We will finish our public policy discussion on the history of the global 1% and their 2% killing America and WE THE PEOPLE TODAY-----shaking us for every cent we earned and stealing all out public trusts, raiding our Federal agencies---just as occurred with the DECLINE OF THE VENETIAN EMPIRE. Back to ordinary contemporary public policy on Monday----health care policy. Starting the NEW YEAR with a history of our global 1% and their 2% political enemies opens the door to educating and knowing those enemies---building offenses PROACTIVELY to guard the wealth and power WE THE PEOPLE worked to achieve and building defenses REACTIVELY against the progress made by CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA in taking all that wealth and power WE THE PEOPLE worked to achieve.
We spent these few days speaking about what happened with the fall of the 500-1500 VENETIAN EMPIRE with the MERCHANTS OF VENICE scattered all over Europe---coming to America----fomenting revolutions by insiting the masses FOR THEIR OWN GAIN----those MERCHANTS OF VENICE were the worst of enslavers of the 99%-----they are not working for us. Remember, the VENETIAN EMPIRE expanded trade routes across the middle and far east----across northern Africa and with that came A GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2% FROM ASIA AND AFRICA-----the decline of the Venetian Empire brought the same wars led by formerly rich merchants seeking to bring down their KINGS AND QUEENS to take wealth and markets inspiring their 99% to rise in revolution. Again, it is good to get rid of KINGS AND QUEENS but the global MERCHANTS OF VENETIAN EMPIRE are not THE LEADERS OF THE 99%.
Below we see just one example of a MERCHANT OF VENICE tied to Northern Africa. The nations of the African Coast had those same very wealthy global trading families who when the trading routes collapsed and went ACROSS THE ATLANTIC TO THE AMERICAS also lost all their wealth and trade bringing KINGS AND QUEENS of Africa down and selling African citizens into slavery as they headed to the AMERICAN NEW WORLD to rebuild their wealth. This same thing occurred in the middle-far east as Turkey, India, China, old world trade families left the Mediterranean trade routes and strengthened those in Eastern Europe and Asia.
Northern African MERCHANTS OF VENETIAN EMPIRE were as enslaving as those based in eastern Italy and they too were tied to all the spying, surveillance, secret societies as freemasons, Jacobins et al inspiring African 99% to bring down African KINGS AND QUEENS and bringing all that secret society trading to the AMERICAS.
'Filippo Malerbi
Filippo Malerbi’s career as a merchant inEgypt was the result of a two-generation family strategy. His case illustrates how Venetian citizenship regulations could open a pathfor social mobility, allowing skilled newcomers to enter into Venice’s overseas networks'.
They were in 500-1500 those global 1% and 2% wealthy families brought down by the movement by European KINGS AND QUEENS to colonize the Americas.
The alliances today in the Middle and Far East are families from old world VENETIAN EMPIRE 1% and their 2%. SAME GLOBAL RICH.
By Geoffrey Woodward
Published in History Review Issue 39 March 2001
Ottoman Empire, Medieval Turkey, Europe Empire
Geoffrey Woodward assesses how great an impact the Turks had on sixteenth-century Europe.
Introduction
‘Now shalt thou feel the force of Turkish arms
Which lately made all Europe quake for fear.’
Christopher Marlowe’s observation in Tamburlaine (1587) held true for most of the sixteenth century. The Ottoman army was the largest in Europe, its navy ruled the shipping lanes of the eastern Mediterranean, and its capital Istanbul was five times the size of Paris. Its resources seemed limitless, and its capacity to sweep aside opposition in the name of Islam gave the Turkish Empire an awesome presence. Indeed between 1520 and 1565 its momentum seemed unstoppable. Well might Christians in western Europe ‘quake for fear’. This article sets out to trace some of the ways in which Europeans were affected by the Turkish Empire in the course of the sixteenth century. First, it considers the impact on the Balkans and the consequences for the Holy Roman Empire. Second, it looks at how Spain, Portugal and Venice were affected by the maritime expansion. Third, consideration is given to the argument that important military changes occurred in Europe as a result of Ottoman expansion. Finally, the strength of its Empire is evaluated and the question posed: did it really present a serious threat to Europe?
Ottoman western expansion
Since 1354 the Ottoman Turks had been advancing westwards, overrunning Constantinople (and renaming it Istanbul) in 1453, gaining control of the Black Sea and the main routes to the Balkans and driving on to the eastern Adriatic. Owing to the exploits of successive Sultans, the Ottomans were, by 1520, the undisputed leaders of the Muslim world. For the rest of the century they cast their shadow over western Europe.
Suleiman ‘the Magnificent’ (1520-66) seized Belgrade in 1521 and, upon capturing Rhodes, evicted the Knights of St John and removed the last remaining obstacle to his domination of the eastern Mediterranean. The effect upon Europe was dramatic. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, absent in Spain and Italy for most of the 1520s, delegated the administration and defence of his Austrian lands to his brother Ferdinand. It proved a timely move as Suleiman thrust aside the Hungarian armies at Mohacs, killed King Louis II of Hungary and, three years later, moved to the gates of Vienna. Though severe weather conditions led the Ottomans to withdraw after a two-month siege, Ferdinand and his court had been forced to flee and he never forgot how close he had been to losing his capital. In 1532 Charles himself stood in the way of the largest army ever seen in Europe and repelled its assault on Güns, 60 miles south of Vienna. This, however, was to be a temporary respite and Suleiman’s only military setback. In 1541 Ferdinand was forced out of Buda and six years later at Adrianople agreed to pay the sultan an annual tribute of 30,000 ducats in return for holding a small strip of western Hungary. Another abortive attempt to expel the Ottomans from Transylvania in 1550 confirmed that the Balkan frontier would remain 80 miles from Vienna and the Austrian Habsburgs would be treated as a tributary power.
In the second half of the century, the Habsburg emperors strengthened their frontier defences in anticipation of further Ottoman attacks and, apart from desultory fighting between 1552 and 1568, Austria was spared. In the wake of Suleiman’s death in 1566, Selim the Sot (1566-74) and his successor, Murad III (1574-95), called a halt to the landward advances and, for much of this period, the Turks concentrated on defence rather than expansion. Like other European states, they were feeling the strain of administering their massive empire, a fact reflected by the state debts recorded every year after 1592. Indeed, peace would have probably lasted longer if Emperor Rudolf had not refused to continue paying his tribute. When Murad retaliated, war began again.
The Long War (1593-1606) started badly for the Ottomans with revolts occurring in their own vassal states. Dnieper Cossacks pillaged their supply lines and, worst of all, Persia invaded Anatolia in 1599. Moreover, at Mezókeresztes (1596), Hungarian troops demonstrated superior firepower and inflicted upon the Turks their first military setback for over a century. Hungarian and Transylvanian towns were won and lost in a series of sieges until all sides agreed upon a treaty in 1686 at Zsitva-Török. The Habsburgs were confirmed in their possession of western Hungary, their tribute was annulled and Transylvania granted its independence. The Austrian-Turkish frontier had not moved since 1529 and it was now apparent that the western limit of the Ottoman Empire had been reached.
(i) Turkish rule in the Balkans
The impact of Turkish rule upon all sectors of Balkan society was profound. Most of its aristocracy were killed though a minority was absorbed into the ruling class when, in keeping with Ottoman practice, the sultan took over their lands. In contrast, the peasantry, who worked the land, paid most of the taxes and were liable for military service, were treated much better than before. They were protected by the new landlords and had their feudal services abolished. Apart from the frontier regions, most of the Balkans were spared that cultural and religious destruction usually associated with armies of occupation. Christians, though encouraged to convert to Islam, were allowed religious toleration and mixed marriages, and the comparative freedom and contentment enjoyed by its people is one of the most important explanations why the Balkans remained under Ottoman rule for over 400 years.
(ii) The impact on the Holy Roman Empire
Largely for reasons of geography, Charles V suffered more than most west European rulers. As ‘the Most Catholic’ King of Spain (1516-56) and Holy Roman Emperor (1519-58), he took his obligations seriously. The Ottomans were intent on a holy war against Christianity and the western Empire looked to him to counter them, but his political commitments consistently distracted him and forced him to confine his efforts to stemming the Turkish advance in north Africa. In this respect, he was spectacularly unsuccessful, losing at Tunis (1534), Algiers (1541), and Tripoli, Bougie and Peñón de Vélez in the 1550s. To add to his problems, German princes skilfully exploited the Ottoman threat by forcing him to make political and religious concessions. Charles himself later admitted that the Turkish threat had forced him to put aside religious issues. Indeed, at times of greatest peril – in 1527, 1532 and 1541 – Charles compromised religion to attend to the Turks, and significantly his only triumph against the Lutherans in 1547 was secured in the knowledge that Suleiman was engaged in wars against Persia. The Turks also received considerable help from France. It was Francis I who first encouraged them to attack the Habsburgs and allowed them free access to the ports of Marseilles and Toulon to reduce the Emperor’s power, Indeed, it can safely be said that the Ottoman Empire’s western expansion owed a great deal to the political and religious disunity of Europe.
Spain, Portugal and Venice
(i) Spain
The effects of Ottoman expansion were felt as far west as Spain in the early sixteenth century. To reduce the possibility that Granadan Moriscos would receive help from Muslims in north Africa, King Ferdinand seized five coastal settlements, including Tripoli and Algiers, and secured Spain’s sea routes between Sicily, Sardinia and Tunisia. However, the creation of a powerful Turkish fleet enabled it to conquer Egypt and renewed the threat to Spain’s possessions. And the situation became critical when Barbarossa defected to the Ottoman fleet: Tunis and Algiers were lost and several north African settlements seized in the 1550s. Not only were Spanish communications with Milan, Naples and Sicily endangered but the mainland towns of Málaga, Cadiz and Gibraltar also suffered raids from corsair pirates. It was just as well that the main Ottoman army was pre-occupied with Persia.
Philip II of Spain responded to the Muslim threat in 1560 when his troops occupied the island of Djerba preparatory to an attack on Tripoli, but the expedition ended in disaster: 27 galleys were lost and 10,000 men were taken prisoner to Istanbul. The recovery of Peñón in 1564 renewed Spanish spirits but celebrations were curtailed with the news that Malta was being besieged by 40,000 troops and 180 Ottoman warships. The subsequent relief of the island in September 1565 by the viceroy of Naples saved Sicily as well as Malta and marked the limit of Ottoman expansion in the western Mediterranean but, in spite of Suleiman’s death the following year, its maritime power remained formidable. In 1570 Tunis, recovered by Spain in 1535, was again captured by the Turks and the Venetian island of Cyprus was attacked.
A Christian fleet, which was mainly Venetian but commanded by a Spaniard, Don John, met the Ottomans at Lepanto in the Gulf of Corinth. The ensuing battle (October 1571) saw two of the largest navies ever assembled and resulted in victory for the Christians. Though they lost 10 of their 208 galleys and 15,000 men, this was nothing compared with the losses sustained by the Turks. 117 out of 270 Ottoman ships were captured, 113 sunk and 30,000 men killed. It was their worst defeat since 1402 and dispelled the myth of invincibility. Most historians have viewed Lepanto as a crucial battle, that ended the long conflict between Muslims and Christians. Thomas Arnold has recently argued that: ‘After Lepanto, the Ottoman navy never recovered its earlier near-mastery of the Mediterranean’. The extant evidence in the Turkish archives, however, does not bear out this judgement, at least not in the short term. The sultan’s reaction to defeat was to rebuild his fleet and double his resolve to control north Africa and the sea routes via Malta and Sicily. Just six months after Lepanto, the Turks had built 200 new galleys and captured Cyprus – a reminder that their potential to inflict a serious blow was still formidable. In 1574 a massive Turkish fleet seized Tunis and put the Spanish garrison in La Goletta to flight. Yet just when it seemed that the Ottomans were resuming the initiative, Selim died, and with him passed the last competent sultan for over a hundred years. Western Europe had been saved by a hair’s breadth.
The expansion of the Ottoman Empire had two further direct effects upon Spanish affairs. For 20 years after Philip II’s accession (in 1556), the problem had drawn resources away from the Netherlands and northern Europe and enabled the Dutch Revolt to gather momentum. Second, there was widespread belief in the 1560s that the Spanish Moriscos were in secret contact with the Muslims and the Ottoman court in Istanbul. Though some 4,000 Turkish and Berber troops fought alongside the Granadan Moriscos in their rebellion of 1598-70, letters from local Turkish rulers in 1574 suggest that the sultan was indeed contemplating a co-ordinated attack on Spanish lands. Philip II and the Inquisition continued to investigate reports of collusion. Though nothing was proved, it served to perpetuate the myth of the ‘Turkish menace’.
(ii) Portugal
Portuguese interests were affected both positively and negatively. Portuguese merchants in their search for gold had developed an alternative route to the Far East and Spice Islands that avoided the Turkish controlled east Mediterranean. This gave Portugal in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries ‘premier league’ status. But its territorial and commercial expansion came at a price. Its long sea routes needed defending from the Turks, who had also reached the Red Sea by 1500 and the Indian Ocean by the mid-sixteenth century, and they were equally keen to secure the lucrative pepper trade with the Far East. Portugal, however, was more than up to this challenge. Its efficiently designed and well defended barracks saw off Turkish galleys which were less manoeuvrable in ocean waters, but the struggle for dominance of the spice trade was not won quickly or cheaply. Moreover Portugal had limited resources. As competition with Spain increased, it could ill-afford a struggle with the Ottomans for mastery of the Indian Ocean. It was precisely this threat of over-stretch which made Portugal so vulnerable in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, due not so much to any Turkish incursion – this had long since passed – but to English, Dutch and French colonials, merchants and privateers.
(iii) Venice
The Turkish threat to Mediterranean trade in general and to Iberian possessions in particular receded in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, but its impact was none the less considerable. A principal beneficiary for much of this period was the city-state of Venice. Since 1479 it had paid a tribute to gain access to the Middle East overland routes to Aleppo and Alexandria, and under Ottoman sufferance it remained the major maritime power in the eastern Mediterranean, handling most Ottoman trade with the west and successfully competing with Portugal for control of the pepper trade. Of course, Ottoman wars in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Mediterranean had disrupted trade but for most of the sixteenth century Venice itself avoided armed conflict. Indeed, by strengthening its fortresses and doubling the size of its fleet, it enjoyed rising profits from trade at least until the 1570s. However, the loss of Cyprus in 1571, rich in grain and wine, and Venice’s failure to recover it, proved a turning-point in its history. In 1573 it gave up its claims to Cyprus and Dalmatia, returned lands in Albania and agreed to pay a large indemnity to normalise its trade arrangements with the sultan. The 1570s also brought new trading competitors when first French and then English merchants received Turkish ‘capitulations’ or privileges to compete with Venetian traders. By 1600, French merchants had displaced Venetians in the Levant, Dutch traders had won control of the east African trade and the English East India Company was ready to exploit the weakening condition of Spain, Portugal, Venice, and the Ottoman Empire.
The Turks and the ‘military revolution’
Historians have long recognised the significance of the wars with the Turks as an important, if not vital, element in the development of the ‘military revolution’ of western states. Victory for the cross over the crescent carried more than ideological and religious superiority. It proved, at least as far as west Europeans were concerned, that their military and naval tactics, equipment and application were also second to none.
There were some important differences between European and Turkish military developments. One lay in the line of fortifications built by several Christian towns in the 1520s which were modelled on the trace Italienne: these were earthen ramparts, low-walled bastions, and strategically located cannons which could repel the main Turkish assaults whether human or artillery. Although some fortresses fell to the Turks – Szigeth in Hungary (1566), Nicosia in Cyprus (1570) – they were the exceptions to the rule, and Vienna, Güns, Corfu and Malta all successfully withstood lengthy sieges.
A second important difference was that European armies placed more emphasis on drill and discipline, on practising defensive infantry formations of squares of pikes and arquebusiers, and of combining infantry, artillery and cavalry, confident that they could repel a Turkish cavalry and infantry attack. Treatises on military tactics encouraged generals to believe the way forward was to innovate. In one writer’s opinion, a well-trained pike and arquebus detachment could withstand a Turkish cavalry assault, and another author claimed that a disciplined infantry would enable ‘a few men to defeat the great multitudes of the Turks’. Although contemporaries could not prove it – there were no battles between Turks and Europeans in the sixteenth century – their confidence was not misplaced, as campaign after campaign confirmed in later centuries.
Third, the Turkish navy never developed the flexibility in ship design or strategy achieved by its European counterparts. As the Spanish and Portuguese adapted their ocean-going galleons to sail the Mediterranean and modified their galleys into three-masted carracks capable of both trading and fighting, so they were able to counter the Ottoman fleet and merchant shipping which was composed solely of galleys. Though the Turks almost always put more ships to sea, the Christians had a better fleet and superior cannon fire. After Lepanto, Turkish fleets warily avoided further engagements.
Ottoman decline
To decide whether the Ottomans were in decline by the end of the 16th century, we must realise that ever since the seventh century the Turkish Empire had been expanding. As it did so, it became a military state geared for conquest and holy war. The sultan exercised, at least in theory, unlimited authority. The only conceivable challenge to his position came from his family, and such threats were negated by the traditional Ottoman practice of fratricide. By 1520, the Ottoman Empire was self-sufficient in food, minerals and land; the Islamic faith bound its people together and its army was second to none. Suleiman possessed the best field artillery, 87,000 devoted cavalry (known as sipahis) and 16,000 highly disciplined infantry (janissaries), whose sole objective was to wage war. Its western vassal states formed a buttress to defend the core principality of Anatolia, and so, of necessity, its frontier was in a permanent state of war. Since the fourteenth century, the Ottoman family had provided very able sultans. It was they who gave the Empire its dynamism. Under Suleiman, who fought 13 successful campaigns and some 40 battles, they had a leader capable of putting the fear of Allah into all Christians. Indeed, only his death in September 1566 prevented an estimated 300,000 troops from advancing upon the Austrian-Habsburg lands. The last naval engagement between Christians and Muslims may have been in 1573, but Spain’s north African and Italian possessions remained vulnerable targets and Philip II considered it prudent to keep a fleet in excess of 100 ships in the Mediterranean for the rest of his reign.
The Ottoman Empire’s strengths, nevertheless, hid long-term weaknesses. First, the sultans Selim, Murad and Mohammed, who followed Suleiman, began a line of ineffectual rulers whose authority was seriously undermined by a series of palace revolts. Second, by fixing Istanbul as the administrative capital, the Ottomans had unknowingly established limits to their western and eastern Empire. Some 99 days were needed to transport 100,000 troops from Istanbul to Hungary. This reduced the campaigning season to a few months at best, and made communications and supply lines difficult to sustain. Similarly, to reach Malta by sea entailed a journey in excess of a thousand miles, which raised questions as to the point of wanting to sail beyond it. Third, the Ottomans were beginning to fall behind western Europe in naval and military technology and tactics. In fact, it can be argued that only the lack of political and spiritual unity within Europe prevented western states from exploiting Ottoman weaknesses. Already by the end of the sixteenth century Turkey’s northern frontier of Azerbaijan and its central Asian trade were being challenged by the emerging state of Muscovy and its eastern frontier was threatened by the Safavids of Persia. For much of the century, the Ottomans had seen off challenges from these old rivals but victory eluded them in the Long War. It now seems clear that when both its western and eastern frontiers ceased to advance, the Ottoman state was vulnerable, and this was its condition at the end of the sixteenth century.
Conclusion
The impact of the Ottoman Turks on sixteenth-century Europe was far-reaching. This explains why Charles V regarded them as a greater threat to Christendom than Luther; why Ferdinand II devoted the best part of his life to defending the Austrian heartlands; why Spain feared for its trade and dominions in the western Mediterranean and became paranoid over suspected links with Granadan Moriscos; why Portugal was prepared to neglect its transatlantic trade and colonies in order to defend its pepper monopoly with Asia; and why Venice saw its livelihood hang by a thread as Turkish fleets threatened to cut off its sea-borne trade. It also contributed to the ‘military revolution’ as European armies and navies learned how first to defend and then to defeat superior numbers and, in so doing, forged ahead of their eastern rivals. In this, as in so many other ways, the Turks played an important part in shaping European history.
Timeline
The Wars in IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN as with the Bosnian War were all tied to the realliance of old world trading partners bringing that global 1% and their 2% back to wealth and power. If one looks today at what families grew to become that wealth and power these several decades of FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES AND GLOBAL NEO-LIBERALISM----it is likely these same Asian, Middle and Far Eastern MERCHANTS OF VENETIAN EMPIRE families. You can believe these Asian families of MUSLIM NATIONS ARE NOT RELIGIOUS----THEY ARE NOT MUSLIM.
Asian citizens KNOW this and that is why those sovereign citizens have been fighting these several decades. They are that 99% against their 1% and their 2%. These are the folks we see on TED TALKS----in UNITED NATIONS LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS. When the US global 1% and their 2% bring to US Foreign Economic Zone cities like Baltimore these foreign businesses and global rich ---they are creating those same VENETIAN EMPIRE TRADING ROUTES and filling trading cities with the global 1% and their 2% while enslaving WE THE PEOPLE. Citizens in Asia, Middle-Far East, and Latin America have dealt with Foreign Economic Zone neo-liberalism for several decades and now CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA is bringing it to America and our US CITIES.
This is why we shout to know who these global 1% and their 2% families now flooding our cities and government are-----even as official American citizens WE THE PEOPLE across all population groups need to keep these global rich out of our government and our labor and justice organization leadership-----THIS IS WHAT THE OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE DID AS WITH THOSE MERCHANTS OF VENICE TO THEIR 99%.
Venice’s Principal Muslim Trading Partners: the Mamluks, the Ottomans, and the Safavids
Venice and the Mamluks
Venice’s economic and diplomatic relationship with Egypt, Syria, and other areas along the eastern Mediterranean shore was tied, in particular, to the
Mamluks
(1250–1517), the powerful Islamic rulers who both halted the advance of Mongols west of Iraq and expelled the last of the
Crusaders
from the Holy Land in the second half of the thirteenth century. The Mamluk capital of Cairo, a city of around 200,000 inhabitants, was the greatest metropolis of its age. In this and other principal cities of the sultanate, Mamluk rulers built impressive mosque complexes, funerary structures, and urban palaces.
The Mamluks inherited from the
Fatimids
(909–1171) and
Ayyubids
(1171–1260) the role of middlemen between
South and Southeast Asia
and Europe in the valuable
spice
trade and in the movement of other goods by land and sea through the
Damascus
and the Red Sea routes. Venice consistently sought favorable privileges for its merchants and through these efforts became the Mamluks’ main European trading partner.
Several cities under Mamluk control had a permanent Venetian diplomatic representative with regular access to local authorities. Ties between the
Venetian oligarchy, nobility, and merchant class
and the Mamluk court and its retinue were particularly strong. The longest reigning doge of Venice, Francesco Foscari (r. 1423–57), was even born in Mamluk Egypt.
Mamluk rule finally came to an end when Syria and then Egypt fell to the
Ottomans
in 1516–17. It was in the years leading up to this event that
commercial exchange
between the Mamluks and Venice intensified. As a result, a dazzling array of goods—textiles, spices, metals, medicines, pigments, precious stones,
glass
, and paper—traveled in both directions. Mamluk trade and, in some cases, direct artistic influence shaped the fashion in Venice for
Islamic-style bookbindings
, the development of inlaid metalwork, and the taste for blue-and-white ceramics in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Inlaid Metalwork
Under the Mamluks, metalwork
intricately inlaid
with silver and gold flourished in Damascus and Cairo. In the late fourteenth century, however, as the Mamluk elite suffered an economic decline, the European export market became increasingly important for these wares. By the early fifteenth century, new shapes and decorative styles developed in response to European tastes, and Latin inscriptions could sometimes be found on Islamic metalwork in addition to Arabic ones.
Venice played a crucial role in the trade of Islamic metalwork in the Mediterranean. Shipping documents reveal that Venetians exported large quantities of copper and brass to the Near East; in return, they imported finished inlaid vessels. Mamluk basins, ewers, candlesticks, and incense burners found a place in the finest Venetian homes and churches, and some were even customized with the coat of arms of Venetian noble families. Local craftsmen admired the skill and design of Islamic metalwork too and frequently imitated it.
The connection between Venice and Mamluk metalwork is so strong that a myth arose in the nineteenth century that Arab or Persian craftsmen must have lived and worked in the city, producing “Veneto-Saracenic” pieces for the local market. One craftsman in particular, Mahmud al-Kurdi, has long been associated with this theory. Recent research, however, suggests that al-Kurdi most likely was active in western Iran. Indeed, it is highly improbable that Muslim metalworkers could have ever set up shop in a city as tightly regulated by the guilds as Venice.
Venice and the Ottomans
The
Ottoman empire
existed from 1281 to 1924 and at the height of its power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included Anatolia, the Middle East, parts of North Africa, and much of southeast Europe. No other Muslim power in history has rivaled its longevity and extent. Because so many major Near Eastern entrepôts eventually fell within the confines of the vast empire, including Bursa (1326), Constantinople (1453), and Damascus (1516), Venetians perforce developed
commercial and diplomatic relations
with the Ottomans. “Being merchants,” the Venetian ambassador to the Sublime Porte wrote in 1553, “we cannot live without them.” Territorial disputes in the Balkanic border region led to the Ottoman-Venetian wars of 1463–79, 1499–1503, 1537–40, and 1570–73, but both parties generally sought peaceful coexistence rather than conflict in the name of trade. So important was the Ottoman empire to the Venetians that the ambassador to the Sublime Porte was regarded as the most senior post in the Venetian diplomatic service and was the highest paid. Venice itself received regular visits from Ottoman dignitaries, as numerous documents attest.
Venice relied on the Ottomans for wheat, spices,
raw silk
, cotton, leather, and calcified ashes for the Murano glass industry. In return, Venice exported finished goods, namely glass, soap, paper, and textiles. In addition, it also produced
maps
,
clocks
,
portraits
, and luxury arts. Trade with the Islamic world made an
indelible imprint
on the
decorative arts
of Venice. Pottery, parade
armor
, furniture, bookbindings, textiles, pattern books, and inlaid metalwork are just some of the many Venetian arts in which distinctly Ottoman techniques and/or motifs can be observed.
Venice and Persia
Because of distance, Greater Iran did not have as strong a link to Venice as the Mamluk and Ottoman empires did. Nevertheless, both the presence of Venetian merchants on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the importance of the trade routes passing through Persian cities favored diplomatic and commercial exchange from the time of Mongol dominance in the region in the late thirteenth century down to its rule by the
Safavid
dynasty (1501–1722).
The need to maintain political equilibrium in the Mediterranean is often what spurred diplomatic relations between Venice and Persia. For example, Christendom, including Venice, sought an alliance with the Mongol
Ilkhanids
(1256–1353) against the Mamluks and the Mongols of the Golden Horde. In the fifteenth century, there were envoys between Venice and Tabriz—the industrious capital of the White Sheep Turcomans in northwest Iran, where a large array of
luxury goods
were traded—to occupy the Ottomans, and therefore to weaken them, on both their European and eastern Anatolian borders. According to legend, the Turcoman envoy of Uzun Hasan (r. 1468–78) presented the celebrated “turquoise” (in reality pale blue-colored glass) cup in the Treasury of Saint Mark as a gift to Venice in 1472.
Thanks to trade, large numbers of objects, manuscripts, textiles, and Persian
carpets
passed through Venice or were collected and remained in the city. A glimpse of this wealth can be found today in works dispersed in collections such as the
Museo Civico Correr
and the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. On the diplomatic level, the most important testimony of the exchanges between the Safavid shahs and the Venetian doges are a number of sumptuous silk and silver-wrapped-thread carpets of the so-called Polonaise type. Today in the museum of Basilica San Marco, these carpets were draped in front of the high altar of the church during religious festivals, used as a floor covering to display objects from the Basilica’s Treasury, or laid beneath the doge’s bier at his funeral.
__________________________________________
If one follows where global Wall Street is heading these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA one sees MALI and the old world trade routes as sites of war-----there are those same old world African VENETIAN EMPIRE 1% and their 2% African leaders being supported by global Wall Street as Africa is re-colonized. Those African MERCHANTS OF VENICE losing their wealth and trade routes did the same as in Europe with wars and revolutions and THEY were those Jacobins and freemasons----those secret societies that came to the AMERICAN COLONIES. The MOORS were those African traders made rich during this 500-1500 AD MERCHANTS OF VENICE -----they enslaved the African 99% as any other population group and were those African leaders selling their enemies as slaves to be sent to those AMERICAN COLONIES. If we trace the rise of black leaders in South America----North America, and the Caribbean ----we will see those same DECLINING IN WEALTH MERCHANTS OF VENICE-----
We are watching these several years of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA where Foreign Economic Zones are installed----our American black leaders tying themselves to the same old world global 1% and their 2% African VENETIAN EMPIRE families. South Africa-----central Africa----Obama super-sized these African trade zones using American 5% to the 1% global Wall Street players. There will be no winners in this except those same OLD WORLD AFRICAN TRADE FAMILIES.
The decline of the VENETIAN EMPIRE and movement of trade routes from middle-far east, Europe, and Africa sent those African MERCHANTS OF VENICE to rebuild their wealth---remember these global merchants no matter where in this VENETIAN EMPIRE were slave traders----and today in the US these global 1% and their 2% are using those 5% Wall Street players to build the same global slave trading system in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones.
It is incredible the degree those old world African global trader families have been able to keep ALL OF AMERICAN BLACK LEADERSHIP tied to freemasonry, GREEKS, secret societies-----deliberately killing any ability of American black 99% to be citizens and grow wealth. When we hear today black citizens saying they have no leaders that are not a 5% to the 1%----THIS IS WHY.
ALL POPULATION GROUPS NEED TO STEP AWAY FROM THESE CORPORATE NON-PROFITS -----THEY ARE POSERS PRETENDING TO CARE ABOUT THE 99%.
Timbuktu
The Jewel of the Sahara
Glorious Timbuktu, the jewel of the Sahara, and the ancient destination for camel driven caravans laden with goods has been talked about for centuries. Just like it’s ancient namesake, modern Timbuktu is still a formidable city sitting on the north side of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. This area of the central Sahara is one of the most inhospitable places on earth, where rain is marked by decades not years, and the people have adapted to rigors of a landscape that travelers call a sea of sand, it’s grains like waves extended deep into the Tuareg heartlands of Mali. The amazing rise of this city, deep within north central Africa, is as much a testament to the ancient kingdoms that founded her, as to the great scholars, artists, warriors and kings who shlepped to establish one of the great ancient wonders of the world.
Initially, a seasonal gathering place for caravans moving from the Mediterranean coast, south into Subtropical West Africa, Timbuktu became a permanent settlement in the 12th century. As other trade routes though northern Africa were disrupted, the city grew to became the major transport hub for caravans laden with jewels, spices, salt, gold, ivory and and most importantly slaves, that now numbered in the thousands. And as its strategic importance grew, Timbuktu was absorbed by the growing might of the Mali Empire early in the 14th century and flourished as a cultural mecca for artisans, craftsmen, and some of the greatest minds in Ancient Africa. Finally, the city became a bastion for Tuareg tribes until eventually falling under the dominion of the expanding Songhai Empire in 1468. The eventual decline of this great city was a result of the defeat of the Great Songhai Empire in 1591 by the Moroccan Kingdom, that made Timbuktu their regional capital. The splendor that was Royal Timbuktu still exists in some of the remaining historic buildings and citadels.
“The rich king of Tombuto hath many plates and sceptres of gold, some whereof weigh 1300 pounds. … He hath always 3000 horsemen … (and) a great store of doctors, judges, priests, and other learned men, that are bountifully maintained at the king’s cost and charges. – Leo Africanus (15th Century)The settling of and early reports of TimbuktuMap of the Saharan Trade Routes (1889)
Although Timbuktu does not enter the historical records until medieval times, early Iron Age settlements have been discovered near Timbuktu that predate the traditional foundation date of the town. The early predecessor to Timbuktu was probably a season settlement whose population ebbed and flowed. The the early site of Timbuktu was first continuously occupied during the 5th century BC and then continued to thrived until it’s collapse in the late 10th or early 11th century AD.
The city was then reborn as new trade routes took a hold in the early medieval period, and we first begin to hear of cities springing up within the Sahara like Djenné, Gao, and Dia. But unlike these cities, Timbuktu is not mentioned by the early Arab geographers such as al-Bakri or al-Idrisi. Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who visited Timbuktu in 1353 when returning from the capital of the Mali Empire was the first. The known Arab records then remained silent until about a century and a half later, when in 1510, Leo Africanus visited Timbuktu and gave a description of the town in his monumental “Descrittione dell’Africa”. A book that was first published in 1550, and became a sensation in Europe because of its depictions of the exotic lands on sub-Saharan Africa.
Two fascinating early accounts that shed light on the city are the 17th century chronicles of al-Sadi’s “Tarikh al-Sudan” and Ibn al-Mukhtar’s “Tarikh al-fattash”. These are some of the earliest surviving manuscripts to describe the city, and its great mosque which still stands today. It is said that when Abd al-Sadi wrote his chronicle the “Tarikh al-Sudan”, based on oral tradition, he dated the foundation at ‘the end of the fifth century of the hijra’ or around 1100 AD. He saw Maghsharan Tuareg as the founders, and he accurately related the ancient tradition that their summer encampment grew from temporary settlement to a travelers’ meeting place settled year round. The Arab chroniclers depicted how the the city originated from a local trade between Saharan pastoralists and continued to expand as boat trade within the Niger River Delta fed the growing metropolis. These early chroniclers were aware of the work of ancient Greek historians like Herodotus, and because of the importance of the river Niger in settling the city, they described the Timbuktu as ‘a gift of the Niger’, in analogy to Herodotus’ own description of Egypt as ‘gift of the Nile’. The similarities did not end there, as Timbuktu increasingly became the most prosperous city in the northern Africa.
The rise of the Mali Empire
Drawing by Renè-Auguste Caillie, (1827)
During the twelfth century, the Ghana empire, the first great African state in west Africa fragmented and its remnants were invaded by the Sosso Empire king, Soumaoro Kanté. The crumbling of this Empire had an immediate impact on the nobility of these regions, and Muslim scholars from Walata fled to Timbuktu and solidified the position of Islam in that city. Islam had gradually spread throughout West Africa, mainly through commercial contacts with traders, and because of the advanced Arab mercantile economy that connected the known world at the time. In time, Timbuktu’s prominence within Islam grew, and was reinforced through its openness to strangers that attracted religious scholars from all of Africa.
At the dawn of the 14th century the Mali Empire established by Sossa had grown in size and was on the fringes of the territory of Timbuktu, which by now had become an important trading center. In 1324, Timbuktu was peacefully annexed by King Musa I when returning from his pilgrimage to Mecca and the city became part of the Mali Empire. After entering the city Musa was so enamored that be began construction of a royal palace, and it perhaps at this time that Tarikh al-Sudan and the Tarikh al-fattash attribute the building of the Djinguereber Mosque, which has come down to us as the Great Mosque of Timbuktu. (The current mosque is much bigger, and was the result of one that was built in 1570, when Qadi al-Aqib had Musa I’s original mosque pulled down and rebuilt on a larger scale.)
Timbuktu finally appeared in European sources in the great Catalan Atlas of 1375, showing that Timbuktu was now a commercial centre linking north Africa and the Mediterranean,and important destination for Venetian, Ottoman and Catalan traders.
Timbuktu under the Songhai EmpireTimbuktu seen from a distance by Heinrich Barth’s party, September 7, 1853
By the first half of the 15th century the Mali Empire waned in influence and power, and once again Timbuktu became relatively an autonomous commercial center. In the west, the rising Songhai Empire expanded under Sunni Ali Ber, taking the fragmenting Mali kingdoms under its reach, until finally absorbing Timbuktu in 1469. At the beginning of the 16th century, Timbuktu ushered in it’s golden age under Askia Mohammad I (1493–1528). Askia Mohammad strengthened the Songhai Empire and governed Timbuktu through an efficient regional administration, allowing the city’s commercial centers to flourish.
Merchants from the rising cities of Ghadames, Awjilah, and numerous other cities of North Africa gathered there to buy gold and slaves in exchange for the Saharan salt of Taghaza, North African weavings, and the strong Tuareg horses that had a reputation for surviving the harsh climate. During this time the streets of Timbuktu were crowded with traders from every corner of the known world, some carrying goods from as far as China, via the silk road. Slaves captured from the Congo, could be seen being auctioned off by Arab merchants, destined for the courts of the Moorish Kingdoms of Spain, and even much coveted Slavic women could be sold as concubines, captured from Ottoman raids in eastern Europe. The mosque produced some of the greatest ancient histories of the world at this time, along with books on medicine, music, language and the arts, that flourished though the writing of dedicated scribes. The streets were kept free of crime in order to ensure the mercantile nature of Timbuktu was not disrupted, and hotels, restaurants, and supply stores opened to support the weary traders. Languages as diverse as Fulani and Armenian could be heard on the streets of Timbuktu, and everywhere caravans filled with good stretched in long lines fanning out into the desert on the backs of horses and camels.
“Having then traversed the rubbish which has accumulated round the ruined clay wall of the town and left on one side a row of dirty reed huts which encompass the whole of the place we entered the narrow streets and lanes or as the people of Timbuktu say the tijeraten which scarcely allowed two horses to proceed abreast But I was not a little surprised at the populous and wealthy character which this quarter of the town the Sane Giingu exhibited many of the houses rising to the height of two stories and in their facade evincing even an attempt at architectural adornment.
“- Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (1858)
The final collapse of the mercantile economy had a tremendous impact on Timbuktu thoughout the end of the 16th century, as the new world and the far east become the focus of world wide trade. Leadership of the Empire stayed in the Askia dynasty until 1591, but the faltering economy and lack of strong heirs to succession weakened the dynasty’s grip and led to a decline of prosperity in the city.
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Lots of talk today in the US on old world trade families successful----whether in Europe, Asia, or Africa as models for rebuilding what is slated to be US cities as Foreign Economic Zones. Using models is far different than allowing those global old world 1% and their 2% families control that growth today in US and Africa. These are enslaving MERCHANTS OF VENICE who use that 99% to enrich themselves. This is the source of today's global Wall Street 5% to the 1% players. THE 99% MUST STOP ALLOWING THESE SAME GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2% BE THEIR LEADERS.
There is a great video giving the history of HARVARD LAW SCHOOL AND BROWN UNIVERSITY----today Johns Hopkins is the lead in building the global human capital distribution system these several decades of global Foreign Economic Zone ------THE OLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE MEETING THE OLD KINGS AND QUEENS 1% and their 2%----
WE THE PEOPLE BLACK, WHITE AND BROWN can build our own businesses----our own economies but we must keep them local, small business and not be pulled into global Wall Street players. If US black leaders are talking about all this history TODAY and not 3 decades ago during CLINTON OR BUSH OR OBAMA-----watch out for those global 5% Wall Street players!
The History of the Moors in Northern Africa and Europe.
by Mark Wells
Feb 21, 2010
Although the Moors came to be associated with Muslims, the name Moor pre-dates Islam.
It derives from the small Numidian Kingdom of Maure of the 3rd century
BCE in what is now northern central and western part of Algeria and a
part of northern Morocco. The name came to be applied to people of the
entire region. "They were called Maurisi by the Greeks, and Mauri by the
Romans." During that age, the Maure or Moors were trading partners of
Carthage, the independent city state founded by Phoenicians. During the
second Punic War between Carthage and Rome, two Moorish Numidian kings
took different sides, Syphax with Carthage, Masinissa with the Romans,
decisively so at Zama. Thereafter, the Moors entered into treaties with
Rome. Under King Jugurtha collateral violence against merchants brought
war. Juba, a later king, was a friend of Rome. Eventually, the region
was incorporated into the Roman Empire as the provinces of Mauretania
Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana; the area around Carthage already
being the province of Africa. Roman rule was beneficial and effective
enough so that these provinces became fully integrated into the empire.
From Italian Venetian Black-a-Moor exotic expensive jewelry, lamps and sculptures,Moors in past and today's
European flags and Coat of Arms. To new German Pope Benedict's Moorish roots. A secret story is being revealed and concealed.
Blac
Neither Vandal nor Byzantine exercised an effective rule, the interior
being under Moorish Berber control For over 50 years, the Berbers
resisted Arab armies from the east. Especially memorable was that led by
Kahina the Berber prophetess of the Awras, during 690–701. Yet by the
92nd lunar year after the Hijra, the Arab Muslims had prevailed across
North Africa.
In 711 CE, the now Islamic Moors conquered Visigothic Christian
Hispania. Under their leader, a general named Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they
brought most of Iberia under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign.
They moved northeast across the Pyrenees Mountains but were defeated by
the Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 CE.
The Moorish state fell into civil conflict in the 750s. The Moors ruled
in North Africa and in the Iberian peninsula for several decades, except
for areas in the northwest (such as Asturias, where they were defeated
at the battle of Covadonga) and the largely Basque regions in the
Pyrenees. Though the number of original "Moors" remained small, many
native Iberian inhabitants converted to Islam. According to Ronald
Segal, some 5.6 million of Iberia's 7 million inhabitants were Muslim by
1200 CE, virtually all of them native inhabitants. The persecution and
forced conversion to Catholicism of the Muslim population during the
time of the Christian Reconquista in the second part of the 15th century
caused a mass exodus. This is considered the main reason why the number
of Muslims had shrunk to a relatively small fraction of the total
population by 1500.
In a process of decline, the Al Andalus had broken up into a number of
Islamic-ruled fiefdoms, or taifas, which were partly consolidated under
the Caliphate of Córdoba.
The Asturias, a small northwestern Christian Iberian kingdom, initiated
the Reconquista (the "reconquest") soon after the Islamic conquest in
the 8th century. Christian states based in the north and west slowly
extended their power over the rest of Iberia. The Navarre, Galicia,
León, Portugal, Aragón, Catalonia or Marca Hispanica, and Castile began a
process of expansion and internal consolidation during the next several
centuries under the flag of Reconquista.
Reconstruction of costumes of Moorish nobility from a German book published in 1880
In 1212, a coalition of Christian kings under the leadership of Alfonso
VIII of Castile drove the Muslims from Central Iberia. The Portuguese
side of the Reconquista ended in 1249 with the conquest of the Algarve
under Afonso III, the first Portuguese monarch to claim the title King
of Portugal and the Algarve.
However, the Moorish Kingdom of Granada continued for three more
centuries in the southern Iberia. This kingdom is known in modern times
for magnificent architectural works such as the Alhambra palace. On
January 2, 1492, the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada
surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the
marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, the
Catholic Monarchs). The remaining Muslims and Jews were forced to leave
Spain, or convert to Roman Catholic Christianity or be killed for not
doing so. In 1480, Isabella and Ferdinand instituted the Inquisition in
Spain, as one of many changes to the role of the church instituted by
the monarchs. The Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who
had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing
their faiths secretly — called respectively marranos and moriscos. The
Inquisition also attacked heretics who rejected Roman Catholic
orthodoxy, including alumbras who practiced a personal mysticism or
spiritualism. They represented a significant portion of the peasants in
some territories, such as Aragon, Valencia or Andalusia. In the years
from 1609 to 1614, they were systematically expelled by the government.
Henri Lapeyre has estimated that this affected 300,000 out of an
estimated total of 8 million inhabitants of the peninsula. However many
of them were converted to Christianity and settled permanently. This is
clearly indicated by a "high mean proportion of ancestry from North
African (10.6%)" that "attests to a high level of religious conversion
(whether voluntary or enforced), driven by historical episodes of social
and religious intolerance, that ultimately led to the integration of
descendants.".
In the meantime, the tide of Islam had rolled not just to Iberia, but
also eastward, through India, the Malayan peninsula, and Indonesia up to
the Philippines. This was one of the major islands of an archipelago
which the Spaniards had reached during their voyages westward from the
New World. By 1521, the ships of Magellan and other Spanish explorers
had reached that island archipelago, which they named Las Islas de
Filipinas, after Philip II of Spain. In Mindanao, the Spaniards named
the kris-bearing people as Moros or 'Moors'. Today in the Philippines,
this ethnic group of people in Mindanao, who are generally Muslims, are
called 'Moros'. This identification of Islamic people as Moros persists
in the modern Spanish language spoken in Spain, and as Mouros in the
modern Portuguese language and Maure.
According to historian Richard A. Fletcher, 'the number of Arabs who
settled in Iberia was very small. "Moorish" Iberia does at least have
the merit of reminding us that the bulk of the invaders and settlers
were Moors, i.e Berbers from Algeria and Morocco.' Aline Angoustures
says that the Berbers were about 900,000 and the Arabs about 90,000 in
Iberia.
Beside its usage in historical context, Moor and Moorish (Italian and
Spanish: moro, French: maure, Portuguese: mouro / moiro, Romanian: maur)
is used to designate an ethnic group speaking the Hassaniya Arabic
dialect. They inhabit Mauritania and parts of Algeria, Western Sahara,
Tunisia, Morocco, Niger and Mali. In Niger and Mali, these peoples are
also known as the Azawagh Arabs, after the Azawagh region of the Sahara.
In modern, colloquial Spanish, the sometimes pejorative term "Moro"
refers to any Arab. Similarly, in modern, colloquial Portuguese, the
term "Mouro" is primarely used as a designation for North Africans and
secondarily as a derogatory and ironic term by northern Portuguese to
refer to the inhabitants of the southern parts of the country.
In the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, many residents call the
local Muslim population in the Southern islands Moros. They also
self-identify that way . The term was introduced by the Spanish
colonizers. Within the context of Portuguese colonization, in Sri Lanka
(Portuguese Ceylon), Muslims of Arab origin are called Moors.
The initial rule of the Moors in the Iberian peninsula under this
Caliphate of Córdoba is generally regarded as tolerant in its acceptance
of Christians, Muslims and Jews living in the same territories. The
Caliphate of Córdoba collapsed in 1031 and the Islamic territory in
Iberia fell under the rule of the Almoravid dynasty. This second stage
inaugurated an era of Moorish rulers guided by a version of Islam that
left behind the tolerant practices of the past.
interesting of course....but no one should be surprised that history will always be rewritten by those that are in power.. Many rulers wan to proof that their position is the logical consequence of a process that started centuries ago, and has inevitably led in a process of progress culminating in their position. there was a time that even a divine topping was added to it. alas history had no logic, and many a ruler was playing with his mistress when the enemy was gathering at the gates. and many a battle was ended after half an hour hacking sword on each other. just trying hacking into something, then you know why ancient warfare does not last as long as now, when you can pilot drones from the comfort of your monitor at an air conditionated office in texas. anyhow...
the point i want to make, in those days, before some merchants suddenly saw profit in shipping slaves to the new west, race and color did not matter that much. you had enemies of course, thise you would try to kill, and you had friends, those at times you would betray..but as such it did not matter so much how they looked like. racism was invented once there was money to be made.
the then greatest power that had existed, the roman empire, had been color blind. slaves could be white, mostly would be white. the empire stretched into northern africa, and emperors could come from every part. often they came from spain, but least three of them were african, black. not that it mattered a lot, it just was part of their description., it was just mentioned by the way, so nothing special...most likely there ve been more of them. equally when the portuguese ships started to sail south direction africa, they n egociated treaties with the local african kingdoms, rather than trying to subjugate them. the obi of benin, now part of nigeria, thus exchanged ambassadors with the king of portugal. of course some other warlords of africa started to sell slaves to the whites as well, but nothing was then set in racist tones (yet)
the problem really started with some fundamentalist catholic spanish kings. the reconquista was more against muslims than against blacks, but then for the first time the bible was used to proof their own divine superiotity as catholic male whites over the rest of the world, including muslims, blacks, chinese, animals, and even their own women. according to the then interpretation, even a white woman had no soul, and thus could not go to heaven, and thus was as good as an animal. on the other hand, an african male could be christened and thus saved...
peculiar times, but racism, and sexism as well grew out of a supremacist reading of the bible. and to serve the best interest of the rulers.
bit obviously before that happened, the worl was colorblind, and some of the most refined culture came out of africa equally out of china...but not that much out of europe, one of its greatest rules, charles the great, signed his documents with an X , because he could not read nor write, and he was not even ashamed to admit it
Oct 6, 2012
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Here we see that reference to early Christian religion---gnosticism-----black freemasons are pushing this for the same reasons Jewish, Catholic, and other protestant PHONEY RELIGIOUS LEADERS ARE----it ties to MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE and a global 1% and their 2% have told their 5% to move towards ONE RELIGION.
I ride the city buses in Baltimore all the time talking to many of the homeless----working class. I speak to one homeless man showing signs of psychosis and he talks constantly about freemasonry----he is very intelligent calling for bus riders to move to MARXISM----look at the black leaders tied to freemasonry and we see the same 5% to the 1% Wall Street player as with white and brown Wall Street players----THESE ARE NOT LEADER FOR THE 99%---THEY ARE THE PLAYER WORKING TO ENRICH THEMSELVES by lying, cheating, stealing---posing left social progressive while killing the 99% of black citizens.
As with the revolutions in Europe----in Africa with the decline of the MERCHANTS OF VENICE----THE TRADE ROUTES OF 500-1500 AD-----these players will be out pretending they are all MARXIST LEADERS----COMMUNIST, SOCIALIST----when they will enslave WE THE PEOPLE as fast as the 1%.
'Moe
Founder at The Order of the Gnostics
Welcome to the Order of the Gnostics on GnosticWarrior.com. My name is Moe and I'm the founder. Our world-wide order is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, truth and real Gnosticism using both ancient and modern gnosis techniques such as science to not only KNOW THYSELF, but also to MASTER THYSELF. Find your path and join the Order of the Gnostics today'. |
Al Sharpton -----that Wall Street and national media PRETEND CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER----came on daytime TV to say-----YOU WILL SUPPORT OBAMA'S LEGACY IF YOU WANT A JOB-----oh, really?????
Black Freemasons
by Moe | May 24, 2013 | Freemasons, History of the Brotherhood
Freemasonry is an international Brotherhood that is amongst the oldest of fraternities still in existence. Masons are a society of men that are devoted to several ideals, among which are liberty, peace, and equality. The Masons admit men regardless of race, creed, color, faith or nationality; and the standards of behaviors set forth by the organization hold the members to what can be considered the Golden Rule – treat others as you would want to be treated.
African-American Freemasonry
During the eighteenth century the ideals set forth by the Freemasons were particularly desired by groups of people who had experienced less than equality, peace, and liberty. When it comes to Freemasonry, one such group of individuals were African-Americans. Racial divides were not only commonplace, but they were so significant that slavery and unequal treatment abounded, even in societies where slavery was technically illegal. During the late 1700s an individual emerged on the Freemasonry scene who would change the landscape of the organization, and find a way to use the ideas of the society to further equal rights among the races in America. This man was Prince Hall.
Who Was Prince Hall?
Prince Hall, a literate, free, black man in Massachusetts made many attempts to further the rights for African-Americans, including petitioning for legal rights for freed black slaves from the dangers of slave traders. He worked to abolish slavery and pushed for equal education among the races. In fact, Hall petitioned the Massachusetts Committee of Safety to allow blacks to fight with the colonies, but his petition was declined. England then proclaimed that if blacks fought with the British army that they would have their freedom at the end of the war.
As the Continental army saw this tactic working for the British when blacks begin enlisting with their army, they decided to reverse their earlier decision in which the Continental army removed its block on admission of blacks into the military. After the Revolutionary War, Hall continued his pursuits and proposed several pieces of legislation to better the lives of African-Americans in New England, reminding his white peers that African-Americans fought side by side for the pursuit of freedom from Britain. However, he soon saw that the sacrifices of his fellow black soldiers were not going to be valued as he had hoped. This did not deter him. He continued to be politically and socially active for the equal rights of blacks in the newly formed United States.
How Did Prince Hall Influence the Black Freemasons?
Even before the Revolutionary War, Prince Hall saw the Freemasonry society as a way to help further the rights for blacks in the New England area. He unsuccessfully lobbied for a charter along with fourteen other free black men into the Boston St. John’s Lodge. Some whites were incredulous that blacks would attempt such an application and admittance, so Hall began looking for other opportunities. On March 6, 1775, Hall and fifteen other free black men were accepted as members into Lodge No. 441 of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, which was attached to the British forces who were stationed in Boston at the time.
When the British Army left Boston just a year later, Hall and his fellow black Masons were left with little power in the Freemasonry society. Eventually in 1784, Hall was able to successfully petition to the Mother Grand Lodge of England in which he was granted the recognition of African Lodge No. 1 (later renamed to African Lodge no. 459). Hall was such an influential and positive leader of this group of Masons, that in 1791 he was named as Provincial Grand Master. Hall continued to utilize the principles of Freemasonry to further the pursuits of equality, establishing lodges in Rhode Island and Philadelphia.
The influence of Prince Hall through Freemasonry still lives on today. His original set of guidelines and rules written for his first local lodge were some of the first formal regulations established for blacks that allowed for self-government in the newly formed United States. Hall’s tombstone in Boston reads: Here lies ye body of Prince Hall, first Grand Master of the colored Grand Lodge in Mass. Died Dec.7, 1807
Black Freemasons Throughout History
Prince Hall helped to open the doors to Freemasonry for other African-Americans. Some of those who claimed membership to the organization include:
* Nat King Cole – legendary musician
* W.E.B. Du Bois – Educator and Historian
* Reverend Jesse Jackson
* Thurgood Marshall – first African-American member of the Supreme Court
* Kwesi Mfume – former NAACP President
* Shaquille O’Neal – basketball player
* Scottie Pippin – basketball player
* Reverend Al Sharpton
This image below is from Mt. Nebo 67 Prince Hall F&AM
From the Grand Lodge of Scotland;
Recent research carried out by the Curator of the Grand Lodge of Scotland Museum and Library, Robert Cooper, has established that the Masons blazed a trail in the field of race relations – a trail they pursue to this day.
Cooper has discovered a remarkable photograph what shows that Freemasons in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, were welcoming black men exactly 100 years ago. The photograph shows 10 black men, all members of the Williams & Walker Co, a touring vaudeville act after having been Initiated into Freemasonry in Lodge Waverley, No.597, on 2nd May 1904. They were subsequently Passed on 16th May and Raised on 1st June of that year. “The principals of Freemasonry”, said Cooper, “dictate that there can be no discrimination on the grounds of race and this is but one example.” The picture, and many others, also showing black Freemasons, are held by the Grand Lodge Museum in the Masons' George Street headquarters.
We spent these few days speaking about what happened with the fall of the 500-1500 VENETIAN EMPIRE with the MERCHANTS OF VENICE scattered all over Europe---coming to America----fomenting revolutions by insiting the masses FOR THEIR OWN GAIN----those MERCHANTS OF VENICE were the worst of enslavers of the 99%-----they are not working for us. Remember, the VENETIAN EMPIRE expanded trade routes across the middle and far east----across northern Africa and with that came A GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2% FROM ASIA AND AFRICA-----the decline of the Venetian Empire brought the same wars led by formerly rich merchants seeking to bring down their KINGS AND QUEENS to take wealth and markets inspiring their 99% to rise in revolution. Again, it is good to get rid of KINGS AND QUEENS but the global MERCHANTS OF VENETIAN EMPIRE are not THE LEADERS OF THE 99%.
Below we see just one example of a MERCHANT OF VENICE tied to Northern Africa. The nations of the African Coast had those same very wealthy global trading families who when the trading routes collapsed and went ACROSS THE ATLANTIC TO THE AMERICAS also lost all their wealth and trade bringing KINGS AND QUEENS of Africa down and selling African citizens into slavery as they headed to the AMERICAN NEW WORLD to rebuild their wealth. This same thing occurred in the middle-far east as Turkey, India, China, old world trade families left the Mediterranean trade routes and strengthened those in Eastern Europe and Asia.
Northern African MERCHANTS OF VENETIAN EMPIRE were as enslaving as those based in eastern Italy and they too were tied to all the spying, surveillance, secret societies as freemasons, Jacobins et al inspiring African 99% to bring down African KINGS AND QUEENS and bringing all that secret society trading to the AMERICAS.
'Filippo Malerbi
Filippo Malerbi’s career as a merchant inEgypt was the result of a two-generation family strategy. His case illustrates how Venetian citizenship regulations could open a pathfor social mobility, allowing skilled newcomers to enter into Venice’s overseas networks'.
They were in 500-1500 those global 1% and 2% wealthy families brought down by the movement by European KINGS AND QUEENS to colonize the Americas.
The alliances today in the Middle and Far East are families from old world VENETIAN EMPIRE 1% and their 2%. SAME GLOBAL RICH.
By Geoffrey Woodward
Published in History Review Issue 39 March 2001
Ottoman Empire, Medieval Turkey, Europe Empire
Geoffrey Woodward assesses how great an impact the Turks had on sixteenth-century Europe.
Introduction
‘Now shalt thou feel the force of Turkish arms
Which lately made all Europe quake for fear.’
Christopher Marlowe’s observation in Tamburlaine (1587) held true for most of the sixteenth century. The Ottoman army was the largest in Europe, its navy ruled the shipping lanes of the eastern Mediterranean, and its capital Istanbul was five times the size of Paris. Its resources seemed limitless, and its capacity to sweep aside opposition in the name of Islam gave the Turkish Empire an awesome presence. Indeed between 1520 and 1565 its momentum seemed unstoppable. Well might Christians in western Europe ‘quake for fear’. This article sets out to trace some of the ways in which Europeans were affected by the Turkish Empire in the course of the sixteenth century. First, it considers the impact on the Balkans and the consequences for the Holy Roman Empire. Second, it looks at how Spain, Portugal and Venice were affected by the maritime expansion. Third, consideration is given to the argument that important military changes occurred in Europe as a result of Ottoman expansion. Finally, the strength of its Empire is evaluated and the question posed: did it really present a serious threat to Europe?
Ottoman western expansion
Since 1354 the Ottoman Turks had been advancing westwards, overrunning Constantinople (and renaming it Istanbul) in 1453, gaining control of the Black Sea and the main routes to the Balkans and driving on to the eastern Adriatic. Owing to the exploits of successive Sultans, the Ottomans were, by 1520, the undisputed leaders of the Muslim world. For the rest of the century they cast their shadow over western Europe.
Suleiman ‘the Magnificent’ (1520-66) seized Belgrade in 1521 and, upon capturing Rhodes, evicted the Knights of St John and removed the last remaining obstacle to his domination of the eastern Mediterranean. The effect upon Europe was dramatic. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, absent in Spain and Italy for most of the 1520s, delegated the administration and defence of his Austrian lands to his brother Ferdinand. It proved a timely move as Suleiman thrust aside the Hungarian armies at Mohacs, killed King Louis II of Hungary and, three years later, moved to the gates of Vienna. Though severe weather conditions led the Ottomans to withdraw after a two-month siege, Ferdinand and his court had been forced to flee and he never forgot how close he had been to losing his capital. In 1532 Charles himself stood in the way of the largest army ever seen in Europe and repelled its assault on Güns, 60 miles south of Vienna. This, however, was to be a temporary respite and Suleiman’s only military setback. In 1541 Ferdinand was forced out of Buda and six years later at Adrianople agreed to pay the sultan an annual tribute of 30,000 ducats in return for holding a small strip of western Hungary. Another abortive attempt to expel the Ottomans from Transylvania in 1550 confirmed that the Balkan frontier would remain 80 miles from Vienna and the Austrian Habsburgs would be treated as a tributary power.
In the second half of the century, the Habsburg emperors strengthened their frontier defences in anticipation of further Ottoman attacks and, apart from desultory fighting between 1552 and 1568, Austria was spared. In the wake of Suleiman’s death in 1566, Selim the Sot (1566-74) and his successor, Murad III (1574-95), called a halt to the landward advances and, for much of this period, the Turks concentrated on defence rather than expansion. Like other European states, they were feeling the strain of administering their massive empire, a fact reflected by the state debts recorded every year after 1592. Indeed, peace would have probably lasted longer if Emperor Rudolf had not refused to continue paying his tribute. When Murad retaliated, war began again.
The Long War (1593-1606) started badly for the Ottomans with revolts occurring in their own vassal states. Dnieper Cossacks pillaged their supply lines and, worst of all, Persia invaded Anatolia in 1599. Moreover, at Mezókeresztes (1596), Hungarian troops demonstrated superior firepower and inflicted upon the Turks their first military setback for over a century. Hungarian and Transylvanian towns were won and lost in a series of sieges until all sides agreed upon a treaty in 1686 at Zsitva-Török. The Habsburgs were confirmed in their possession of western Hungary, their tribute was annulled and Transylvania granted its independence. The Austrian-Turkish frontier had not moved since 1529 and it was now apparent that the western limit of the Ottoman Empire had been reached.
(i) Turkish rule in the Balkans
The impact of Turkish rule upon all sectors of Balkan society was profound. Most of its aristocracy were killed though a minority was absorbed into the ruling class when, in keeping with Ottoman practice, the sultan took over their lands. In contrast, the peasantry, who worked the land, paid most of the taxes and were liable for military service, were treated much better than before. They were protected by the new landlords and had their feudal services abolished. Apart from the frontier regions, most of the Balkans were spared that cultural and religious destruction usually associated with armies of occupation. Christians, though encouraged to convert to Islam, were allowed religious toleration and mixed marriages, and the comparative freedom and contentment enjoyed by its people is one of the most important explanations why the Balkans remained under Ottoman rule for over 400 years.
(ii) The impact on the Holy Roman Empire
Largely for reasons of geography, Charles V suffered more than most west European rulers. As ‘the Most Catholic’ King of Spain (1516-56) and Holy Roman Emperor (1519-58), he took his obligations seriously. The Ottomans were intent on a holy war against Christianity and the western Empire looked to him to counter them, but his political commitments consistently distracted him and forced him to confine his efforts to stemming the Turkish advance in north Africa. In this respect, he was spectacularly unsuccessful, losing at Tunis (1534), Algiers (1541), and Tripoli, Bougie and Peñón de Vélez in the 1550s. To add to his problems, German princes skilfully exploited the Ottoman threat by forcing him to make political and religious concessions. Charles himself later admitted that the Turkish threat had forced him to put aside religious issues. Indeed, at times of greatest peril – in 1527, 1532 and 1541 – Charles compromised religion to attend to the Turks, and significantly his only triumph against the Lutherans in 1547 was secured in the knowledge that Suleiman was engaged in wars against Persia. The Turks also received considerable help from France. It was Francis I who first encouraged them to attack the Habsburgs and allowed them free access to the ports of Marseilles and Toulon to reduce the Emperor’s power, Indeed, it can safely be said that the Ottoman Empire’s western expansion owed a great deal to the political and religious disunity of Europe.
Spain, Portugal and Venice
(i) Spain
The effects of Ottoman expansion were felt as far west as Spain in the early sixteenth century. To reduce the possibility that Granadan Moriscos would receive help from Muslims in north Africa, King Ferdinand seized five coastal settlements, including Tripoli and Algiers, and secured Spain’s sea routes between Sicily, Sardinia and Tunisia. However, the creation of a powerful Turkish fleet enabled it to conquer Egypt and renewed the threat to Spain’s possessions. And the situation became critical when Barbarossa defected to the Ottoman fleet: Tunis and Algiers were lost and several north African settlements seized in the 1550s. Not only were Spanish communications with Milan, Naples and Sicily endangered but the mainland towns of Málaga, Cadiz and Gibraltar also suffered raids from corsair pirates. It was just as well that the main Ottoman army was pre-occupied with Persia.
Philip II of Spain responded to the Muslim threat in 1560 when his troops occupied the island of Djerba preparatory to an attack on Tripoli, but the expedition ended in disaster: 27 galleys were lost and 10,000 men were taken prisoner to Istanbul. The recovery of Peñón in 1564 renewed Spanish spirits but celebrations were curtailed with the news that Malta was being besieged by 40,000 troops and 180 Ottoman warships. The subsequent relief of the island in September 1565 by the viceroy of Naples saved Sicily as well as Malta and marked the limit of Ottoman expansion in the western Mediterranean but, in spite of Suleiman’s death the following year, its maritime power remained formidable. In 1570 Tunis, recovered by Spain in 1535, was again captured by the Turks and the Venetian island of Cyprus was attacked.
A Christian fleet, which was mainly Venetian but commanded by a Spaniard, Don John, met the Ottomans at Lepanto in the Gulf of Corinth. The ensuing battle (October 1571) saw two of the largest navies ever assembled and resulted in victory for the Christians. Though they lost 10 of their 208 galleys and 15,000 men, this was nothing compared with the losses sustained by the Turks. 117 out of 270 Ottoman ships were captured, 113 sunk and 30,000 men killed. It was their worst defeat since 1402 and dispelled the myth of invincibility. Most historians have viewed Lepanto as a crucial battle, that ended the long conflict between Muslims and Christians. Thomas Arnold has recently argued that: ‘After Lepanto, the Ottoman navy never recovered its earlier near-mastery of the Mediterranean’. The extant evidence in the Turkish archives, however, does not bear out this judgement, at least not in the short term. The sultan’s reaction to defeat was to rebuild his fleet and double his resolve to control north Africa and the sea routes via Malta and Sicily. Just six months after Lepanto, the Turks had built 200 new galleys and captured Cyprus – a reminder that their potential to inflict a serious blow was still formidable. In 1574 a massive Turkish fleet seized Tunis and put the Spanish garrison in La Goletta to flight. Yet just when it seemed that the Ottomans were resuming the initiative, Selim died, and with him passed the last competent sultan for over a hundred years. Western Europe had been saved by a hair’s breadth.
The expansion of the Ottoman Empire had two further direct effects upon Spanish affairs. For 20 years after Philip II’s accession (in 1556), the problem had drawn resources away from the Netherlands and northern Europe and enabled the Dutch Revolt to gather momentum. Second, there was widespread belief in the 1560s that the Spanish Moriscos were in secret contact with the Muslims and the Ottoman court in Istanbul. Though some 4,000 Turkish and Berber troops fought alongside the Granadan Moriscos in their rebellion of 1598-70, letters from local Turkish rulers in 1574 suggest that the sultan was indeed contemplating a co-ordinated attack on Spanish lands. Philip II and the Inquisition continued to investigate reports of collusion. Though nothing was proved, it served to perpetuate the myth of the ‘Turkish menace’.
(ii) Portugal
Portuguese interests were affected both positively and negatively. Portuguese merchants in their search for gold had developed an alternative route to the Far East and Spice Islands that avoided the Turkish controlled east Mediterranean. This gave Portugal in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries ‘premier league’ status. But its territorial and commercial expansion came at a price. Its long sea routes needed defending from the Turks, who had also reached the Red Sea by 1500 and the Indian Ocean by the mid-sixteenth century, and they were equally keen to secure the lucrative pepper trade with the Far East. Portugal, however, was more than up to this challenge. Its efficiently designed and well defended barracks saw off Turkish galleys which were less manoeuvrable in ocean waters, but the struggle for dominance of the spice trade was not won quickly or cheaply. Moreover Portugal had limited resources. As competition with Spain increased, it could ill-afford a struggle with the Ottomans for mastery of the Indian Ocean. It was precisely this threat of over-stretch which made Portugal so vulnerable in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, due not so much to any Turkish incursion – this had long since passed – but to English, Dutch and French colonials, merchants and privateers.
(iii) Venice
The Turkish threat to Mediterranean trade in general and to Iberian possessions in particular receded in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, but its impact was none the less considerable. A principal beneficiary for much of this period was the city-state of Venice. Since 1479 it had paid a tribute to gain access to the Middle East overland routes to Aleppo and Alexandria, and under Ottoman sufferance it remained the major maritime power in the eastern Mediterranean, handling most Ottoman trade with the west and successfully competing with Portugal for control of the pepper trade. Of course, Ottoman wars in the Red Sea, Persian Gulf and Mediterranean had disrupted trade but for most of the sixteenth century Venice itself avoided armed conflict. Indeed, by strengthening its fortresses and doubling the size of its fleet, it enjoyed rising profits from trade at least until the 1570s. However, the loss of Cyprus in 1571, rich in grain and wine, and Venice’s failure to recover it, proved a turning-point in its history. In 1573 it gave up its claims to Cyprus and Dalmatia, returned lands in Albania and agreed to pay a large indemnity to normalise its trade arrangements with the sultan. The 1570s also brought new trading competitors when first French and then English merchants received Turkish ‘capitulations’ or privileges to compete with Venetian traders. By 1600, French merchants had displaced Venetians in the Levant, Dutch traders had won control of the east African trade and the English East India Company was ready to exploit the weakening condition of Spain, Portugal, Venice, and the Ottoman Empire.
The Turks and the ‘military revolution’
Historians have long recognised the significance of the wars with the Turks as an important, if not vital, element in the development of the ‘military revolution’ of western states. Victory for the cross over the crescent carried more than ideological and religious superiority. It proved, at least as far as west Europeans were concerned, that their military and naval tactics, equipment and application were also second to none.
There were some important differences between European and Turkish military developments. One lay in the line of fortifications built by several Christian towns in the 1520s which were modelled on the trace Italienne: these were earthen ramparts, low-walled bastions, and strategically located cannons which could repel the main Turkish assaults whether human or artillery. Although some fortresses fell to the Turks – Szigeth in Hungary (1566), Nicosia in Cyprus (1570) – they were the exceptions to the rule, and Vienna, Güns, Corfu and Malta all successfully withstood lengthy sieges.
A second important difference was that European armies placed more emphasis on drill and discipline, on practising defensive infantry formations of squares of pikes and arquebusiers, and of combining infantry, artillery and cavalry, confident that they could repel a Turkish cavalry and infantry attack. Treatises on military tactics encouraged generals to believe the way forward was to innovate. In one writer’s opinion, a well-trained pike and arquebus detachment could withstand a Turkish cavalry assault, and another author claimed that a disciplined infantry would enable ‘a few men to defeat the great multitudes of the Turks’. Although contemporaries could not prove it – there were no battles between Turks and Europeans in the sixteenth century – their confidence was not misplaced, as campaign after campaign confirmed in later centuries.
Third, the Turkish navy never developed the flexibility in ship design or strategy achieved by its European counterparts. As the Spanish and Portuguese adapted their ocean-going galleons to sail the Mediterranean and modified their galleys into three-masted carracks capable of both trading and fighting, so they were able to counter the Ottoman fleet and merchant shipping which was composed solely of galleys. Though the Turks almost always put more ships to sea, the Christians had a better fleet and superior cannon fire. After Lepanto, Turkish fleets warily avoided further engagements.
Ottoman decline
To decide whether the Ottomans were in decline by the end of the 16th century, we must realise that ever since the seventh century the Turkish Empire had been expanding. As it did so, it became a military state geared for conquest and holy war. The sultan exercised, at least in theory, unlimited authority. The only conceivable challenge to his position came from his family, and such threats were negated by the traditional Ottoman practice of fratricide. By 1520, the Ottoman Empire was self-sufficient in food, minerals and land; the Islamic faith bound its people together and its army was second to none. Suleiman possessed the best field artillery, 87,000 devoted cavalry (known as sipahis) and 16,000 highly disciplined infantry (janissaries), whose sole objective was to wage war. Its western vassal states formed a buttress to defend the core principality of Anatolia, and so, of necessity, its frontier was in a permanent state of war. Since the fourteenth century, the Ottoman family had provided very able sultans. It was they who gave the Empire its dynamism. Under Suleiman, who fought 13 successful campaigns and some 40 battles, they had a leader capable of putting the fear of Allah into all Christians. Indeed, only his death in September 1566 prevented an estimated 300,000 troops from advancing upon the Austrian-Habsburg lands. The last naval engagement between Christians and Muslims may have been in 1573, but Spain’s north African and Italian possessions remained vulnerable targets and Philip II considered it prudent to keep a fleet in excess of 100 ships in the Mediterranean for the rest of his reign.
The Ottoman Empire’s strengths, nevertheless, hid long-term weaknesses. First, the sultans Selim, Murad and Mohammed, who followed Suleiman, began a line of ineffectual rulers whose authority was seriously undermined by a series of palace revolts. Second, by fixing Istanbul as the administrative capital, the Ottomans had unknowingly established limits to their western and eastern Empire. Some 99 days were needed to transport 100,000 troops from Istanbul to Hungary. This reduced the campaigning season to a few months at best, and made communications and supply lines difficult to sustain. Similarly, to reach Malta by sea entailed a journey in excess of a thousand miles, which raised questions as to the point of wanting to sail beyond it. Third, the Ottomans were beginning to fall behind western Europe in naval and military technology and tactics. In fact, it can be argued that only the lack of political and spiritual unity within Europe prevented western states from exploiting Ottoman weaknesses. Already by the end of the sixteenth century Turkey’s northern frontier of Azerbaijan and its central Asian trade were being challenged by the emerging state of Muscovy and its eastern frontier was threatened by the Safavids of Persia. For much of the century, the Ottomans had seen off challenges from these old rivals but victory eluded them in the Long War. It now seems clear that when both its western and eastern frontiers ceased to advance, the Ottoman state was vulnerable, and this was its condition at the end of the sixteenth century.
Conclusion
The impact of the Ottoman Turks on sixteenth-century Europe was far-reaching. This explains why Charles V regarded them as a greater threat to Christendom than Luther; why Ferdinand II devoted the best part of his life to defending the Austrian heartlands; why Spain feared for its trade and dominions in the western Mediterranean and became paranoid over suspected links with Granadan Moriscos; why Portugal was prepared to neglect its transatlantic trade and colonies in order to defend its pepper monopoly with Asia; and why Venice saw its livelihood hang by a thread as Turkish fleets threatened to cut off its sea-borne trade. It also contributed to the ‘military revolution’ as European armies and navies learned how first to defend and then to defeat superior numbers and, in so doing, forged ahead of their eastern rivals. In this, as in so many other ways, the Turks played an important part in shaping European history.
Timeline
- 1453 Fall of Constantinople - renamed Istanbul
- 1459 Serbia captured, followed 4 years later by Bosnia
- 1480 Turkish fleet siezes Otranto in southern Italy
- 1499 Battle of Zonchio (Navarino) gives Turkey control of Venetial trade
- 1517 Syria and Egypt are conquered; Turkey controls Levant trade routes
- 1522 Rhodes is captured from the Knights of St John
- 1526 Battle of Mohacs - Hungary is overrun
- 1529 Siege of Vienna begins
- 1532 Battle of Guns relieves Vienna
- 1533 Khaireddin Barbarossa, King of Algiers, becomes Admiral of the Turkish Fleet
- 1536 Ottoman ships winter at Toulon
- 1549 Austria begins its tribute to the Turks
- 1551 Barbary corsairs capture Tripoli
- 1560 Spanish fleet fails to take Djerba off the coast of Tunisia
- 1565 Siege of Malta
- 1571 Battle of Lepanto
- 1578 Truce between Spain and Turkey, confirmed 3 years later
- 1593 The Long War begins between the Ottomans and the Austrian Habsburgs
- 1606 Treaty of Zsitva-Torok ends the Long War
The Wars in IRAQ and AFGHANISTAN as with the Bosnian War were all tied to the realliance of old world trading partners bringing that global 1% and their 2% back to wealth and power. If one looks today at what families grew to become that wealth and power these several decades of FOREIGN ECONOMIC ZONES AND GLOBAL NEO-LIBERALISM----it is likely these same Asian, Middle and Far Eastern MERCHANTS OF VENETIAN EMPIRE families. You can believe these Asian families of MUSLIM NATIONS ARE NOT RELIGIOUS----THEY ARE NOT MUSLIM.
Asian citizens KNOW this and that is why those sovereign citizens have been fighting these several decades. They are that 99% against their 1% and their 2%. These are the folks we see on TED TALKS----in UNITED NATIONS LABOR AND JUSTICE ORGANIZATIONS. When the US global 1% and their 2% bring to US Foreign Economic Zone cities like Baltimore these foreign businesses and global rich ---they are creating those same VENETIAN EMPIRE TRADING ROUTES and filling trading cities with the global 1% and their 2% while enslaving WE THE PEOPLE. Citizens in Asia, Middle-Far East, and Latin America have dealt with Foreign Economic Zone neo-liberalism for several decades and now CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA is bringing it to America and our US CITIES.
This is why we shout to know who these global 1% and their 2% families now flooding our cities and government are-----even as official American citizens WE THE PEOPLE across all population groups need to keep these global rich out of our government and our labor and justice organization leadership-----THIS IS WHAT THE OLD WORLD MERCHANTS OF OTTOMAN EMPIRE DID AS WITH THOSE MERCHANTS OF VENICE TO THEIR 99%.
Venice’s Principal Muslim Trading Partners: the Mamluks, the Ottomans, and the Safavids
Venice and the Mamluks
Venice’s economic and diplomatic relationship with Egypt, Syria, and other areas along the eastern Mediterranean shore was tied, in particular, to the
Mamluks
(1250–1517), the powerful Islamic rulers who both halted the advance of Mongols west of Iraq and expelled the last of the
Crusaders
from the Holy Land in the second half of the thirteenth century. The Mamluk capital of Cairo, a city of around 200,000 inhabitants, was the greatest metropolis of its age. In this and other principal cities of the sultanate, Mamluk rulers built impressive mosque complexes, funerary structures, and urban palaces.
The Mamluks inherited from the
Fatimids
(909–1171) and
Ayyubids
(1171–1260) the role of middlemen between
South and Southeast Asia
and Europe in the valuable
spice
trade and in the movement of other goods by land and sea through the
Damascus
and the Red Sea routes. Venice consistently sought favorable privileges for its merchants and through these efforts became the Mamluks’ main European trading partner.
Several cities under Mamluk control had a permanent Venetian diplomatic representative with regular access to local authorities. Ties between the
Venetian oligarchy, nobility, and merchant class
and the Mamluk court and its retinue were particularly strong. The longest reigning doge of Venice, Francesco Foscari (r. 1423–57), was even born in Mamluk Egypt.
Mamluk rule finally came to an end when Syria and then Egypt fell to the
Ottomans
in 1516–17. It was in the years leading up to this event that
commercial exchange
between the Mamluks and Venice intensified. As a result, a dazzling array of goods—textiles, spices, metals, medicines, pigments, precious stones,
glass
, and paper—traveled in both directions. Mamluk trade and, in some cases, direct artistic influence shaped the fashion in Venice for
Islamic-style bookbindings
, the development of inlaid metalwork, and the taste for blue-and-white ceramics in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
Inlaid Metalwork
Under the Mamluks, metalwork
intricately inlaid
with silver and gold flourished in Damascus and Cairo. In the late fourteenth century, however, as the Mamluk elite suffered an economic decline, the European export market became increasingly important for these wares. By the early fifteenth century, new shapes and decorative styles developed in response to European tastes, and Latin inscriptions could sometimes be found on Islamic metalwork in addition to Arabic ones.
Venice played a crucial role in the trade of Islamic metalwork in the Mediterranean. Shipping documents reveal that Venetians exported large quantities of copper and brass to the Near East; in return, they imported finished inlaid vessels. Mamluk basins, ewers, candlesticks, and incense burners found a place in the finest Venetian homes and churches, and some were even customized with the coat of arms of Venetian noble families. Local craftsmen admired the skill and design of Islamic metalwork too and frequently imitated it.
The connection between Venice and Mamluk metalwork is so strong that a myth arose in the nineteenth century that Arab or Persian craftsmen must have lived and worked in the city, producing “Veneto-Saracenic” pieces for the local market. One craftsman in particular, Mahmud al-Kurdi, has long been associated with this theory. Recent research, however, suggests that al-Kurdi most likely was active in western Iran. Indeed, it is highly improbable that Muslim metalworkers could have ever set up shop in a city as tightly regulated by the guilds as Venice.
Venice and the Ottomans
The
Ottoman empire
existed from 1281 to 1924 and at the height of its power in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries included Anatolia, the Middle East, parts of North Africa, and much of southeast Europe. No other Muslim power in history has rivaled its longevity and extent. Because so many major Near Eastern entrepôts eventually fell within the confines of the vast empire, including Bursa (1326), Constantinople (1453), and Damascus (1516), Venetians perforce developed
commercial and diplomatic relations
with the Ottomans. “Being merchants,” the Venetian ambassador to the Sublime Porte wrote in 1553, “we cannot live without them.” Territorial disputes in the Balkanic border region led to the Ottoman-Venetian wars of 1463–79, 1499–1503, 1537–40, and 1570–73, but both parties generally sought peaceful coexistence rather than conflict in the name of trade. So important was the Ottoman empire to the Venetians that the ambassador to the Sublime Porte was regarded as the most senior post in the Venetian diplomatic service and was the highest paid. Venice itself received regular visits from Ottoman dignitaries, as numerous documents attest.
Venice relied on the Ottomans for wheat, spices,
raw silk
, cotton, leather, and calcified ashes for the Murano glass industry. In return, Venice exported finished goods, namely glass, soap, paper, and textiles. In addition, it also produced
maps
,
clocks
,
portraits
, and luxury arts. Trade with the Islamic world made an
indelible imprint
on the
decorative arts
of Venice. Pottery, parade
armor
, furniture, bookbindings, textiles, pattern books, and inlaid metalwork are just some of the many Venetian arts in which distinctly Ottoman techniques and/or motifs can be observed.
Venice and Persia
Because of distance, Greater Iran did not have as strong a link to Venice as the Mamluk and Ottoman empires did. Nevertheless, both the presence of Venetian merchants on the eastern coast of the Black Sea and the importance of the trade routes passing through Persian cities favored diplomatic and commercial exchange from the time of Mongol dominance in the region in the late thirteenth century down to its rule by the
Safavid
dynasty (1501–1722).
The need to maintain political equilibrium in the Mediterranean is often what spurred diplomatic relations between Venice and Persia. For example, Christendom, including Venice, sought an alliance with the Mongol
Ilkhanids
(1256–1353) against the Mamluks and the Mongols of the Golden Horde. In the fifteenth century, there were envoys between Venice and Tabriz—the industrious capital of the White Sheep Turcomans in northwest Iran, where a large array of
luxury goods
were traded—to occupy the Ottomans, and therefore to weaken them, on both their European and eastern Anatolian borders. According to legend, the Turcoman envoy of Uzun Hasan (r. 1468–78) presented the celebrated “turquoise” (in reality pale blue-colored glass) cup in the Treasury of Saint Mark as a gift to Venice in 1472.
Thanks to trade, large numbers of objects, manuscripts, textiles, and Persian
carpets
passed through Venice or were collected and remained in the city. A glimpse of this wealth can be found today in works dispersed in collections such as the
Museo Civico Correr
and the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana. On the diplomatic level, the most important testimony of the exchanges between the Safavid shahs and the Venetian doges are a number of sumptuous silk and silver-wrapped-thread carpets of the so-called Polonaise type. Today in the museum of Basilica San Marco, these carpets were draped in front of the high altar of the church during religious festivals, used as a floor covering to display objects from the Basilica’s Treasury, or laid beneath the doge’s bier at his funeral.
__________________________________________
If one follows where global Wall Street is heading these few decades of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA one sees MALI and the old world trade routes as sites of war-----there are those same old world African VENETIAN EMPIRE 1% and their 2% African leaders being supported by global Wall Street as Africa is re-colonized. Those African MERCHANTS OF VENICE losing their wealth and trade routes did the same as in Europe with wars and revolutions and THEY were those Jacobins and freemasons----those secret societies that came to the AMERICAN COLONIES. The MOORS were those African traders made rich during this 500-1500 AD MERCHANTS OF VENICE -----they enslaved the African 99% as any other population group and were those African leaders selling their enemies as slaves to be sent to those AMERICAN COLONIES. If we trace the rise of black leaders in South America----North America, and the Caribbean ----we will see those same DECLINING IN WEALTH MERCHANTS OF VENICE-----
We are watching these several years of CLINTON/BUSH/OBAMA where Foreign Economic Zones are installed----our American black leaders tying themselves to the same old world global 1% and their 2% African VENETIAN EMPIRE families. South Africa-----central Africa----Obama super-sized these African trade zones using American 5% to the 1% global Wall Street players. There will be no winners in this except those same OLD WORLD AFRICAN TRADE FAMILIES.
The decline of the VENETIAN EMPIRE and movement of trade routes from middle-far east, Europe, and Africa sent those African MERCHANTS OF VENICE to rebuild their wealth---remember these global merchants no matter where in this VENETIAN EMPIRE were slave traders----and today in the US these global 1% and their 2% are using those 5% Wall Street players to build the same global slave trading system in US cities deemed Foreign Economic Zones.
It is incredible the degree those old world African global trader families have been able to keep ALL OF AMERICAN BLACK LEADERSHIP tied to freemasonry, GREEKS, secret societies-----deliberately killing any ability of American black 99% to be citizens and grow wealth. When we hear today black citizens saying they have no leaders that are not a 5% to the 1%----THIS IS WHY.
ALL POPULATION GROUPS NEED TO STEP AWAY FROM THESE CORPORATE NON-PROFITS -----THEY ARE POSERS PRETENDING TO CARE ABOUT THE 99%.
Timbuktu
The Jewel of the Sahara
Glorious Timbuktu, the jewel of the Sahara, and the ancient destination for camel driven caravans laden with goods has been talked about for centuries. Just like it’s ancient namesake, modern Timbuktu is still a formidable city sitting on the north side of the River Niger on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert. This area of the central Sahara is one of the most inhospitable places on earth, where rain is marked by decades not years, and the people have adapted to rigors of a landscape that travelers call a sea of sand, it’s grains like waves extended deep into the Tuareg heartlands of Mali. The amazing rise of this city, deep within north central Africa, is as much a testament to the ancient kingdoms that founded her, as to the great scholars, artists, warriors and kings who shlepped to establish one of the great ancient wonders of the world.
Initially, a seasonal gathering place for caravans moving from the Mediterranean coast, south into Subtropical West Africa, Timbuktu became a permanent settlement in the 12th century. As other trade routes though northern Africa were disrupted, the city grew to became the major transport hub for caravans laden with jewels, spices, salt, gold, ivory and and most importantly slaves, that now numbered in the thousands. And as its strategic importance grew, Timbuktu was absorbed by the growing might of the Mali Empire early in the 14th century and flourished as a cultural mecca for artisans, craftsmen, and some of the greatest minds in Ancient Africa. Finally, the city became a bastion for Tuareg tribes until eventually falling under the dominion of the expanding Songhai Empire in 1468. The eventual decline of this great city was a result of the defeat of the Great Songhai Empire in 1591 by the Moroccan Kingdom, that made Timbuktu their regional capital. The splendor that was Royal Timbuktu still exists in some of the remaining historic buildings and citadels.
“The rich king of Tombuto hath many plates and sceptres of gold, some whereof weigh 1300 pounds. … He hath always 3000 horsemen … (and) a great store of doctors, judges, priests, and other learned men, that are bountifully maintained at the king’s cost and charges. – Leo Africanus (15th Century)The settling of and early reports of TimbuktuMap of the Saharan Trade Routes (1889)
Although Timbuktu does not enter the historical records until medieval times, early Iron Age settlements have been discovered near Timbuktu that predate the traditional foundation date of the town. The early predecessor to Timbuktu was probably a season settlement whose population ebbed and flowed. The the early site of Timbuktu was first continuously occupied during the 5th century BC and then continued to thrived until it’s collapse in the late 10th or early 11th century AD.
The city was then reborn as new trade routes took a hold in the early medieval period, and we first begin to hear of cities springing up within the Sahara like Djenné, Gao, and Dia. But unlike these cities, Timbuktu is not mentioned by the early Arab geographers such as al-Bakri or al-Idrisi. Moroccan traveler Ibn Battuta who visited Timbuktu in 1353 when returning from the capital of the Mali Empire was the first. The known Arab records then remained silent until about a century and a half later, when in 1510, Leo Africanus visited Timbuktu and gave a description of the town in his monumental “Descrittione dell’Africa”. A book that was first published in 1550, and became a sensation in Europe because of its depictions of the exotic lands on sub-Saharan Africa.
Two fascinating early accounts that shed light on the city are the 17th century chronicles of al-Sadi’s “Tarikh al-Sudan” and Ibn al-Mukhtar’s “Tarikh al-fattash”. These are some of the earliest surviving manuscripts to describe the city, and its great mosque which still stands today. It is said that when Abd al-Sadi wrote his chronicle the “Tarikh al-Sudan”, based on oral tradition, he dated the foundation at ‘the end of the fifth century of the hijra’ or around 1100 AD. He saw Maghsharan Tuareg as the founders, and he accurately related the ancient tradition that their summer encampment grew from temporary settlement to a travelers’ meeting place settled year round. The Arab chroniclers depicted how the the city originated from a local trade between Saharan pastoralists and continued to expand as boat trade within the Niger River Delta fed the growing metropolis. These early chroniclers were aware of the work of ancient Greek historians like Herodotus, and because of the importance of the river Niger in settling the city, they described the Timbuktu as ‘a gift of the Niger’, in analogy to Herodotus’ own description of Egypt as ‘gift of the Nile’. The similarities did not end there, as Timbuktu increasingly became the most prosperous city in the northern Africa.
The rise of the Mali Empire
Drawing by Renè-Auguste Caillie, (1827)
During the twelfth century, the Ghana empire, the first great African state in west Africa fragmented and its remnants were invaded by the Sosso Empire king, Soumaoro Kanté. The crumbling of this Empire had an immediate impact on the nobility of these regions, and Muslim scholars from Walata fled to Timbuktu and solidified the position of Islam in that city. Islam had gradually spread throughout West Africa, mainly through commercial contacts with traders, and because of the advanced Arab mercantile economy that connected the known world at the time. In time, Timbuktu’s prominence within Islam grew, and was reinforced through its openness to strangers that attracted religious scholars from all of Africa.
At the dawn of the 14th century the Mali Empire established by Sossa had grown in size and was on the fringes of the territory of Timbuktu, which by now had become an important trading center. In 1324, Timbuktu was peacefully annexed by King Musa I when returning from his pilgrimage to Mecca and the city became part of the Mali Empire. After entering the city Musa was so enamored that be began construction of a royal palace, and it perhaps at this time that Tarikh al-Sudan and the Tarikh al-fattash attribute the building of the Djinguereber Mosque, which has come down to us as the Great Mosque of Timbuktu. (The current mosque is much bigger, and was the result of one that was built in 1570, when Qadi al-Aqib had Musa I’s original mosque pulled down and rebuilt on a larger scale.)
Timbuktu finally appeared in European sources in the great Catalan Atlas of 1375, showing that Timbuktu was now a commercial centre linking north Africa and the Mediterranean,and important destination for Venetian, Ottoman and Catalan traders.
Timbuktu under the Songhai EmpireTimbuktu seen from a distance by Heinrich Barth’s party, September 7, 1853
By the first half of the 15th century the Mali Empire waned in influence and power, and once again Timbuktu became relatively an autonomous commercial center. In the west, the rising Songhai Empire expanded under Sunni Ali Ber, taking the fragmenting Mali kingdoms under its reach, until finally absorbing Timbuktu in 1469. At the beginning of the 16th century, Timbuktu ushered in it’s golden age under Askia Mohammad I (1493–1528). Askia Mohammad strengthened the Songhai Empire and governed Timbuktu through an efficient regional administration, allowing the city’s commercial centers to flourish.
Merchants from the rising cities of Ghadames, Awjilah, and numerous other cities of North Africa gathered there to buy gold and slaves in exchange for the Saharan salt of Taghaza, North African weavings, and the strong Tuareg horses that had a reputation for surviving the harsh climate. During this time the streets of Timbuktu were crowded with traders from every corner of the known world, some carrying goods from as far as China, via the silk road. Slaves captured from the Congo, could be seen being auctioned off by Arab merchants, destined for the courts of the Moorish Kingdoms of Spain, and even much coveted Slavic women could be sold as concubines, captured from Ottoman raids in eastern Europe. The mosque produced some of the greatest ancient histories of the world at this time, along with books on medicine, music, language and the arts, that flourished though the writing of dedicated scribes. The streets were kept free of crime in order to ensure the mercantile nature of Timbuktu was not disrupted, and hotels, restaurants, and supply stores opened to support the weary traders. Languages as diverse as Fulani and Armenian could be heard on the streets of Timbuktu, and everywhere caravans filled with good stretched in long lines fanning out into the desert on the backs of horses and camels.
“Having then traversed the rubbish which has accumulated round the ruined clay wall of the town and left on one side a row of dirty reed huts which encompass the whole of the place we entered the narrow streets and lanes or as the people of Timbuktu say the tijeraten which scarcely allowed two horses to proceed abreast But I was not a little surprised at the populous and wealthy character which this quarter of the town the Sane Giingu exhibited many of the houses rising to the height of two stories and in their facade evincing even an attempt at architectural adornment.
“- Travels and Discoveries in North and Central Africa (1858)
The final collapse of the mercantile economy had a tremendous impact on Timbuktu thoughout the end of the 16th century, as the new world and the far east become the focus of world wide trade. Leadership of the Empire stayed in the Askia dynasty until 1591, but the faltering economy and lack of strong heirs to succession weakened the dynasty’s grip and led to a decline of prosperity in the city.
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Lots of talk today in the US on old world trade families successful----whether in Europe, Asia, or Africa as models for rebuilding what is slated to be US cities as Foreign Economic Zones. Using models is far different than allowing those global old world 1% and their 2% families control that growth today in US and Africa. These are enslaving MERCHANTS OF VENICE who use that 99% to enrich themselves. This is the source of today's global Wall Street 5% to the 1% players. THE 99% MUST STOP ALLOWING THESE SAME GLOBAL 1% AND THEIR 2% BE THEIR LEADERS.
There is a great video giving the history of HARVARD LAW SCHOOL AND BROWN UNIVERSITY----today Johns Hopkins is the lead in building the global human capital distribution system these several decades of global Foreign Economic Zone ------THE OLD MERCHANTS OF VENICE MEETING THE OLD KINGS AND QUEENS 1% and their 2%----
WE THE PEOPLE BLACK, WHITE AND BROWN can build our own businesses----our own economies but we must keep them local, small business and not be pulled into global Wall Street players. If US black leaders are talking about all this history TODAY and not 3 decades ago during CLINTON OR BUSH OR OBAMA-----watch out for those global 5% Wall Street players!
The History of the Moors in Northern Africa and Europe.
by Mark Wells
Feb 21, 2010
Although the Moors came to be associated with Muslims, the name Moor pre-dates Islam.
It derives from the small Numidian Kingdom of Maure of the 3rd century
BCE in what is now northern central and western part of Algeria and a
part of northern Morocco. The name came to be applied to people of the
entire region. "They were called Maurisi by the Greeks, and Mauri by the
Romans." During that age, the Maure or Moors were trading partners of
Carthage, the independent city state founded by Phoenicians. During the
second Punic War between Carthage and Rome, two Moorish Numidian kings
took different sides, Syphax with Carthage, Masinissa with the Romans,
decisively so at Zama. Thereafter, the Moors entered into treaties with
Rome. Under King Jugurtha collateral violence against merchants brought
war. Juba, a later king, was a friend of Rome. Eventually, the region
was incorporated into the Roman Empire as the provinces of Mauretania
Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana; the area around Carthage already
being the province of Africa. Roman rule was beneficial and effective
enough so that these provinces became fully integrated into the empire.
From Italian Venetian Black-a-Moor exotic expensive jewelry, lamps and sculptures,Moors in past and today's
European flags and Coat of Arms. To new German Pope Benedict's Moorish roots. A secret story is being revealed and concealed.
Blac
Neither Vandal nor Byzantine exercised an effective rule, the interior
being under Moorish Berber control For over 50 years, the Berbers
resisted Arab armies from the east. Especially memorable was that led by
Kahina the Berber prophetess of the Awras, during 690–701. Yet by the
92nd lunar year after the Hijra, the Arab Muslims had prevailed across
North Africa.
In 711 CE, the now Islamic Moors conquered Visigothic Christian
Hispania. Under their leader, a general named Tariq ibn-Ziyad, they
brought most of Iberia under Islamic rule in an eight-year campaign.
They moved northeast across the Pyrenees Mountains but were defeated by
the Frank Charles Martel at the Battle of Poitiers in 732 CE.
The Moorish state fell into civil conflict in the 750s. The Moors ruled
in North Africa and in the Iberian peninsula for several decades, except
for areas in the northwest (such as Asturias, where they were defeated
at the battle of Covadonga) and the largely Basque regions in the
Pyrenees. Though the number of original "Moors" remained small, many
native Iberian inhabitants converted to Islam. According to Ronald
Segal, some 5.6 million of Iberia's 7 million inhabitants were Muslim by
1200 CE, virtually all of them native inhabitants. The persecution and
forced conversion to Catholicism of the Muslim population during the
time of the Christian Reconquista in the second part of the 15th century
caused a mass exodus. This is considered the main reason why the number
of Muslims had shrunk to a relatively small fraction of the total
population by 1500.
In a process of decline, the Al Andalus had broken up into a number of
Islamic-ruled fiefdoms, or taifas, which were partly consolidated under
the Caliphate of Córdoba.
The Asturias, a small northwestern Christian Iberian kingdom, initiated
the Reconquista (the "reconquest") soon after the Islamic conquest in
the 8th century. Christian states based in the north and west slowly
extended their power over the rest of Iberia. The Navarre, Galicia,
León, Portugal, Aragón, Catalonia or Marca Hispanica, and Castile began a
process of expansion and internal consolidation during the next several
centuries under the flag of Reconquista.
Reconstruction of costumes of Moorish nobility from a German book published in 1880
In 1212, a coalition of Christian kings under the leadership of Alfonso
VIII of Castile drove the Muslims from Central Iberia. The Portuguese
side of the Reconquista ended in 1249 with the conquest of the Algarve
under Afonso III, the first Portuguese monarch to claim the title King
of Portugal and the Algarve.
However, the Moorish Kingdom of Granada continued for three more
centuries in the southern Iberia. This kingdom is known in modern times
for magnificent architectural works such as the Alhambra palace. On
January 2, 1492, the leader of the last Muslim stronghold in Granada
surrendered to armies of a recently united Christian Spain (after the
marriage of Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile, the
Catholic Monarchs). The remaining Muslims and Jews were forced to leave
Spain, or convert to Roman Catholic Christianity or be killed for not
doing so. In 1480, Isabella and Ferdinand instituted the Inquisition in
Spain, as one of many changes to the role of the church instituted by
the monarchs. The Inquisition was aimed mostly at Jews and Muslims who
had overtly converted to Christianity but were thought to be practicing
their faiths secretly — called respectively marranos and moriscos. The
Inquisition also attacked heretics who rejected Roman Catholic
orthodoxy, including alumbras who practiced a personal mysticism or
spiritualism. They represented a significant portion of the peasants in
some territories, such as Aragon, Valencia or Andalusia. In the years
from 1609 to 1614, they were systematically expelled by the government.
Henri Lapeyre has estimated that this affected 300,000 out of an
estimated total of 8 million inhabitants of the peninsula. However many
of them were converted to Christianity and settled permanently. This is
clearly indicated by a "high mean proportion of ancestry from North
African (10.6%)" that "attests to a high level of religious conversion
(whether voluntary or enforced), driven by historical episodes of social
and religious intolerance, that ultimately led to the integration of
descendants.".
In the meantime, the tide of Islam had rolled not just to Iberia, but
also eastward, through India, the Malayan peninsula, and Indonesia up to
the Philippines. This was one of the major islands of an archipelago
which the Spaniards had reached during their voyages westward from the
New World. By 1521, the ships of Magellan and other Spanish explorers
had reached that island archipelago, which they named Las Islas de
Filipinas, after Philip II of Spain. In Mindanao, the Spaniards named
the kris-bearing people as Moros or 'Moors'. Today in the Philippines,
this ethnic group of people in Mindanao, who are generally Muslims, are
called 'Moros'. This identification of Islamic people as Moros persists
in the modern Spanish language spoken in Spain, and as Mouros in the
modern Portuguese language and Maure.
According to historian Richard A. Fletcher, 'the number of Arabs who
settled in Iberia was very small. "Moorish" Iberia does at least have
the merit of reminding us that the bulk of the invaders and settlers
were Moors, i.e Berbers from Algeria and Morocco.' Aline Angoustures
says that the Berbers were about 900,000 and the Arabs about 90,000 in
Iberia.
Beside its usage in historical context, Moor and Moorish (Italian and
Spanish: moro, French: maure, Portuguese: mouro / moiro, Romanian: maur)
is used to designate an ethnic group speaking the Hassaniya Arabic
dialect. They inhabit Mauritania and parts of Algeria, Western Sahara,
Tunisia, Morocco, Niger and Mali. In Niger and Mali, these peoples are
also known as the Azawagh Arabs, after the Azawagh region of the Sahara.
In modern, colloquial Spanish, the sometimes pejorative term "Moro"
refers to any Arab. Similarly, in modern, colloquial Portuguese, the
term "Mouro" is primarely used as a designation for North Africans and
secondarily as a derogatory and ironic term by northern Portuguese to
refer to the inhabitants of the southern parts of the country.
In the Philippines, a former Spanish colony, many residents call the
local Muslim population in the Southern islands Moros. They also
self-identify that way . The term was introduced by the Spanish
colonizers. Within the context of Portuguese colonization, in Sri Lanka
(Portuguese Ceylon), Muslims of Arab origin are called Moors.
The initial rule of the Moors in the Iberian peninsula under this
Caliphate of Córdoba is generally regarded as tolerant in its acceptance
of Christians, Muslims and Jews living in the same territories. The
Caliphate of Córdoba collapsed in 1031 and the Islamic territory in
Iberia fell under the rule of the Almoravid dynasty. This second stage
inaugurated an era of Moorish rulers guided by a version of Islam that
left behind the tolerant practices of the past.
interesting of course....but no one should be surprised that history will always be rewritten by those that are in power.. Many rulers wan to proof that their position is the logical consequence of a process that started centuries ago, and has inevitably led in a process of progress culminating in their position. there was a time that even a divine topping was added to it. alas history had no logic, and many a ruler was playing with his mistress when the enemy was gathering at the gates. and many a battle was ended after half an hour hacking sword on each other. just trying hacking into something, then you know why ancient warfare does not last as long as now, when you can pilot drones from the comfort of your monitor at an air conditionated office in texas. anyhow...
the point i want to make, in those days, before some merchants suddenly saw profit in shipping slaves to the new west, race and color did not matter that much. you had enemies of course, thise you would try to kill, and you had friends, those at times you would betray..but as such it did not matter so much how they looked like. racism was invented once there was money to be made.
the then greatest power that had existed, the roman empire, had been color blind. slaves could be white, mostly would be white. the empire stretched into northern africa, and emperors could come from every part. often they came from spain, but least three of them were african, black. not that it mattered a lot, it just was part of their description., it was just mentioned by the way, so nothing special...most likely there ve been more of them. equally when the portuguese ships started to sail south direction africa, they n egociated treaties with the local african kingdoms, rather than trying to subjugate them. the obi of benin, now part of nigeria, thus exchanged ambassadors with the king of portugal. of course some other warlords of africa started to sell slaves to the whites as well, but nothing was then set in racist tones (yet)
the problem really started with some fundamentalist catholic spanish kings. the reconquista was more against muslims than against blacks, but then for the first time the bible was used to proof their own divine superiotity as catholic male whites over the rest of the world, including muslims, blacks, chinese, animals, and even their own women. according to the then interpretation, even a white woman had no soul, and thus could not go to heaven, and thus was as good as an animal. on the other hand, an african male could be christened and thus saved...
peculiar times, but racism, and sexism as well grew out of a supremacist reading of the bible. and to serve the best interest of the rulers.
bit obviously before that happened, the worl was colorblind, and some of the most refined culture came out of africa equally out of china...but not that much out of europe, one of its greatest rules, charles the great, signed his documents with an X , because he could not read nor write, and he was not even ashamed to admit it
Oct 6, 2012
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Here we see that reference to early Christian religion---gnosticism-----black freemasons are pushing this for the same reasons Jewish, Catholic, and other protestant PHONEY RELIGIOUS LEADERS ARE----it ties to MOVING FORWARD ONE WORLD ONE GOVERNANCE and a global 1% and their 2% have told their 5% to move towards ONE RELIGION.
I ride the city buses in Baltimore all the time talking to many of the homeless----working class. I speak to one homeless man showing signs of psychosis and he talks constantly about freemasonry----he is very intelligent calling for bus riders to move to MARXISM----look at the black leaders tied to freemasonry and we see the same 5% to the 1% Wall Street player as with white and brown Wall Street players----THESE ARE NOT LEADER FOR THE 99%---THEY ARE THE PLAYER WORKING TO ENRICH THEMSELVES by lying, cheating, stealing---posing left social progressive while killing the 99% of black citizens.
As with the revolutions in Europe----in Africa with the decline of the MERCHANTS OF VENICE----THE TRADE ROUTES OF 500-1500 AD-----these players will be out pretending they are all MARXIST LEADERS----COMMUNIST, SOCIALIST----when they will enslave WE THE PEOPLE as fast as the 1%.
'Moe
Founder at The Order of the Gnostics
Welcome to the Order of the Gnostics on GnosticWarrior.com. My name is Moe and I'm the founder. Our world-wide order is dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge, truth and real Gnosticism using both ancient and modern gnosis techniques such as science to not only KNOW THYSELF, but also to MASTER THYSELF. Find your path and join the Order of the Gnostics today'. |
Al Sharpton -----that Wall Street and national media PRETEND CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER----came on daytime TV to say-----YOU WILL SUPPORT OBAMA'S LEGACY IF YOU WANT A JOB-----oh, really?????
Black Freemasons
by Moe | May 24, 2013 | Freemasons, History of the Brotherhood
Freemasonry is an international Brotherhood that is amongst the oldest of fraternities still in existence. Masons are a society of men that are devoted to several ideals, among which are liberty, peace, and equality. The Masons admit men regardless of race, creed, color, faith or nationality; and the standards of behaviors set forth by the organization hold the members to what can be considered the Golden Rule – treat others as you would want to be treated.
African-American Freemasonry
During the eighteenth century the ideals set forth by the Freemasons were particularly desired by groups of people who had experienced less than equality, peace, and liberty. When it comes to Freemasonry, one such group of individuals were African-Americans. Racial divides were not only commonplace, but they were so significant that slavery and unequal treatment abounded, even in societies where slavery was technically illegal. During the late 1700s an individual emerged on the Freemasonry scene who would change the landscape of the organization, and find a way to use the ideas of the society to further equal rights among the races in America. This man was Prince Hall.
Who Was Prince Hall?
Prince Hall, a literate, free, black man in Massachusetts made many attempts to further the rights for African-Americans, including petitioning for legal rights for freed black slaves from the dangers of slave traders. He worked to abolish slavery and pushed for equal education among the races. In fact, Hall petitioned the Massachusetts Committee of Safety to allow blacks to fight with the colonies, but his petition was declined. England then proclaimed that if blacks fought with the British army that they would have their freedom at the end of the war.
As the Continental army saw this tactic working for the British when blacks begin enlisting with their army, they decided to reverse their earlier decision in which the Continental army removed its block on admission of blacks into the military. After the Revolutionary War, Hall continued his pursuits and proposed several pieces of legislation to better the lives of African-Americans in New England, reminding his white peers that African-Americans fought side by side for the pursuit of freedom from Britain. However, he soon saw that the sacrifices of his fellow black soldiers were not going to be valued as he had hoped. This did not deter him. He continued to be politically and socially active for the equal rights of blacks in the newly formed United States.
How Did Prince Hall Influence the Black Freemasons?
Even before the Revolutionary War, Prince Hall saw the Freemasonry society as a way to help further the rights for blacks in the New England area. He unsuccessfully lobbied for a charter along with fourteen other free black men into the Boston St. John’s Lodge. Some whites were incredulous that blacks would attempt such an application and admittance, so Hall began looking for other opportunities. On March 6, 1775, Hall and fifteen other free black men were accepted as members into Lodge No. 441 of the Grand Lodge of Ireland, which was attached to the British forces who were stationed in Boston at the time.
When the British Army left Boston just a year later, Hall and his fellow black Masons were left with little power in the Freemasonry society. Eventually in 1784, Hall was able to successfully petition to the Mother Grand Lodge of England in which he was granted the recognition of African Lodge No. 1 (later renamed to African Lodge no. 459). Hall was such an influential and positive leader of this group of Masons, that in 1791 he was named as Provincial Grand Master. Hall continued to utilize the principles of Freemasonry to further the pursuits of equality, establishing lodges in Rhode Island and Philadelphia.
The influence of Prince Hall through Freemasonry still lives on today. His original set of guidelines and rules written for his first local lodge were some of the first formal regulations established for blacks that allowed for self-government in the newly formed United States. Hall’s tombstone in Boston reads: Here lies ye body of Prince Hall, first Grand Master of the colored Grand Lodge in Mass. Died Dec.7, 1807
Black Freemasons Throughout History
Prince Hall helped to open the doors to Freemasonry for other African-Americans. Some of those who claimed membership to the organization include:
* Nat King Cole – legendary musician
* W.E.B. Du Bois – Educator and Historian
* Reverend Jesse Jackson
* Thurgood Marshall – first African-American member of the Supreme Court
* Kwesi Mfume – former NAACP President
* Shaquille O’Neal – basketball player
* Scottie Pippin – basketball player
* Reverend Al Sharpton
This image below is from Mt. Nebo 67 Prince Hall F&AM
From the Grand Lodge of Scotland;
Recent research carried out by the Curator of the Grand Lodge of Scotland Museum and Library, Robert Cooper, has established that the Masons blazed a trail in the field of race relations – a trail they pursue to this day.
Cooper has discovered a remarkable photograph what shows that Freemasons in Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh, were welcoming black men exactly 100 years ago. The photograph shows 10 black men, all members of the Williams & Walker Co, a touring vaudeville act after having been Initiated into Freemasonry in Lodge Waverley, No.597, on 2nd May 1904. They were subsequently Passed on 16th May and Raised on 1st June of that year. “The principals of Freemasonry”, said Cooper, “dictate that there can be no discrimination on the grounds of race and this is but one example.” The picture, and many others, also showing black Freemasons, are held by the Grand Lodge Museum in the Masons' George Street headquarters.
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