THE SECRET MISSION OF THE TEMPLARS & The Arab World

In addition to the activities just related, the 

Templars were entrusted with a number of secret missions. One 

of these was to work for the linking of Christianity and Islam. 

The word Islam means "confident submission to God." 

Islam is the religion promulgated by the Prophet Mohammed, and 

someone who accepts Islam is a Moslem. Islam dates from the 

seventh century AD when Mohammed, a welI—to—do Arab merchant, 

received instructions in a vision to bring the message of the One 

God to the Arab world. Mohammed himself did not claim to have 

started a new religion, but is reported to have said that his 

task was merely to bring Ito his countrymen the message of mono- 

theism already declared by the patriarch Abraham and other 

prophets such as Moses and Jesus.  

MOSLEM BROTHERHOODS There is documentary evidence that 

despite the continuous state of military confrontation which 

existed between the Christian and Moslem armies in the Holy 

Land, there were very close contacts between the Templars and 

certain Moslem brotherhoods. It is known that the Templars 

signed secret treatises with the Islamic sect of the Ismailis, and 

it was demonstrated on several occasions during combat between 

Arab and Templar forces that certain ideals of chivalry were 

respected on both sides. 

There were of course the famous contacts between the 

Templars and the Fraternity of the Assassins, a secret fraternity 

and offshoot of the lsmailis founded around 1090 by Hassan 

Sabah. The head of the Fraternity was known as Sheikh-el-jebel, 

or "the Old Man of the Mountains." Certain historians have 

argued that the real meaning of the title was "the wise man or 

sage of the Kabalah or Tradition." 

THE ASSASSlNS  

Although opinions differ as to the real 

nature of the Assassins, there is general agreement that the 

Fraternity taught a secret doctrine which was transmitted only to 

the initiated. There must certainly have been some connection 

between the Assassins and Sufism. lt also appears that the 

organization of the Fraternity and its religious codes and 

regulations greatly resembled those of the Templars. 

The old belief that the Assassins were a fraternity of 

drugged murderers (the Arabic word hashishvln meaning partaker 

of "hashish," the local marijuana) may have been greatly ex- 

aggerated during the period of the Crusades when anything 

pertaining to lslam was given an unsavoury reputation in Western 

Europe. Unfortunately ·the word assassin was adopted in some 

European languages with the meaning it has today, although it 

may well have derived from the Arabic word "assas," meaning 

foundation. 

THE DRUZE A brief diversion concerning the fraternity 

known as the Druze might be in order here. This group is found 

in Lebanon, Syria and lsrael today. Certain authors have 

suggested that some of the teachings of the Druze might be of 

Templar origin, and members of the fraternity do talk of their 

co-religionists in Europe, especially in Scotland! Contacts 

between the sect and the Knights Templar could easily have 

occurred during the period of Templar presence in the Holy Land, 

although this view may have arisen because Druze teachings are 

a mixture of judaism, Christianity and Islam, and include 

elements of Gnosticism. Within this amalgram is a secret oral 

tradition said to be practiced by an inner group whose initiates 

are known as Akkals or Okkals, and who possess seven secret 

books of teachings accessible until recently only to the "pure". 

Four volumes believed to contain these books have now been 

published in Arabic, not long after Druze villages in Lebanon 

were taken over by Phalangist Christians. No denial of the 

books' authenticity has been issued by the Druze sect, an 

omission which is significant by itself. 

lt is also believed that there were contacts with those 

Moslems who had settled as conquerors in Spain. Although there 

is no direct relationship to the story of the Templars, it is 

nevertheless interesting to note that the man considered to be the 

greatest mystic in the history of lslam, Ibn Al'Arabi, was born 

in Murcia, Andalucia. He first studied law in Seville, moved to 

the Middle East where he was initiated into Sufism in 1194. and 

died in Damascus in 1240 after an extraordinary spiritual career. 

THE SUFI TRADITION The flowerings of the Sufi tradition 

was also conterminous with the rise of the Templars. Although 

Sufism had already existed from the early phases of Islam, it 

was only around the tenth_ or eleventh century AD that it was 

institutionalized. The most important Sufi brotherhoods were 

founded between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries, but the 

golden age of Sufism was the twelfth century. It is therefore 

probable that given their mission the Templars would have been 

busy obtaining information during this period of spiritual ferment 

in Islam.  

UNIFICATION OF THE TRADITION You know of the transmission 

of the Tradition to Abraham by Melchisedek. This heritage was 

subsequently diverted into three main currents of Christianity, 

Islam and judaism. It was the task of Saint Bernard and the 

Templars to try to bring them together again. 

The Templars did not succeed in outwardly reuniting 

these currents. They did however manage to maintain the contact 

with Islam and to integrate certain teachings, as just mentioned. 

Through the Essenes and the Kabalists, elements were also trans- 

planted from Judaism, fall of which were to vitalize the spirit- 

uality of the Western peoples for the centuries which followed. 

Another secret mission of the Templars was to strive for the 

Return of the Christ. Their terminology for this objective was 

the "Return of the Christ in Solar Glory." This is the priority 

mission of the Temple today. One additional point can be 

appropriately made at this time: It concerns the puzzlement of 

historians as to why the Templars, with all their wealth and 

power, so meekly and passively accepted the destruction of the 

Order by Philip the Fair. The Templar tradition indicates that 

the main officers of the Order believed that one day the Order, 

like Christ, would have to sacrifice itself physically in order to 

facilitate the return of the Christ in victu; This could explain 

their courage in battle and why many of them accepted death and 

the decline of their Order during the period of the persecutions 

without physically defending themselves. 

Times have changed. In the present cycle, the modern Templar  

is not expected to sacrifice himself at the stake as did Grand Master  

Jacques de Molay on that cold October dayin I3ll..  

The Templar of today will rather be expected to 

sacrifice the selfish aspects of his nature so that the spirit of 

the Universal Christ shall manifest in him in victu: To describe 

this in alchemical language: man needs to master the cross of the 

four elements in order to achieve the awakening of Cosmic Unity 

and Consciousness in his being.