Martin Luther and the Turks

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Martin Luther ( Lucas Cranach the Elder , 1529)

The ratio of Martin Luther to the Turks found represented in some writings, speeches and compare. Luther referred more often to the Turks and the Koran in order to clarify the differences between Christianity and Islam , but also to explain the threat posed by the Turks. He was referring to the people of the Ottoman Empire (1299–1922), who were referred to as “Turks” in everyday parlance, and inseparably linked the Koran with the Turks and vice versa. He underlined this when he said: "The Turks know the Bible , but remain completely foreign to it". He advocated unhindered access to the Koran and demanded that every scholar should get an idea of ​​this foreign religion and culture . Between 1526 and 1541 the Ottomans threatened Western Europe and yet Luther had a differentiated attitude towards the Turks. He refused a crusade and stuck to his conviction "that the Turks should not be attacked because of their beliefs". In his opinion, Christians should take care of their own lives and fight the Pope rather than attack the Turks. Luther had already spoken out about the Turkish threat as early as the 1520s and although he had no contact with Muslims , he had a good knowledge of Islam. He did not only see Islam from a negative point of view, he also emphasized the positive characteristics, which he included "loyalty, friendliness and honesty". It was a shock to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation when Turkish forces stood before Vienna in the fall of 1529 . Martin Luther used the advance of the Turks as an opportunity to compose three so-called Turkish writings : On the war against the Turks (1528, WA 30.2; 107-148), sermon against the Turks (1530, WA 30.2; 160-197) and admonition to pray against the Turks (1541, WA 51, 585–625). He reacted to a possible threat to the West , understood the Turkish attack as a punishment from God and called for military resistance, not an attack.

Contemporary history background

EmperorSuleiman.jpg
Tughra of Suleiman I the Magnificent, svg
سليمان شاه بن سليم شاه خان مظفّر دائما
Süleymān-şāh b. Selīm-şāh Ḫān muẓaffer dāʾimā 

Sultan Suleyman I was the first Ottoman ruler to try to conquer Vienna. Under him the Ottoman Empire reached its greatest extent. For a long time the Ottomans had been the predominant power in the eastern Mediterranean . In 1520 it extended its sphere of influence to the western part, where it displaced Venice . In 1521 they conquered Belgrade and a large part of the nobility and peasants in Serbia , Bosnia and Herzegovina had bowed to the new rulers and had now converted to Islam. Hungary was conquered in 1526 and opened the way to Vienna in 1529 . The Ottomans had to break off the siege without having achieved anything and withdrew. In 1532, Süleyman began a second attempt to conquer Vienna. The troops were thrown back and defeated in the battle in the Fahrawald .

Against the papacy and the Turks

To some extent, Luther benefited from this threat. Emperor Charles V (1500–1558) had to bundle all his strengths and concentrate on the resistance. Since he also had to involve the estates and princes , the emperor showed himself to be willing to compromise on the emerging religious issues and did not take any denomination into account. The Reformation and Luther were thus able to benefit from the danger posed by the Turks. The Ottoman threat not only spread fear and terror among Martin Luther , it also made the West fearful of the future. Luther condemned the expansion wars of the Turks as a secular rule of Islam and said at the same time that the Turks are servants of the devil . He called on the ruling emperor to “ensure security, calm and stability” and to take action against the threat. The aspects shifted later. Luther believed that he had now recognized two powers that act against Christianity, namely the papacy and the "Turks"; and he interpreted the successes of the Ottoman armies as God's punishment. Like almost all Christian contemporaries, Luther only knew the Koran from hearsay for a long time. It was not until February 1542 that he saw a manuscript of the Latin translation of the Koran by Robert von Ketton , which Luther, however, felt as "badly interpreted". Nevertheless, in the following year he campaigned for the translation to be printed and published by Johannes Oporinus and Theodor Bibliander in Basel. The conclusion of his preoccupation with Islam was "that the power of Christ was not behind the wars of conquest of the Ottomans and that Islam denied the redeeming death of Christ".

Characterization of the Turks

Luther was curious and showed great interest in the rites and culture of the Turks. In 1530 the booklet Libellus de ritu et moribus Turcorum was published. Luther expressed himself in a preface on the character of the Turks. This Libellus was from the Dominican George of Hungary has been written, the manners and customs of the Turks wanted to bring a Christian audience. With his preface Luther wanted to expand general knowledge of the Koran. Since he had only got to know two texts about the Koran so far - these were the Confutatio Alkorani by the Dominican Ricoldo da Monte di Croce from 1300 and the Cribratio Alkorani by Nikolaus von Kues - he wanted to put the previous considerations in the right light. But his characterization did not let him lose sight of the character of the Germans. He contrasted the fact that the Germans eat and drink in excess, while the Turks attract attention because of their moderation . Furthermore, he comes to the following distinctions between Germans and Turks, namely that the former love luxurious clothing and the latter appear modest, do not swear and do not build extravagant buildings. He showed understanding for the Turkish patriarch ... "and although such marriage a marriage before God, but more of a license is not because a marriage, they do not consider that their women to such coercion and beautiful gestures, so that with them such curiosity , opulence , Carelessness and other superfluous jewelry, food and splendor prevail among women as with us ”. As a negative component, he described the fact that the Turks divorced too quickly, tended to be polyglot , and practiced “French and Sodomite unchaste”.

About the war against the Turks

After Western Europe had to grapple with the Ottoman superpower , the publication of so-called "Turkish books" was accelerated, with which readers should be informed about the Turks and Islam. Luther wrote his first “Turkish Script” in 1528; it was called Vom Krieg gegen die Türken and was published in 1529. Concerning his first treatise it can be stated in summary that he (...) "applied his political theory of the two kingdoms and three estates - the secular order, the clergy and the household - to the Turkish question." True to his rejection of a crusade, he cautiously justified the war on the grounds that the Turks overthrew the three estates : They threatened the secular authorities with “murder” by attacking the Christians militarily, they were “liars” who misinterpreted the scriptures, and they disregarded “ domestic discipline ” by having ten or twenty wives. These well-known allegations against Islam served Luther in support of his theory and as an argument for a war of resistance that was not to become a war of faith . At the same time, he uses his arguments to attack the papacy and insinuated that the pope “that the Turkish war has been used as a pretext for collecting indulgences ”. As already mentioned, he saw the Turkish threat as God's punishment and feared the end of the world .

Sermon in the army against the Turks

His second Turkish pamphlet was called the Sermon Against the Turks and was published in 1530. This treatise was now a real invitation to war against the Turks and combined the Turkish threat with a danger emanating from the Pope. He describes both powers as predicted tyrants who heralded the end of the world. He repeated that one should not wage a religious war against the Turks and referred to Christian mercy , despite the Turkish atrocities . But, he goes on, in the defensive struggle should be "happily raise your fist and confidently kick it". He advised the Christians who were captured in Turkish captivity to respect worldly power and not to give in on questions of faith. At the same time he warned Christians not to be too impressed by the “strict religious life of Muslims. Because all this is nothing but piety of the law and righteousness to work ”. He recommended to the soldiers that before fighting the Turks they should prepare themselves spiritually through penance and prayer . In this letter to the Turks, Luther went back to the Revelation of John by describing the Turks as the "fourth trumpet" ( Rev 8:12  EU ) and comparing the behavior in captivity with the behavior of the two animals ( Rev 13 : 10  EU ). So it also says:

“So it must follow from this that the Türck will be ym Roman emancipation and the fourth must be understood. (...) But because the Türck is still so great and powerful and should be rich in the Roman, we have to yhn ynn the same seek and find under the horns of the four animals. "

- Weimar edition (WA 30.2, p. 106: 8–22).

He stirred up a certain doom and gloom, called the Pope Antichrist and saw him as the real main enemy and causal culprit. In his view, the Turks were only scourges sent to punish the Christians for their sins .

Exhortation to pray against the Turks

Another attempt to take Vienna began in 1541. Before that, the Hungarian King Johann Zápolya (1487–1540) had died and in the same year the Hungarian city of Ofen was taken by the troops of the Ottoman army. Elector Johann Friedrich I (1503–1554) asked Luther and Johannes Bugenhagen to write another letter to the Turks in view of the renewed massive threat. For this he wrote:

"... so we beg with a particularly generous diligence, I want the preachers in our churfurstenthumb in Saxony, obeying your superatendenz, courteously and without delay, to command the people in all sermons to the prayer of the Turks for the prayer of the Turks and to part with tirannic action very seriously want to ermanen ... "

- Elector Johann Friedrich : (WA. B 9, No. 3666, 513, 26–36)

As a result, Luther published the treatise Admonition to Prayer Against the Turks in September 1541 . At the same time he had submitted a translation and a new edition of the Confutatio Alcorani .

In the admonition, Luther once again declared the Turkish threat to a dispensation from God and continued to reject a crusade. Addressing the authorities, he underlined once again their duty to wage a defensive war to protect the West. His advice to the Christians was that they should finally start to trust God's goodness, because they also knew where that was happening, and neither the Turk nor the devil could harm them.

Battle song

Six-verse version of the Magdeburg hymn book with the 2nd line overwritten. Mid 19th century

The hymn and children's song Receive us, Lord, by your word was published by Luther in 1541. It appeared with the addition “A nursery rhyme to sing against the two enemies of Christ and his holy churches, the Bapst and Türcken”. This song was accompanied by propaganda pictures . In connection with Luther's letters to the Turks and the dispute with the Pope, it was regarded as a controversial Protestant hymn and has since been defused in some places.

reception

In the spring of 1518, the papal legate Tomasso de Vio , known as Thomas Cajetan, was at the Reichstag in Augsburg . This mission was his first diplomatic assignment, because he was trying to win German support for a crusade against the Ottomans. Luther contradicted this request in his Turkish writings and advocated a war of defense. Another proponent of a crusade was Philip I of Hesse (1504–1567), he urged the Evangelicals to opt for the emperor's plans with the prospect of allowing the Reformation. And yet Luther turned against any prospect of a crusade, the Turks should not be attacked for reasons of faith. At the Reichstag in Augsburg , convened in 1530, the aim was to achieve a common front against the Turkish power. In favor of this goal, the planned negotiation against the reformer Luther was dropped and it was postponed to Worms . In his writing Admonition to Prayer Against the Turks , Luther also addressed his adversaries Thomas Müntzer and Huldrych Zwingli and called them "cursed evil sects and heresies" in the same breath as the Turks.

In an impulse paper of the Conference for Islam Issues of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD) one dealt with the "Reformation and Islam", in the foreword and in the outlook it says:

“What began in Wittenberg in 1517 not only shaped and changed the history of the churches and Christianity far beyond the borders of our country. Rather, the Reformation has also become part of European and world history. When we celebrate half a millennium of the Reformation in 2017, many central developments and events of this significant epoch of the 16th century will be discussed. The ten years of preparation for this anniversary with their theme years have already given a foretaste of the spectrum of insights and questions and what contents are to be considered and discussed here, both nationally and internationally, both intra-denominational, ecumenical and interreligious (...) In dialogue with Muslims, Protestant Christians can express critically and positively what the Reformation means to them today. For the dialogue between Christians and Muslims, the 500th anniversary of the Reformation is also an occasion to come to an in-depth understanding of theological reasons and motives for the encounter. The EKD's Theology Chamber has formulated: "It remains a central challenge which paths the church takes in the context of its understanding of the Holy Scriptures and in the current responsibility of its Reformation confessions in the dialogue of religions." It is clear that today's paths of are characterized by a much more positive understanding of religious diversity than was the case in the 16th century and far beyond. "

- Evangelical Church in Germany (2016)

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roland Bainton : Martin Luther. Rebel for the Faith . Wilhelm Heyne Verlag , Munich , 1983, page 268
  2. ↑ Jews and Turks - the old Luther and his dark sides. In: Peter Kuhlmann: Martin Luther. Life - Works - Work , Regionalia Verlag, Rheinbach, 2016, page 108/109
  3. ↑ a b hate speech. In: Lyndal Roper: Luther. The man Martin Luther. The biography . Page 492
  4. ^ Peter Kuhlmann: Martin Luther. Life - Works - Work , Regionalia Verlag, Rheinbach, 2016, page 111
  5. ↑ Painting attributed to Titian , approx. 1530. Including the Tughra Süleymans I with unbraided writing: “Süleymān-şāh, son of Ḫāns Selīm-şāh is always victorious”.
  6. ↑ 1529 “Ottomans try to conquer Vienna”. In: Chronik der Menschheit , Ed .: Bodo Harenberg, Harenberg Verlag and Mediengesellschaft, Dortmund , 1988, page 410
  7. ^ Peter Kuhlmann: Martin Luther. Life-work-work . Page 109.
  8. ^ Peter Kuhlmann: Martin Luther. Life-work-work . Page 110.
  9. ↑ WA 53, 272 / 16f.
  10. ↑ Gernot Maria Mausohr: Luther and the Turks , on August 9, 2016, in: theologiestudierende.de, accessed on January 4, 2017 theologiestudierende.de
  11. ↑ Preface to Libellus de ritu et moribus Turcorum (WA 30.2, pp. 198–208, introduction by the editor and preface by Martin Luther) In: D. Martin Luthers Werke. Critical complete edition. 30th volume. Second department, Weimar, Hermann Böhlaus successor 1909 lutherdansk.dk
  12. ^ Confutatio Alcorani seu legis Saracenorum. Ed .: Ricoldus <de Monte Crucis> Bartolomeo Picerno. Keßler, Basel approx. 1507 ( digitized version )
  13. ^ Nicolaus Cusanus: Philosophical and theological writings of Nikolaus von Kues, translation of the Cribratio Alkorani urts99.uni-trier.de
  14. ^ Lyndal Roper: Luther. The man Martin Luther. The Biography , page 494
  15. ↑ Preface to Libellus de ritu et moribus Turcorum (WA 30.2, pp. 198–208, introduction by the editor and preface by Martin Luther)
  16. ^ Lyndal Roper: Luther. The man Martin Luther. The Biography , page 494
  17. ↑ The Turks again from the war (WA 30.2, p. 107–148, here p. 127)
  18. ^ Lyndal Roper: Luther. The man Martin Luther. The biography , page 492/493
  19. ↑ About the war against the Turks. In: Encyclopedia of Islam
  20. ↑ A sermon against the Turks (WA 30.2, pp. 160–197)
  21. ↑ a b c Hanns Leiner : Luther's Theology - Part 27: Luther and the discussion about Islam. In: Sunday paper (Bavaria) . May 4, 2008, accessed February 10, 2017 .
  22. ^ Peter Kuhlmann: Martin Luther. Life-Work-Doing , page 111.
  23. ^ Lyndal Roper: Luther. The man Martin Luther. The Biography , page 493
  24. ↑ "Exhortation to pray against the Turks" (WA 30.2, p. 191a: 26f.)
  25. ^ Relocation of the Alcoran Brother Richardi. In: WA 53, pp. 273-388
  26. ↑ admonition = admonish; rebuke. In: Universal Lexikon universal_lexikon.deacademic.com
  27. ^ I-Islam. On: Creative Church Witten luther-oratorium.de
  28. ↑ Exhortation to pray against the Turks (WA 51, 593 / 33–594 / 18)
  29. ↑ Keep us Lord by your word! - Reformation propaganda in pictures - Christiane Caemmerer, colored flyer illustration on the battle song of the Reformation in the exhibition "Bible - Theses - Propaganda" blog.sbb.berlin , Berlin State Library
  30. ^ Lyndal Roper: Luther. The man Martin Luther. The biography. P. 147.
  31. ^ Lyndal Roper: Luther. The man Martin Luther. The biography. P. 414.
  32. ^ Lyndal Roper: Luther. The man Martin Luther. The biography. P. 416.
  33. ↑ compare WA 54, p. 143: 11f.)
  34. ^ Reformation and Islam - An impulse paper from the Conference for Islam Issues of the Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), May 2016 ekd.de