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Occultists, Freemasons, And The Secret History of Radical Islam -
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Occultists, Freemasons, And The Secret History of Radical Islam
By Angel Millar on June 3, 2015 in History, Mystery, Religion
crowley-turban
Alistair Crowley in a Turban.
In 1910, the English occultist, Freemason, and poet, Alistair Crowley,
published a strange and now little-known work called The Scented Garden of
Abdullah: The Satirist of Shiraz under the name Abdullah el Haji. In the work,
which imitated Sufi poetry, Crowley claims to have been accepted into "the
joyous company of the Sufis," but that he cannot openly discuss Islamic
mysticism, "if only because I am a Freemason."
In other words, the English occultist was suggesting that Sufism and
Freemasonry were in some way connected, whether philosophically or through
historical ties. He, however, was not the only one to think this. The explorer
Sir Richard Francis Burton - whose translation of Eastern texts influenced
Western spirituality - believed that Sufism was "The Eastern parent of
Free-Masonry." And, later, modern Sufi and author Idries Shah would make much
the same claim.
It is now well known that Freemasonry - a fraternity founded in London in 1717,
but with roots going back to medieval Britain - had a significant influence on
occultism and alternative spirituality in the West. To cut a long story short,
when the fraternity reached continental Europe during the first half of the
18th century, Freemasons there reinterpreted the initiations and symbols of the
fraternity, creating new rituals that drew from alchemy, Rosicrucianism, and
various Knightly Orders. This milieu then fed back into Western occultism,
transforming it from a largely solo and scholarly pursuit, to one focused on
theatrical group rituals, initiations, and degrees.
Besides Crowley, the founders of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn - of
which Irish poet laureate W. B. Yeats was a member - and the founders of the
Ordo Templi Orientis, which taught ceremonial and sexual magic, were all active
Freemasons, and drew from its rituals and symbolism for their own societies.
(The degree system of the Golden Dawn was in fact adopted from the Societas
Rosicruciana - the first research society in the English-speaking world,
restricted to Freemasons. This in turn had borrowed the system from the German
society of Golden Rosicrucians, which also restricted its membership to
Freemasons.)
What is less well-known is the history of connections between Freemasonry and
radical Muslim activists over the last century and a half. Connections, it must
be added, that have helped shape the modern world today.
aleister-crowley-turban
Aleister Crowley in a Turban.
Although I had written extensively about Freemasonry before then, I only began
to stumble across some of the deeper connections about six years ago, when I
began writing The Crescent and The Compass: Islam, Freemasonry, Esotericism and
Revolution in the Modern Age, which is the only book to chart this peculiar
history.
Some of the connections I already knew about. The Shriners, the Grotto, and
Crowley, for example.
In the USA, the comic figure of "the Shriner" is a familiar one. Wearing the
red Turkish fez emblazoned with a crescent, Shriners have historically paraded
through small US towns, collecting for charity. The organization, whose full
name is the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, was
founded by a few Freemasons in around 1870 in New York. It is today more about
fun and fraternity - in a somewhat depressing "frat boy" sense - than mysticism
or spirituality. But some early histories of the "Mystic Shrine" claimed that
it was derived from, and was the Western equivalent of, the Bektashi sect of
Sufi Islam.
The society proved popular enough to provoke the founding of a rival society,
whose members wore black fezes, called the Mystic Order of Veiled Prophets of
the Enchanted Realm (AKA the Grotto). The initiation ritual of this society was
inspired by Thomas Moore's poem "Lalla Rookh" and, more specifically, its
mention of a veiled prophet in Persia.
Shriner Parade
Shriner Parade
There were more serious attempts at drawing Islamic mysticism into the Western
spiritual world, however. Crowley's Scented Garden was one. Another was the
Order of Ishmael, founded during the early 1870s in Britain, though allegedly
derived from an Arab in Paris.
Only a few years before this, Muslim activists had begun joining the Masonic
fraternity. Among them was Abd al-Qadir al-Jazairi (1808-1883), a Sufi leader,
Emir of Mascara in northwest Algeria, and resistance leader against the French,
who invaded the country in 1830. Abd al-Qadir had originally believed that
Freemasonry was a society of troublemakers, but was later convinced that its
membership was interested in spiritual growth. He affiliated with a French
Masonic Lodge for about a year, but left disappointed, feeling that the members
were not interested in Islam, which he believed would benefit them.
Others were more politically radical. In 1858, Mirza Malkam Khan founded a
secret society in Tehran, based on Freemasonry (which he had joined the
preceding year). Its aim was to promote rationalism and Western thought in the
Middle East. The idea, however, was to provide the people of the region with
the tools to fight back against colonialism.
Perhaps the most important radical to join, though, was Jamal ad-Din
al-Afghani. He became a Freemason in Cairo, and there founded his own national
Lodge in the hope of using it to organize against the colonial powers. As the
founder of pan-Islamic politics in the modern age, al-Afghani's thought has
influenced both pan-Islamist and more democratic movements in the Middle East.
"Sayyid Dschamāl ad-Dīn al-Afghānī" by unknown photograph, retouched by
--Liberal Freemason (talk) 21:19, 11 June 2008 (UTC) -
[url=http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/images/afghani.jpg.]http://www.nmhschool.org/tthornton/images/afghani.jpg.[/url]
Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
"Sayyid Dschamāl ad-Dīn al-Afghānī" retouched by - Liberal Freemason. Licensed
under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
These are just a few of the connections between Freemasonry and Islam in the
modern era. Contemporary examples emerge fairly regularly. However, during the
1920s Arab Christians introduced Western, anti-Masonic conspiracy theories into
the Middle East, influencing both pan-Islamic and secular politics in the
region. These mythologies remained important (being taught as part of the
Saudi-Arabian curriculum, for instance). Hence, today, Islamists often accuse
their enemies of being "Freemasons" - a term that has a very specific meaning,
referring to alleged saboteurs subverting Islam by introducing aspects of
American or Western culture, such as alcohol and pornography.
Just over a week ago, the office of the Director of National Intelligence in
the USA released a list of the books owned by former al-Qaeda leader Osama bin
Laden. Among them was The Secret Teachings of All Ages, a New Age classic
covering such subjects as astrology and - you guessed it - Freemasonry, by
Western mystic Manly P. Hall. Another of bin Laden's books was the anti-Masonic
Bloodlines of the Illuminati by Fritz Springmeier.
We know that, like many other Salafi, Takfiri Jihadist movements, al-Qaeda is
anti-Masonic, since - whether a real event or not - one issue of its online
magazine praised the murder of several Freemasons. But the centrality of the
anti-Masonic conspiracy theory to such movements is generally overlooked by
analysts.
We have a tendency to simplify things. And Freemasonry does not seem an
important subject to Western pundits on "Islam" or Islamism, even if it is of
importance to al-Qaeda and its ilk.
But the historical connections between Muslims and Freemasonry in the modern
era tells us how complicated the picture is. In a sense, it opens up a new
world for us.
Islamic politics and spirituality have overlapped with Western politics and
spirituality for at least a century and a half. Anti-Freemasonry was introduced
into Islamist politics nearly a century ago. Despite the rhetoric on the issue
- which tends to be either heated or shallow - the history of these strange
connections tells us that East and West may be struggling, in sometimes very,
very different ways, with the same thing. That thing, I would argue, is the
role of religion and spirituality in the secular world.
Angel Millar is an independent researcher and the author of The Crescent and
The Compass: Islam, Freemasonry, Esotericism and Revolution in the Modern Age
and Freemasonry: Foundation of the Western Esoteric Tradition. His writing has
also been published in the Journal of Indo-European Studies and at Eurasia
Review, among others.
