Religion Causes War

Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim

Richard Dawkins says that “religion causes wars by generating certainty”.  Even before 2001, there was a universal acceptance that the basis for armed conflict almost always was down to some sort of religious discord.  The suggestion that, “belief leads to intolerance and ultimately to conflict”, finds resonance easily with all these recent events that have involved angry Muslims seeking either ‘revenge’ or ‘salvation’ by means of violence.  And so it is, that since 9/11, Islam became the foremost confirmation that religion is the leading source of all this division, death and destruction.  The other assertion frequently made is that this has been the case since time began.  It was in 1095 AD that Pope Urban II called for a Christian Crusade to liberate the Holy Land of Jerusalem from the occupation of infidel Muslims.

Muslims are well rehearsed with answering the scrutiny of the relationship between their faith and war.  ‘Islam is Peace’ is the mainstay response.  Although there is some truth to this statement, there is no escaping the fact that it is a diversionary explanation.  This simplistic answer does not comprehensively or fully satisfactorily resolve questions on matters of warfare within Islam.  Non-Muslims are no longer so unfamiliar with this subject that they can be so easily swayed by the pleas of pacifism.  They know that Muslims dream of jihad; that we read the exploits of our famous Mujahideen, like Khalid Ibn Waleed; that we are desperate to be on the frontline of a sincere liberation to rescue the inhabitants of those gripped by monstrous oppressive secular regimes – like the Uyghur or the Rohingya; that we have a whole Chapter of the Qur’an dedicated to the subject of warfare (Surah At-Taubah).

Muslims have a history of offensive warfare that was whole-heartedly undertaken for the sake of Allah (SWT) to achieve the domination of the implementation of Islam over mankind.  The lands of Shaam were taken from the Roman Christians (634AD-638AD); the lands of Persia from the Zoroastrians (633AD-654AD); the lands of Egypt from the Coptic Christians (639AD); the lands of North Africa from the Berbers (703AD); the land of Sind from the Hindus (711AD); the lands of Central Asia from the Shamans (673AD-751AD).  In addition, the armies of Islam conquered the Romanians, Transylvanians and the Byzantines.

Islam is Peace? It is time to stop being so disingenuous with this trivializing simplicity.  This of course does not mean that Muslims are averse to peace or do not seek peace, just that clearly, Islam does not exclusively state that a true Muslim is always peaceful or that Jihad is only undertaken on a defensive basis.

I should point out that I am not delving into the topics of terrorism and criminality.  If I am about to be accused of supporting or sympathising with 9/11 or some such other example, then let me make it clear – I most certainly do NOT!  I support the attempts of Muslims explaining that such acts of violence contradict Islam because these acts of violence do contradict the teachings of Islam.  I have the conviction that nothing from the truth needs to be hidden. Thereby Muslims should not fear being misunderstood as a result of welcoming sincere and non-slanderous scrutiny of all that they believe in.

Becoming a Holy Martyr for your faith is NOT unique to Islam.  The Crusaders from the Middle Ages, which I mentioned earlier, are one example.  Certain events during the reign of Elizabeth I of England (1558-1603), around 500 years after the First Crusade, give increasing credence to illustrate this issue.

In December 1583, Queen Elizabeth writing to the French Ambassador pointed out, “there are more than two hundred men of all ages who, at the instigation of the Jesuits, conspire to kill me”.  This was not an exaggeration or a fabricated conspiracy.  These highly motivated Jesuits were prepared to risk everything, even their own lives, because of the promises sent by letter from the Pope in Rome.  These letters assured the assassins that their reward in the hereafter was nothing short of a free passage to heaven and a place at the right-hand side of the Lord Jesus.

To understand what is going on in England at that time we need to go a little bit further back in history and start with Queen Elizabeth’s father, King Henry VIII (reign 1509-1547).

King Henry’s wife, Katherine, had given birth to a daughter.  All her other children conceived thereafter, died at birth.  When Katherine reached 40 years of age, she was deemed to be too old to have any more children (barren) and therefore Henry would have no SON to inherit the throne of England.  King Henry was so desperate for a son that he decided his only option was to divorce his wife and marry a second time.  The problem was Henry and Katherine were both Catholics – and Catholics cannot get divorced.  So, Henry wrote a letter to the only man alive that could grant permission to dissolve the marriage, which was Pope Clement VII.

The Pope refused the divorce!  That was because Henry could not offer a reasonable and legal reason as to why this Catholic sanctioned wedding was no longer valid.  This was not by any lack of effort on Henry’s part.  However, the Pope could easily see the flaws in Henry’s arguments.  Agreeing with Henry would have denied both the Law of God and the Will of God.

Undeterred, King Henry took matters into his own hands, resorting to imposing the Oath of Supremacy in 1534.  This required that any person taking public or church office in England would have to swear allegiance to the monarch being the Supreme Governor of the Church of England.  Failure to do so was to be treated as treasonable.  Thereby, King Henry was officially recognised as the head of the newly formed Church of England.  Convictions for treason were punished by the death penalty, which of course became Henry’s legacy (many officials would eventually go on to be executed for treason including two of his six wives!).

With the Pope no longer the custodian of religious affairs in England, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Winchester, the Bishop of Bath, the Bishop of Lincoln and the Archbishop of Canterbury all went and granted Henry his divorce.

Katherine remained Catholic so never recognised this divorce as being legitimate because as far as she was concerned, the Pope was the ONLY official that could annul her marriage.  She remained ‘married’ to Henry and thereby never left England.  She refused to allow her daughter to be brought up by Henry, so daughter Mary remained a devoted Catholic too.  For the rest of her life, Henry had nothing to do with Katherine.

Around the same time, across mainland Europe there were protests criticising the Pope and some of the practices of the Catholic Church – these people became known as Protestants.  The disputes (mainly led by the German monk Martin Luther) were over religious matters and included the Catholic Church’s practice of ‘selling of indulgences’ and the creedal matter of Transubstantiation.

“Transubstantiation” is related to the Sunday morning ceremony of taking wine and bread by worshippers.  The Catholics said that the wine and bread literally transformed (i.e. transubstantiation) into the blood and flesh of Jesus Christ when it was being consumed.  The Protestants said no such transformation took place; rather the wine and bread were only a metaphor of the blood and flesh.

The issues and questions raised were not resolved, so the Protestants eventually established their own churches across Europe.  England remained Catholic; however, once the Church of England was established by King Henry, it then adopted the doctrine of the Protestant faith.

This rejection of the teachings of the Catholic Church were viewed by the Catholics as acts that denied the authentic conventions of Christianity.  Rejection of Catholicism was an act of heresy.  In other words, these new churches had renounced the true faith and were therefore not deemed Christian at all.  It is similar to Muslims breaking away from the orthodox traditions of Islam and consequently being deemed as ZINDIQ (Zandaqa is heresy).¹

As far as the Protestants were concerned, the Catholics had corrupted their relationship with God and instead, it was the Catholics who were no longer legitimate Christians.  So, each side accused each other of heresy.  In 16th Century Christianity, the killing of a heretic was not only legitimate, but also desirable.

October 1583 and John Somerville, a Catholic from Warwickshire, supported the anti-Elizabeth propaganda which the Jesuits were preaching.  Somerville planned to kill the Queen with a pistol wanting to see “her head on a pole, for she was a serpent and a viper”.  Fortunately for the Queen, he was arrested, found guilty and sentenced to death before the assassination attempt.  Before his execution he committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell in the Tower of London.  This is just one example of the myriad of assassination plots that preoccupied the Christian leaders all across Europe at this time.

This clash between the Catholics and Protestants also led to numerous major wars.  King Phillip of Spain (Catholic) sent the largest fleet ever assembled to invade Protestant England.  This Spanish Armada failed in its mission and England would forever remain a Protestant Kingdom.

The Dutch Protestants largely motivated by their new faith, revolted against the Spanish (1568-1648).  Spain lost the succession of wars in this region too and eventually signed a treaty recognising the Dutch independence of the United Provinces (now the Netherlands).

During the French Wars of Religion, the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre (Massacre de la Saint-Barthélemy) took place in 1572.  Amongst the massive wave of Roman Catholic mob violence there were also targeted assassinations directed against the Huguenots (French Calvinist Protestants).  Thirty thousand Huguenots were killed by the combined efforts of the assassins and the Catholic mob.

Alternatively, other examples in history show the Catholics being massacred by the Protestants. Europe was a bloodbath and this 130 year period of European history is arguable the best example of religion causing conflict and wars.  However, this continuous division would not be sustained after the realisation the situation was at an impasse.  Something needed to change to solve this divisive Christian stalemate.

(i) English Civil War – 1642-1651

The Protestant English King Charles I (1625-1649) married the French princess Henrietta Maria and she was a Catholic.  Her influence persuaded Charles that he should adopt a single set of Anglican procedures in all religious ceremonies across every church under his reign.  This caused offence to many Protestants, in particular the Puritans, who complained that the reality of this adoption was in fact an effort to reintroduce Catholicism in the English churches.  The resulting resistance to Charles’s reforms led to arrests and churches being closed.

Henrietta continued to practice Catholicism in her own private chapel in the palace.  Many, including Members of Parliament were also concerned that Charles’s children would be brought up as Catholics, offering the prospect of a Catholic monarch in contradiction to the Crown of England being constitutionally enshrined to Protestantism.

During the period of “Personal Rule,” King Charles I aroused most antagonism through his religious measures: he believed in High Anglicanism, a sacramental version of the Church of England, theologically based upon Arminianism, a creed shared with his main political advisor, Archbishop William Laud. In 1633, Charles appointed Laud as Archbishop of Canterbury and started making the Church more ceremonial, replacing the wooden communion tables with stone altars. Puritans accused Laud of reintroducing Catholicism; when they complained, he had them arrested. In 1637 John Bastwick, Henry Burton, and William Prynne had their ears cut off for writing pamphlets attacking Laud’s views—a rare penalty for gentlemen, and one that aroused anger. Moreover, the Church authorities revived the statutes passed in the time of Elizabeth I about church attendance, and fined Puritans for not attending Anglican Church services.²

In line with his personal vision and religious views, the King’s unification policy quickly led to resentment and resistance across the fringe territories.  War broke out with the Presbyterian in Scotland and the Catholics of Ireland.  This succession of inter-faith warfare had been preceded by a two year period of fighting with France.  

Meanwhile in England, Charles would frequently dispute with Parliament (which had many members that were Puritans) not only on matters related to dogma, but also there were many disagreements over finance, coupled with the numerous declarations of war, and most obnoxious was his closure of Parliament.  The King’s actions were primarily driven by his rage at Parliament’s stance of refusal to continue to pay for the ongoing military campaigns.

King Charles considered that his position could not be challenged by his own Parliament.  Charles believed in the ‘Divine Right of Kings’.  God had ordained him as King of England, therefore he ruled on God’s authority, especially on matters of faith!  The disagreements ultimately led to Civil War between Parliament and the King, which subsequently the King lost.  He was then tried for treason, found guilty and executed.  This led to a chain of events that saw England becoming a Constitutional Monarchy, which remains to this day.

Charles I (19 November 1600 – 30 January 1649) was King of England, King of Scotland, and King of Ireland from 27 March 1625 until his execution in 1649. Charles engaged in a struggle for power with the Parliament of England, attempting to obtain royal revenue while Parliament sought to curb his Royal prerogative which Charles believed was divinely ordained. Many of his English subjects opposed his actions, in particular his interference in the English and Scottish churches and the levying of taxes without parliamentary consent, because they saw them as those of a tyrannical absolute monarch.

Charles’s reign was also characterised by religious conflicts. His failure to successfully aid Protestant forces during the Thirty Years’ War, coupled with the fact that he married a Roman Catholic princess, generated deep mistrust concerning the king’s dogma. Charles further allied himself with controversial ecclesiastic figures, such as Richard Montagu and William Laud, whom Charles appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Many of Charles’s subjects felt this brought the Church of England too close to the Roman Catholic Church. Charles’s later attempts to force religious reforms upon Scotland led to the Bishops’ Wars, strengthened the position of the English and Scottish parliaments and helped precipitate his own downfall.³

From May 1660 – England set the following principles:

• The Throne would remain, but as a constitutional figure head only
• The divine right of Kings in man’s affairs was abolished
• The right of freedom to worship was granted
• Parliamentary rule was established to govern the country, its members would be subject to selection by the people through elections, and not by royal appointment (all be it, at this time, the rich and the elite were the only people eligible to vote. The Crown and the Church would retain some seats in the House of Lords).

This began a precedent of republicanism, which from the 18th Century saw revolutions across Europe attempt to overthrow the monarchs and replace them with parliamentary rule (known as the ‘Age of Revolution’).  In other words, the English Civil War was a paramount episode of sowing the seeds of both republicanism and secular democracy.

(ii) Voltaire the French Philosopher

François-Marie Arouet (21 November 1694 – 30 May 1778), known by his nom de plume Voltaire, was a French philosopher, historian and writer also famous for his wit.  He attacked the established Catholic Church, was an advocate of the freedom of religion, freedom of expression, and the separation of Church and State.  He is particularly famous for saying “I do not agree with what you have to say, but I’ll defend to the death your right to say it”.

Voltaire was instrumental in consolidating ‘Religious Tolerance’ within the principles of the freedom of worship.  Voltaire and other philosophers pointed out that the clash between Catholics and Protestants could not be resolved.  The resulting bloody conflicts were therefore a pointless obstacle for progression towards modern enlightenment and modern scientific industrial development.  They proposed that Catholics and Protestants could rather live mutually alongside each other by simply allowing each other to practice their faith by whatever spiritual means that they each saw suitable.

(iii) Treaty of Westphalia 1648

Eight million European lives were lost during the pinnacle of inter-Christian tension.  The act of defenestration in Prague in 1618, led to the Protestants of Bohemia revolting against the Catholic Emperor Ferdinand II.  This then sparked a war that would last for thirty years.

Ferdinand had dispatched his emissaries to shut down the protestant court in Prague.  Unlike his predecessors, the newly appointed Emperor was not going to tolerate Protestantism within the domain of the Holy Roman Empire.  The reaction of the Protestants was to simply throw the emissaries out of a third-floor window (they all survived the fall) – defenestration literally means to ‘throw someone out of a window’.

Ferdinand reacted to this humiliation by dispatching his army which was victorious against the revolting Bohemians at the Battle of White Mountain.  The Catholics continued their military domination, so in order to rescue the Protestants, the King of Denmark determined he needed to assist them in their struggle.  This Danish intervention was defeated by the Catholics.  This led to the Protestant King of Sweden then entering the war.  The military campaign by the Swedish reversed the fortunes of the Protestants and over a period of five years secured several victories over the Holy Roman Empire.  Key to these triumphs was the skilful leadership of the King himself, Gustavus Adolphus.  Shortly after his death (he died in battle) the Catholics once again regained the initiative.

At this time of certain victory for the Holy Roman Empire, the French Army then chose to support the Protestants.  This completely confused the Pope because France was a Catholic nation.  What the French had determined was that religious matters needed to be set aside due to more pressing concerns over the domination in Europe by the Habsburgs.  The King of Spain and the Holy Roman Emperor were members of the same Habsburg family (that also had control over other regions in Europe).  Feeling under threat by the combined strength of Spain and the central European Holy Roman Empire, France could see that the Habsburgs were on the verge of overwhelming the political affairs of Europe and upsetting the balance of power.  This marked a turning point for European politics, as it was the beginning of temporal matters taking precedence over spiritual affairs.

Despite the powerful French nation entering the War, the fighting reached a stalemate.  Although the military deadlock brought about the need for the peace negotiations at Westphalia, it was the change of ideological thinking that would influence the eventual terms of the treaty.  This led to many changes and these included:

• Every Sovereign State would be recognised as having the right to self-determination without any interference from foreign nations
• This would also include the right of the state to determine its own religious affairs
• A European commitment to uphold the balance of power, which was established by territorial changes that strengthen France and weaken the Holy Roman Empire.
• Calvinism was now acceptable.  Previously it had been a denomination of Christianity which had not been internationally recognised. 
• Europe would preserve the right to choose a faith (freedom of private worship)

These three examples illustrate what changed so that by the 18th Century it would be secularism rather than Christianity that would determine events in the world.

Although the Ottomans were the super-power of 17th Century Europe, it should be noted that they were not included in the negotiations of the Westphalia Treaty.  Meanwhile the Muslims final campaign of offensive Jihad took place in 1683. This was the disastrous attempt by the Ottoman Muslims to capture the city of Vienna. The Ottomans retreated never to go on the offensive again. Consequently, all the wars fought thereafter by the Ottomans were either to quell the internal revolts against their rule or the defence of their territory against foreign invaders, particularly by the Russians.

So certainly, by the beginning of the 18th Century, both Christian and Muslim nations were no longer declaring wars for a religious cause.  This change however did not see a cessation of disputes and warfare.

1775-1783 The American War of Independence

1853-1856 Crimean War

1854-1891 The Sioux Wars

1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War

1877-1878 Russo-Turkish War

1898-1901 Boxer Rebellion (China)

1898 Spanish-American War

1899-1902 Boer War (South Africa)

1904-1905 Russo-Japanese War

1910-1920 Mexican Revolution

1912-1913 First and Second Balkan Wars

1914-1918 World War I

1918-1921 Russian Civil War

1927-1937 Chinese Civil War

1935-1936 Second Italo-Abyssinian War (also known as the Abyssinian War)

1936-1939 Spanish Civil War

1939-1945 World War II

1946-1949 Chinese Civil War resumes

1946-1954 French Indochina War

1948 Israel War of Independence (also known as the Arab-Israeli War)

1950-1953 Korean War

1955-1972 First Sudanese Civil War

1959-1973 Vietnam War

1967 Six-Day War

1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan War

1980-1988 Iran-Iraq War

1990-1991 Persian Gulf War

1991-1995 Third Balkan War

1954-present: Wars of Independence and Civil Wars across the continent of Africa

This is not an exhaustive list and in fact only represents a limited sample of the wars that have been carried out over the last two centuries.  From this list there is only one war (in Africa) that I am aware of that could be argued was begun on a religious basis.  I would dispute that claim, however even if I were to concede I am wrong about Algeria, that would have no bearing on the point that this list clearly has demonstrated; that the wars from the 18^th Century were driven by political ambitions and were not caused by Islam or any other religion.  

The Second World War is the best illustration of the political motives that are responsible for warfare in recent times.  World War II saw a clash of the following secular ideologies: Imperialism, Capitalism, Expansionism, Nationalism, Fascism and Communism.  This is a war fought between secular or atheist powers.  Nobody was looking to establish one faith over another.

The estimated casualties in World War II is between 70-85 Million people, which equates to 3% of the entire world’s population at that time.  That is 12 million people killed for each year of the war’s duration.  A scale of death and destruction unprecedented in the history of mankind.

In the mid twentieth century, people were more conscientiously and morally directed by religion than they are today.  During World War II, in fact for all the wars listed above, examples of religious interventions could be shown continued to play a significant role.  For example, symbols, icons, religious slogans, and the sermons of priests to soldiers or revolutionaries, were used to inspire fighting and encourage acts of self-sacrifice for a divine cause.  These could be used to show the divisiveness that religion remained responsible for in warfare, since the Treaty of Westphalia.

Although the initial cause and motive for war may not be in origin religious, those responsible for war will have no hesitation to manipulate those committed to fight for God to be used to fulfil secular objectives.

• Saddam Hussein and the Ayatollah were both screaming for Jihad to be undertaken by their representative armed forces.  The reality is that the Iran-Iraq War was initiated by the US for her own interests.  The religious view however clearly contradicted what took place because the simple fact of Muslims fighting Muslims was the situation on the ground.
• Saddam Hussein was quick to be shown on state television praying on his mat on the eve of war between Iraq and the Coalition Forces!
• With Nazi Germany only a few miles from Moscow, the Soviet leader Josef Stalin (a political atheist) released Orthodox Christian priests from prison then re-opened the churches to inspire the people to resist the Nazi invasion.  These were the same priests that Stalin originally imprisoned and the churches that he had closed.  This conceptual turn around saved Moscow and Russia and thereby saved Stalin’s own skin too!

Ponder this, if man is to govern his own affairs and thereby separate godly affairs to matters of faith and personal worship only, then surely by their own secular definition it is impossible for faith to be responsible for the declaration of war.  How is it then, that a believer in secularism could make the accusation that ‘Religion causes all wars” in the modern world?  Warfare is the affair of man and man alone.  And the same men that initiate war for their temporal interest are the same men choosing whether or not to abuse religion to serve their own purposes.

Certainly, the foreign affairs of the United States of America are carried out primarily to secure US interests.  For example, the invasion of Afghanistan was clearly not a Christian crusade to offer a religious alternative to the majority of its Muslim population.  All the recent Presidents of the United States of America have demonstrated the vicious nature of secularism in the arena of foreign policy.

• Reagan – Airstrikes on Libya
• George W H Bush (Senior) – Invasion of Panama
• Clinton – Cruise missile attack on the pharmaceutical factory in Sudan
• Bush – within a month of becoming President ordered the bombing of targets in Baghdad (No Fly Zone)
• Obama – Drone attacks not only continued but increased across the Middle East and Afghanistan!

Advocates of International Law argued that the invasion of Iraq was legal and that the military operation included the objective of protecting human rights.  The justice of International Law is clearly an oxymoron. ‘World Peace’ is used as a cloak to disguise certain secular Governments provoking more warfare and suffering than religion ever has.  Over the last 200 years you would rarely, if at all, have heard that secularism causes all wars, even though that is precisely the case.  

The secular ideologies have established the method for indiscriminate mass killing on an industrial scale.  And the secular ideology that has done that most efficiently is Capitalism.  Mankind has not seen anything harsher inflicted upon it.  Since the second half of the twentieth century, Capitalism has delivered a level of destruction and desolation that has at least equalled that of World War Two.  Warfare and Capitalism does and always has, gone hand in hand.

Scientific thought (in part) is the process to draw conclusions based on empirical evidence.  For Mr Dawkins to point the finger so wickedly at religion in the context of starting wars is just simply not scientific at all.  So what is that unfounded conclusion based on, bias or prejudice?

Abdul Aziz

Adapted from a radio show I presented February 2013

Re-write September 2020

References

¹ Zindīq is a medieval Islamic term applied by Muslims to individuals who are considered to hold views or follow practices that are contrary to central Islamic dogmas. Zandaqa is the abstract noun describing these views. 

² Twenty-Two Turbulent Years 1639-1661 by David C. Wallace

³ Concise Character Portraits of England’s Tudor, Stuart and Protectorate Rulers 1456-1714 by Chris Stubb