By Thomas King

This will again come as a shock to those whom hold Martin Luther in high esteem, but Luther held Islam and her armies in admiration. It is true that he wrote a tract entitled: “On War Against the Turk”, whereby it appears that he is opposed to Islam on theological grounds and urges the German people to resist invasion. Nonetheless, he is more tolerant towards Islam than he is towards the Jews. In fact, he even states as much:

Let the Turk believe and live as he will, just as one lets the papacy and other false Christians live. (On War Against the Turk)

Suleiman the Magnificent, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire in Luther’s time.

But that is not all. He even goes so far as to claim that a Muslim ruler (a Turkish ruler) is better than a Christian ruler:

A smart Turk makes a better ruler than a dumb Christian

It is no accident since Luther hated Jews and the Pope more than he did the Islamic religion and therefore, despite knowing what was wrong with the Islamic religion theologically and also in terms of what it would do given full swing over Europe, he urged his followers to side with the Muslim Turks in defeating Europe.

After calling the Jews and the Pope some foul names such as “Antichrist” and “Devil incarnate”, he then urged his followers to look at the Turks in the best manner and even went so far as to say that some of his German contemporaries (read traitors), “actually want the Turk to come and rule, because they think that our German people are wild and uncivilized – indeed that they are half-devil and half-man” (Found in The Ottoman Empire and early modern Europe, by Daniel Goffman, Cambridge University Press, 2002, p110).

What is most interesting about the whole matter is that Suleiman the Magnificent, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire during Luther’s time, that he sent a letter to Luther’s followers in Flanders, Holland which stated that he felt akin to them since: “they did not worship idols, believed in one God and fought against the Pope and Emperor” (Found in The Ottoman state and its place in world history by Kemal H. Karpat p.53).

Suleiman the Magnificent extended his kinship further and wrote letters to German princes who were sympathetic to Luther to form an alliance with him to fight both the Emperor and the Pope as well giving protection to Luther and Calvin’s followers in Hungary and Transylvania. (See Muslims and the Gospel: Bridging the Gaps by Roland Miller, Lutheran University Press, Minneapolis, 2005 p208).

In fact, one of the biggest collaborators with Suleiman the Magnificent was a Unitarian, John Sigismund, who not only was dependent on the Sultan for rule of Hungary, but the establishment of this wicked heretical Unitarian “Church” of Transylvania. [On a side note, the first Unitarian, Michael Servetus, was initially supportive of the Reformation of Luther, only to fall out of grace with John Calvin, due to his heretical denial of the Trinity. Evil company can always fall in and out of each other! This is evident by the fact that Luther hated both John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, who were also responsible for the Reformation!]

John Sigismund of Hungary, pledging allegiance to Suleiman the Magnificent.

It was no accident that a century later, a Muslim diplomat from Morocco sent to cement an alliance between Protestant Holland and the Ottoman Empire along with the Islamic kingdoms of Morocco and the Moriscos, by the name of Al-Hajari, would state in his book, the following:

Their teachers [Luther and Calvin] warned them [Protestants] against the Pope and the worshippers of Idols; they also told them not to hate the Muslims because they are the sword of God in the world against the idol-worshippers. That is why they side with the Muslims. (—Al-Hajari, The Book of the Protector of Religion against the Unbelievers)

That is why it was so easy for Luther’s followers and the followers of John Calvin to collaborate with the Islamic forces attacking Europe. Luther laid the groundwork for this in his half-hearted statements regarding Islam along with his actions. But it gets worse from here on in. After the demise of Suleiman the Magnificent, Murad III, his successor wrote a letter to forge alliance with the Lutherans in both Flanders and Spain that stated:

As you, for your part, do not worship idols, you have banished the idols and portraits and “bells” from churches, and declared your faith by stating that God Almighty is one and Holy Jesus is His Prophet and Servant, and now, with heart and soul, are seeking and desirous of the true faith; but the faithless one they call Papa does not recognize his Creator as One, ascribing divinity to Holy Jesus (upon him be peace!), and worshiping idols and pictures which he has made with his own hands, thus casting doubt upon the oneness of God and instigating how many servants to that path of error” —1574 letter of Murad III to the “Members of the Lutheran sect in Flanders and Spain”

Murad III, successor of Suleiman the Magnificent and collaborator with Luther’s followers

It was also no accident that in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 that amongst the Ottoman forces were to be found Lutheran and Calvinist allies from Holland and England. Treachery continues and in the Battle of Vienna in 1681, the leader of the Protestants in Hungary, Imre Thokoly in conjunction with the Ottoman forces was attacking Vienna. It is the grace of God that prevented this Islamic scourge from succeeding with Vienna as they had with Constantinople, due to the intervention of John Sobieski, king of Poland.

Nonetheless, it is clear by now that the followers of Luther and Calvin were willing allies and traitors to the forces of Islam due to the groundwork laid by the Reformers. In fact, it became a common saying among the Dutch Protestants in the 16th century that they would “rather a Turk than a Papist”. Sadly, the same was said by a number of Orthodox Christians before the fall of Constantinople in 1453: “Better the turban than the tiara”, for which the Orthodox Church has paid a bitter, bloody price as evidenced in the number of Saints and New Martyrs during the Ottoman and Caliphate eras.

History repeats itself indeed when others fail to learn from it! Orthodox Christians should wake up and learn from St. John Damascene and not be blinded by sugarcoat that Islam promoted using fair words and fair speeches stating that they worship the same God as us or that we have more in common! St John Damascene was in the second most powerful place in the court of the Caliph of Syria, and yet he was never corrupted by Islam. In fact, he saw its full reality and in his book, The Fount of Knowledge, even named Islam as the “heresy of the Hagarenes (Descendants from Hagar, the mother of Ishmael)”, and even named Allah as “Baal” as well as calling Muslims: “Mutilators of God” to counter their accusations towards the Christians as being “Associators of God”. Such a Saint and Father saw right through it all and pulled no punches whatsoever.

Orthodox Christians have no excuse for treasonous collaboration with Islam. Those who have done so have betrayed the Church and have become as Judas Iscariot. If the persecutions do not teach us anything, then should not the actual blasphemies against Christ our God be enough along with the vitriol that is leveled against both Jews and Christians in the Qu’ran be enough?! Unlike Luther and Calvin, we have no excuse since we have the example of Saints and New Martyrs and some of the Fathers (e.g. St. John Damascene) to teach us the evils of Islam, both theologically and in practice. History should have taught us that collaboration only worked against the Church in the end. Anathema be upon all the Quislings in the Church, be they hierarch or layman!

I digress slightly, but evidence is enough to show, even in this present day, that Luther and his evil fruit have been responsible for the Islamic threat that is now threatening the West more than ever before. It is no accident that the Muslims and left-wing liberals have named “Martin Luther”: Tariq Ramadan. The connection is not so far-fetched when you consider that both have a hatred for the Jewish people, both are deniers of Christ and both have advocated evil rulership. Mr. Tariq Ramadan is in fact a direct descendant of the Muslim Brotherhood’s founder, Hassan al-Banna. As is typical of Muslim theology, he practices “al-taqqiyah”, or lying for the sake of Islam and this is also not different from Luther who advocated, as quoted earlier, the teaching of lying for the cause of God in the name of grace.

Another evil fruit of Luther’s duplicity with Islam is that many of the Lutheran churches today are anti-Israel and pro-Islamic terrorist. This is evidenced in many of the statements made by official leaders in the Lutheran World Council and other Lutheran officials, whereby Israel was always accused of “atrocities” for defending herself and her citizens, both Jew and Arab, from Islamic terrorist attacks by Palestinian terrorist groups. You only need to check the official records to see what is stated is the truth.

Suffice to say, Luther has not only been worthy of Lucifer, but also Judas Iscariot and the Antichrist and has shown so by his sympathetic gestures to Islam, despite knowing their theological errors. Any Christian in Lutheran circles today who does not wish to participate in either Luther’s hatred of Jews or his pandering to the antichrist religion of Islam should have the courage to name him as a “firstborn of Satan”, as the Blessed St. John the Apostle named Cerinthus, and hopefully, leave Lutheranism for a genuine Christianity.