The Knights Templar - Not a Good Choice of Role Model for Anders Breivik?

Anders Breivik is a mass murderer, and as such his state of mind is alien to almost all of us. But it has worked to develop an explanation for his actions, based on his hatred for racially or religiously defined groups of his fellow citizens and those who associate with them.

He believes that he shares this hatred, and the ability to turn it into terrorist action against innocent people, with a secretive group of similarly motivated, similarly dedicated and delusional racists across Europe. He calls this, probably imagined, group The Knights Templar and links it directly to the men who made up a military order that began in Jerusalem around 1120 and took a religious oath to defend both the newly conquered Holy Land and the Christian pilgrims who came to the sacred sites there. Breivik clearly believes that in the Templars he has found his own inspirational example of white, European, Christian soldiers standing against non-white, non-Christian middle-eastern infidels. He envisages the Templars as a group who used their martial skills and their pious bravery and laid down their lives to defend their community, their people, their religion and their race from Muslim attack.

There is an element of truth in this, the Crusader states were ruled by Christians and surrounded by Muslim-ruled states, so any attack on them is likely to come from a Muslim source. Pilgrims were often prey to bandits and thieves, who, given that most of the population of the region were Muslim, we're also likely to be Muslim. So in fulfilling their oaths the Templars would usually be fighting against Muslims. Also, in the years following the capture of Jerusalem by the expedition that became known as the First Crusade, and the establishment of what are known as the Crusader States around Aleppo, Antioch, Tripoli and Jerusalem, young Christian men were recruited by the Templars in Europe and travelled to the Holy Land eager for the blood of the pagan infidel. With the anti-Muslim, and often anti-Jewish and anti-Greek, preaching of western crusade sermonizers still ringing in their ears they were ready to kill for their faith.

But the reality these new arrivals found was that the survival of the Crusader States largely relied on trade with Muslims, they relied on good relations with their neighbours and through alliances and mutual agreements with them they had by the middle of the twelfth-century established a degree of peace in the region. Christian rulers had Muslim servants and the equivalent of civil servants running their administrations. There were many among the Franks (Christians) of the Holy Land who wanted to settle peaceably with their Muslim neighbours, and even the Templars developed a respect for Muslims and Muslim traditions.

This is illustrated by the observations of a chronicler called Usamah ibn Munqidh who reports that when he visited Jerusalem around 1140, he went to stay in what had been the al-Aqsa mosque. The Muslims had ruled Jerusalem for almost 500 years and during that time what had been the site of The Temple of Solomon had become a Muslim holy site. But Usamah, although he was clearly aware of the religious significance of the mosque/temple, says that the actual reason he went to the Temple was because it was where his 'Templar friends' were staying. He goes on to say that these Knights Templar friends arranged for him to stay with them in what they called the Temple, and what Usamah called the mosque. They found a small oratory and set it aside so that he could go there and say his daily prayers.

One day Usamah went to pray in the mosque, going to his small oratory and laying down his prayer mat, he knelt and faced Mecca, which from Jerusalem is south-east, and he began to pray. But no sooner had he started than was forced to stop when he was grabbed by a newly arrived Templar who forced him to turn to the East, saying ‘Thus do we pray’. Hearing the noise the other Templars came running and took the man away, apologizing to Usamah saying: ‘He is a foreigner. He has just arrived from the land of the Franks and he has never seen anyone pray without turning to face east.’

Usamah explains why this happened, saying: ‘Among the Franks we find some people who have come to settle among us and who have cultivated the society of the Muslims. They are far superior to those who have freshly joined them in the territories they now occupy.’

Several things arise from this story that seem to contradict Anders Breivik's conception of the Knights Templar. Firstly, the fact that a Muslim writing in the middle of the Twelfth-century can call the Templars ‘my friends’, seems to turn the world on its head. The Templars are supposed to be the (literally) sworn enemies of the Muslims and yet the way Usamah ibn Munqidh remembers it is that they welcomed him into their community, made a place for him to pray to his 'infidel' God and defended him from attack from an ignorant newcomer. Secondly, the fact that the Templars can refer to one of their own as ‘a foreigner’ is also amazing – these are members of the same military order, they have taken the same vows, share the same clothing and are from the same religious and racial background, they are ‘brothers’ yet they consider the new arrival ‘a foreigner’ and the Muslim ‘a friend’.

This report suggests that at this point a particular group of Knight Templar had made a concerted effort to build good relations with at least one of their Muslim neighbours. This attempt to heal the wounds caused by the massacre of Muslim populations and the ravaging of Muslim lands during the First Crusade if applied more generally might have meant that the crusader states could have developed alliances, become an accepted and respected part of the political landscape and enjoyed peaceful and profitable relations with their neighbours. But the baggage of fervent religious hatred of Muslims, Saracens and 'infidels', not to mention Greeks and Jews, brought by these constantly arriving ‘foreigners’, meant that any progress made towards reconciliation would often be destroyed by the actions of new arrivals.

The story of his trip to the Temple and his friends the Templars, told by Usama bin Munqidh, makes Breivik's chosen role models, the Knights Templar appear to be exactly the sort of decent and tolerant people that he hates so much. Multi-cultural twelfth-century Jerusalem with its mix of European, North African, Greek, Arabic and Jewish cultures was where the Templars did their work, and fulfilled their promise to defend pilgrims. They seem to have adapted to and engaged with multi-culturalism and if Usamah's story is representative of Templar behaviour generally in the Latin East then on a personal level at least many would have made friends with Muslims, respected their faith and tried to behave in a civilised manner towards them.

I am not saying that the Templars where models of religious and cultural tolerance, far from it and their reported actions often reflect the vicious cut and thrust of the holy war/jihad being waged between Christian and Muslim in the time of the crusades. But Usamah's story shows us a different side of the Templars, away from the politics and the battlefields, away from the pulpits and the anti-Muslim sermons. It shows us a hint of day to day reality and the relationships that could be built between people of different ethnic and religious backgrounds. Relationships that men like Brevik and the newly-arrived foreigner, would want to tear apart and destroy. Those Knights Templar who befriended Usamah, showed him respect and made a place for him to worship his god would be disgusted by Breivik, they would see him as a barbaric and ignorant outsider with no sense of how to behave in a civilised society and they would be right.