Historian Michael Haag has written an excellent 358 page account of one of Western Christendom's most virile, vital and interesting organizations. Haag's account is an informative and accessible layman's journey through the founding of the Templar's in 1119 at the Church of the Holy Sepulchre which marked the crucifixon, burial and resurrection of Christ; to its demise in 1307 at the hands of the bankrupted French King ironically named Phillip the 'Fair'. As Haag relates, over twenty thousand Templars died in battle or as prisoners of war fighting the Muslims. There is no recorded example of a Templar renouncing his faith or his Order's vows under torture, punishment or extended captivity. The romance, mystery, and demonstrated energy of this most unique of Western groups will always been of interest to any interested in the Western tradition.

There are seven parts. The first three cover the historical background of the Middle East including the origins of Solomon's Temple, the rise of Christianity and the 'rise' of Islam and the context for the pilgrimmages and the Crusades. Part four deals with the Templars proper, including their rise to power and their fall. Part five deals with the aftermath of the Templars destruction and the co-optation of some of their culture, by Freemasonry. The last two sections deal with the Templar castles and sites, as well as the role of the Knights in popular culture, including games, websites and books.

What makes this book so very good, is the realistic appraisal of Islam. This is the context of this first review. Islam is not portrayed by Haag as a religious faith. It is painted as it should be – a naked program of power and control. A true Muslim believes that the Koran supersedes the Bible, and that the military-political adventurer and fascist Mohammed, was the last and greatest of the Jewish-Christian prophets. Nothing further from reality could be true. Islam was and is, a Jihadic military poli-cracy, whose goal was and is world domination:

“Islam was the revealed and perfect faith, and as for the Christians, and also the Jews, as long as they submitted to Muslim rule and paid their taxes they were permitted to conduct their own affairs according to their own laws, customs and beliefs.”

As Haag states, the key to Islam is that it demands the submission of all people's to the Arab cult. Period. In the real world we call this imperialism. In PC-Cultural Marxist terms, the subjugation and tax-farming of second class knaves is termed 'inter-faith harmony'. This harmony is a resplendent orchestral composition in the 'minds' of the Muslim-lovers, as long as those playing are White Christians under the control of the masterful, educated, sophisticated and uber-intelligent Muslim class. Harmony, like so many words, is now re-equipped to denote the enslavement of Whites and Jews, under the caring tutelage of the 'minority victims', the Muslims. Islamic rule was vicious, predatory and arbitrary. In order to escape enslavement many non-Muslims just gave up and converted to the moon cult. So much for inter-faith harmony.

“Many Copts converted to Islam after the ferocious repression of 832; being unable to meet taxation demands, partly because the irrigation system was falling into further disrepair, they migrated into the towns, leaving large areas of land uncultivated. Even so, not until the eleventh century, four hundred years after the Arab occupation, did the majority of Egyptians finally adopt Islam.”

The poverty of Islam was so rife and its theological Fascism so obvious that revolts against Arab and Islamic cult rule were common. Islam was not spread by preaching and earnest debate. It was manufactured in, and expanded through, war and violence. As Haag so rightly elucidates, Arab and Muslim culture was barren, and far from producing anything that created the modern world, the Islamic states were in the main poor, backwards, and uneducated. Their only salvation came from squatting and plundering richer non Muslim locales and empires:

“With the triumph of an authoritarian and incurious religious dogma, with the failure to develop resources or technological advances, and with civil administrations replaced by local military autocrats, the empire of the Arabs fell into intellectual, political and economic decline.”

Even in Egypt as quoted above, it took 400 years for Islam to take root. The reason? The utter insipidity of the Muslim program militated against any social organization which could produce wealth, opportunity and rationality: In North Africa and elsewhere, the Muslims destroyed the existing and far superior Byzantine lands which had advanced systems of agriculture, irrigation, public works, sewage, and even public libraries. The complex system of social advancement was eradicated by the Muslims and Arabs. Libraries were destroyed, industries neutered and even large monuments defaced or pulled down.

“There were uprisings against the Arabs throughout their empire. In Egypt, where the population had been three million at the time of the Arab conquest, the mismanagement of the country's resources was so appalling that there were not maore than one and a half million Egyptians by 1000 AD.”

The decimation of Egypt's population was a singular event. Half of the population either died or left. This is a remarkable display of an anti-civilizational theology hard at work. In fact the mindless destruction visited upon Egypt by Islam, included rather remarkably, the loss of the wheel for 3 centuries. Pack animals replaced carts in North Africa as the wheel, and its necessary ancillary infrastructure of roads, hospices, and trade centers all disappeared. No wonder the political-economy of the once rich delta state simply collapsed.

It is worth noting that the Crusades, which saved Western Europe and which were a military response to 400 years of Muslim warring against Europe, including the killing and enslaving of millions of European Christians, not to mention the destruction of once Christian lands in Syria, the Levant, North Africa, Spain, Italy, and Turkey, are positively depicted by Haag. In fact Muslim savagery is given a fair hearing in Haag's work, with the destruction of Christian pilgrims by 'extremist' [a modern appellation] Muslims, for instance being well documented.

“An especially shocking attack too place at Easter 1119 when a large party of seven hundred unarmed pilgrims, both men and women, set out from Jerusalem for the river Jordan.....set upon by an Egyptian sortie from Ascalon. Three hundred pilgrims were killed and another sixty were captured to be sold as slaves.”

Even the 'sack' of Jerusalem in 1099, in which we are now told was a gigantic slaughter by Crusaders of defenseless Muslims and Jews, and which is a very large myth is told in more measured terms by Haag;

“What is more, contemporary letters written by Jews living in the Eastern Mediterranean make it clear that not all Jews and Muslims in the city were killed; and indeed the contemporary Arab writer Ibn al-Arabi estimated the number of Muslim dead at Jerusalem at only three thousand.”

The multi-cult usually attributes the 1099 retaking of Jerusalem, the ancient Jewish capital of David, and the home of Christendom's most sacred shrines and relics, as a barbaric slaughter in which the streets ran with blood. No more than 4.000 died and none were enslaved out of a population of 500.000. This hardly constitutes anything more than a minor episode in the long and bloody history of Near East warfare. The Muslims slaughtered far more in taking Jerusalem in 637 and in 1187 when Saladin who is much beloved by PC Fascists, retook the city from the Latins, he enslaved over 10.000 and only let the rest go for ransom. His usual policy was to slaughter all the inhabitants, a fact which he repeated on over 10 occasions in his ceaseless wars with the Christians and Sunni Muslim sects that he conquered to unite the Muslim Near East. 

In expelling the last of the Knights from Acre in 1291, the Muslim Jihad under Baybars likewise killed some 10.000, destroyed the city, and sent any survivors into slavery. When the Muslim cult attacked the greatest of Christian cities,Constantinople, in 1453, 40.000 were butchered and 35.000 more cast in chains and sent off to the Muslim heartlands as sex slaves or workers. But none of these facts would make an impression on really clever PC relativists. For them Islam is a minority class and race, constituting a wonderful theology of improvement and love.

At least authors like Haag are detailed, realistic and intelligent enough to dispense with such claptrap.