and Spain, they found not a bunch of primitive savages, but a highly sophisticated Latin civilization, a civilization rich in cities, agriculture, art, and literature, and presided over by completely Romanized Gothic kings…
In his Mohammed and Charlemagne, Henri Pirenne… devotes over 140 pages packed full of evidence to show that the economy, the arts and the sciences flourished under the Gothic kings, who employed their enormous wealth in the construction of brilliantly decorated residences and churches. By 500 AD, virtually all of the damage that had been done during the Invasions of the 5th century had been repaired…
Pirenne stressed that the arrival of Islam effectively isolated Europe both intellectually and economically. And with this economic paralysis came war: the Muslim conquests were to unleash a torrent of violence against Europe. As a direct result of the Arab advance, by the 7th and 8th centuries, Christendom, the area within which Christianity was the dominant religion, diminished almost to vanishing-point…
The surviving Christian territories were besieged and under sustained attack from the north and east, as well as the south…
[E]ven the Viking onslaught, which devastated huge areas of the British Isles, France and northern Germany, was prompted by the Muslim demand for slaves. The latter is a fact not yet widely known, though well-accepted by professional historians; and emphasized repeatedly by Hugh Trevor-Roper and others (see The Rise of Christian Europe).” – John J. O’Neill, formatting added. (More on Pirenne here)
What indeed?
I find it interesting because of the effort that’s been put into suppressing the Islamic invasions while pushing the ‘Barbarian attacks’ crushing Europe, leading to the Dark Ages of ‘ignorant, superstitious Christianity’ narrative.
Because if Perinne is right, Europe recovered only to be crushed again by Islam… and as a result of the European Enlightenment, faith in God is dismissed as “Ignorant” by European intellectuals, while Islam retains its god.
Make it make sense…
I’m open to your ideas on that one. Here are a couple thoughts.
Order from Chaos?
Both narratives exclude a crucial point, and that is that the “Wisdom of Antiquity” did NOT come through Christianity NOR Islam, but through Secret Societies working behind the scenes of both. I’ll get to that in a bit.
And I’ll go into this in part 3 – but it matters because the barbarian narrative enables the twisting of scripture, in that Pirenne’s explanation aligns with the divine Revelation given to John of Patmos.
anyway…
So… were Muslims the keepers of Ancient Knowledge… or were they barbarians?
Islam is indeed a misogynistic, war-mongering and barbaric RELIGION, but it’s still a historical fact that the Islamic empires placed a high value on education, and were highly advanced in architecture, philosophy, astronomy, mathematics and science. This brings us to the two levels the great world control systems operate on.
Two Levels
All the great world religions / Mystery Schools of higher learning have both:
- An OUTER / operative / exoteric level for the masses
- A hidden INNER / speculative / esoteric level reserved only for INITIATES at the highest levels of secret societies.
This is the occult’s DUALISM, another counterfeit of God’s creation (flesh and spirit).
In this manner, the dark spiritual nature of these great control systems is hidden from the masses. Most Catholics and Muslims, for example, know nothing of this hidden level and will be offended when you criticize their religions.
Two Levels in Islam
“[T]he Prophet Muhammad [If he actually existed] and the shariah consist of both an outward, exoteric level (zahir) as well as a deeper, esoteric dimension (batin). The role of Prophets was to enunciate the exoteric expression (tanzil) of revelation in line with their historical contexts. The role of the Imams is to unveil the esoteric depths of revelation through spiritual interpretation (ta’wil). – The Muslim Times
Secret Societies
Within the RCC, we know about the Knights Templar, who were the likely precursors to the Freemasons, and the Jesuits were created to counter the Reformation. In search of Islam’s hidden level, I came upon a Sufi Islamic Secret Society during the 9th and 10th centuries known as “The Brethren of Purity.”
Yup. Islam had secret societies… and still does;
“As are the Scottish and York Rites of Freemasonry both secret societies, al-Qaeda is likewise a secret society. Like Freemasonry, al-Qaeda denies its own existence in order to remain in the shadows. In this regard al-Qaeda is set up identically to Adam Weishaupt’s Illuminati.” – Bibliotecapleyades
Two Levels In Freemasonry
I’ll be getting to the connections between Islam and Freemasonry a little later on. But I want to point out here how this secret society also operates on two levels.
Freemason Walter Leslie Wilmshurst (1867 –1939) describes this duality in The Meaning of Masonry.
“The great world-religions have been ordained to teach in their respective manners the same truths as the Mystery systems have taught. Their teaching has always been TWOFOLD. There has always existed an external, elementary, popular doctrine which has served for the instruction of the masses who are insufficiently prepared for deeper teaching; and concurrently therewith there has been an interior, advanced doctrine, a more secret knowledge, which has been reserved for riper minds and into which only proficient and properly prepared candidates, who voluntarily sought to participate in it, were initiated…
…[Freemasonic] rituals and doctrine are an authentic embodiment of a secret doctrine and a secret process that have always existed for the enlightenment of such aspirants…
Those who instituted modern speculative Masonry… took… the elementary rites and symbols pertaining to mediæval operative guilds of stone-masons and transformed them into a system of religio-philosophic doctrine…
Masonry is spoken of as …“a science dealing with the cultivation and improvement of the human mind.” Its usages and customs are also there said to have derived “from the ancient Egyptians whose philosophers, unwilling to expose their mysteries to vulgar eyes, conceal their principles and philosophy under signs and symbols,” which are still perpetuated in the Masonic Order…” – The Meaning of Masonry (New York City, NY: Bell Publishing Company; Crown Publishers, [1927] 1980) 42-43, (more on Freemasonry)
Two Levels In Scholarship
Manly P. Hall addresses this dual nature in Scholarship.
“In ancient days all learning was regarded as sacred; wisdom was entrusted to the keeping of priest philosophers; and they were permitted to communicate the choicest branches of the sciences only to duly initiated pupils. To bestow knowledge upon those who had not prepared their minds by years of discipline and self-purification profaned the mysteries, desecrated the sacred sciences…” – Manly P Hall, America’s Secret Destiny.
Did Enlightenment Thought Lead to the Reformation?
Many history accounts claim that the Reformation was a product of the Enlightenment but others dispute that claim. Clearly, Reformers saw the importance of being able to read the Bible, which, was increasingly being made available in their own language again since Gutenberg’s printing press in 1455, but thanks to Islam’s effect on European Universities, they were rich with occult “wisdom of antiquity.” To understand the Reformation’s multifaceted origins, we also need to consider Europe’s economic decline and the RCCs weakened state after its encounters with Islam and in aftermath of the plague.
The Plague, The Mongols (Tatars) and The Reformers
It’s estimated that at least 20 million people, anywhere from 40 to 60 percent of the already devastated population of Europe died of plague, the “Black Death.” Many viewed the plague as judgment from God on the RCC who they (rightly) saw as AntiChrist. Lacking the ability to read God’s Word for themselves, the wrong idea arose, (sadly not unfamiliar to us today in a time where virtually every household has a Bible), that illness reflected a lack of faith. As a result, many refused to leave their towns when the pestilence struck, which further increased the death toll.
The greatest waves of plague had run their course by 1352, leaving millions of people dead and Europe’s social structure unrecognizable. In his book; Civilization of the Middle Ages, historian Norman Cantor notes that “many flourishing cities became virtual ghost towns for a time” (p. 482). Crops lay rotting in the fields with no one to harvest them.
The history of the plague is largely outside the scope of our topic. But it helps explain the link between the Enlightenment with the Reformation, in that the plague drastically altered the economy of an already weakened Europe. The reduced population decimated the workforce, and illiterate serfs who were previously little more than slaves became a vital asset to their lords. This resulted in better living conditions for the lower class, many of whom were now able to afford an education.
The cause of the plague invariably leads to stories about the Mongols / Tatars / Tartars who were also predominantly Muslim. From what I read, it appears their invasions may have been spurred by the European’s desperate attempts to follow northern trade routes, southern routes having been cut off by the Muslims.
I dunno.
But while we’re on the subject of Tartaria, let’s go on a little rabbit trail about the Tartaria Mud Flood craze!
Altered History as Gatekeeper
Altered history is trending. And while we’d expect a certain degree of falsehood in history records because history is written by the victor, the “altered history” we should be concerned about is that which diminishes God’s Word, Christ and His spiritual reign on earth. And that’s exactly what we find with the history of The Enlightenment, “Enlightened” Christianity and the “added 1000 years” of history theory and Tartaria Mud Flood craze.
TARTARIA and the “little season”
As I was tracing Enlightenment thought from Copernicus (apx 1500 A.D) to the 16th century, someone sent me this video (they were appropriately appalled) of three, supposedly “Christian” guys discussing their new theory about Tartaria and the biblical “little season.” As I suffered through the hubris jabbering about their baseless ideas, (including that the people in Jesus’ day may have worn suits rather than robes!?) what struck me was their complete lack of any scripture to support their ideas. I kept wondering, “Have these guys ever even opened a Bible?!?”
I may go into the “Tartaria alternate history” topic more in depth at some point. But I decided to just briefly include it because of how the Tartary narrative serves to diminish, if not completely eradicate any trust in scripture, where God is well able to preserve His Supernatural Word!
In this new slant on the Preterist view, the guys in the above referenced video claim that the reign of Christ already happened. Armed, largely with drawings and photographs that couldn’t possibly have been created in Photoshop, these guys have essentially taken the “Tartarian Era” with its advanced buildings etc., (We’ve already established that these Muslim civilizations were indeed advanced), and tacked it onto the earthly reign of Jesus Christ… Who was apparently all about… (drumroll): Free Energy!
They go on to interpret the “little season” as the years that this supposed “fact” was hidden… but now that everything is almost over it’s all coming out!… or something…
I was reading an article, The Enigma of the Lost Empire: Russian President Vladimir Putin Makes New Tartaria Archive Public, which presents the current “Hidden History” narrative, and I noticed something interesting. It says,
“The conventional historical narrative in Russia, akin to a tale weaved into the fabric of academic curricula, has origins dating back to the 18th century. It is tailored in accordance with the biblical Jewish concept of history, a legacy of the Romanovs, Russian rulers of yesteryears.
Tartaria was home to millions who lived in harmony, fostering a self-sustained culture rooted in spiritual and moral virtues.” – AMG News
Does that jump out at you like it does me? It’s Plato’s Utopian Atlantis that Manly P. Hall’s “Ideal Democratic Society” is modeled after again! I’ll be looking at the “Ideal Democratic Society” in relation to America later in this sub-series. But my point here is that this new Tartaria craze has the earmarks of yet another version of the occult lie.
ANYTHING and EVERYTHING to hide the Kingdom of TRUTH. 😞
I apologize for poking fun. I sincerely mean no disrespect to people who are caught up in this. But what’s absolutely NOT funny about the Tartaria alternative history stream of thought is that I’ve personally had two friends turn away from scripture to embrace heretical doctrines and all-out occultism by following it.
(This video gives a more accurate historical account of Tartaria if you’re interested).
To be continued…
Revivals Pt1 – Asbury: Let’s Talk About Revivals
Revivals Pt 2 – Enlightenment in the Land of the Plumed Serpent
Revivals Pt3 – Mystery Schools, The RCC and the Reformation
Revivals Pt4 – The First Great Awakening & The Enigmatic George Whitefield
Revivals Pt5 – The Brimstone and Mysticism of Jonathan Edwards
Revivals Pt 6 – John Wesley (1 of 2) – The Mystery School Dialectic and Christian Mysticism
Revivals Pt 7 – John Wesley (2 of 2) More Mystics & Papal Doctrines of Men
Revivals Pt8 – From Wesley to Finney By Way of Count Zinzendorf
Revivals Pt9 – Charles Grandison Finney, Freemasonic Moralism and Modern Evangelicalism
Revivals Pt10 – The Pagan “Virus“
Revivals Pt11 – The Third Great Awakening: Pentecostalism!
Revivals Pt12 – Pentecostalism Pt2: The Founders of Pentecostalism
Revivals Pt 13 – Social Justice Pt 1 – They Don’t Mix
Revivals Pt 14 – Social Justice Pt 2 – A City Upon A Hill
