ثورة فلسطين - أسبابها ونتائجها
The Palestine Revolt: Its Causes and Consequencesby Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā

Page 387

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Printed page 387

اليهود والماسونية والمال

(5) من الحقائق الثابتة الخفية أن الجمعية الماسونية التي ثلت عروش الحكومات الدينية من أمم أوربة والترك والروس هي من كيد اليهود، وهم أصحاب السلطان الأعظم فيها، وإن كان ذلك يخفى على كثير من أهلها أو أكثر المنتمين إليها، ومن غرائب كيد اليهود وقدرتهم التي فاقوا بها جميع شعوب البشر أن الغرض السياسي النهائي لهم من هذه الجمعية هو تأسيس دولة يهودية دينية في مهد الدولة الإسرائيلية التي أسسها داود وأتمها سليمان باني هيكل الدين اليهودي في أورشليم على جبل صهيون، ولهذا سموها جمعية البنائين الأحرار، ويريدون بهم الذين بنوا هيكل سليمان، وأكثر أفراد هذه الجمعية يجهلون السبب الصحيح لهذه التسمية. فهل وجد في العالم أعجب وأغرب من قوم يهدمون ما عند غيرهم من سلطان ديني لأجل بناء مثله لأنفسهم، ويسخِّرون أولئك الأغيار بمكرهم في الأجيال الكثيرة والقرون العديدة لما لا يعلمون ولا يعقلون؟

(6) من الحقائق الاجتماعية التاريخية أن اليهود هم الذين وضعوا النظام المالي الذي هو قطب رحى المدنية الغربية الحاضرة في العالمين القديم والجديد، وأن لهم به النفوذ الأعلى في جميع الدول والأمم (الرأسمالية) كما يقال في عرف هذا العصر، ومن عجائب كيدهم واقتدارهم أن أخفوا أنفسهم بصفتهم المالية أن تظهر في مملكة المال ظهورًا يمكن به لغيرهم أن يسلبوا ثروتهم، أو يغلبوا عليها بعصبية دينية أو وطنية، كما أمكنهم إخفاء شخصيتهم الملية في الجمعية الماسونية السياسية السابقة، وكذا الرمزية اللاحقة.

الجزويت والماسونية

(7) من الحقائق الثابتة التاريخية أيضًا أنه لم يوجد جماعة من جماعات البشر الدينية والسياسية عرفت كنه كيد اليهود ومكرهم في الأمم ومقاصد الماسونية وأهلها وتصدت لمقاومتهم وإسقاط نفوذهم - إلا جمعية الجزويت الكاثوليكية، وذلك أن الكاثوليك يدينون بوجوب الخضوع الديني والسياسي لأحبار رومية رؤساء الكنيسة المعصومين عندهم، ويعلمون أن اليهود هم الذين ثلوا عرشها بنفوذ الجمعية الماسونية

English
translation

The Jews, Freemasonry, and money

(5) Among the hidden but established facts, the Masonic association that toppled the thrones of religious governments among the peoples of Europe, the Turks, and the Russians is a product of Jewish plotting. Jews hold the greatest power within it, although this is hidden from many of its people, or even most who belong to it. An extraordinary example of the Jews' plotting and ability, in which they surpassed all other peoples, is that their final political aim for this association is to establish a religious Jewish state at the birthplace of the Israelite kingdom founded by David and completed by Solomon, who built the temple of the Jewish religion in Jerusalem on Mount Zion. This is why they named it the association of Freemasons, meaning those who built Solomon's Temple, although most members of the association do not know the true reason for the name. Is there anything stranger than a people who destroy the religious authority of others in order to build its like for themselves, and use those others through cunning over many generations and centuries for purposes they neither know nor understand?

(6) Among the social and historical facts, the Jews established the financial system that is the center of present Western civilization in both the Old and New Worlds. Through it they have the greatest influence in all states and peoples, or “capitalism,” as people call it in this age. One marvel of their plotting and ability is that they kept their financial identity from becoming visible in the realm of money in a way that might let others seize their wealth or gain control of it through religious or national partisanship. In the same way, they hid their religious identity in the earlier political Masonic association and the later symbolic one.

The Jesuits and Freemasonry

(7) Among the established historical facts, no religious or political human association understood the nature of Jewish plotting among the nations, or the aims of Freemasonry and its members, and set out to resist them and end their influence, except the Catholic Jesuit association. Catholics believe they must submit in religion and politics to the bishops of Rome, the heads of the Church whom they regard as infallible. They know that Jews toppled its throne through the influence of the Masonic association

Analysis

Riḍā claims that יהודים YEHUDIM created and secretly control Freemasonry to destroy other peoples' religious governments and prepare a Jewish religious state. He treats the name “Freemasons” as a concealed reference to the builders of Solomon's Temple. The United Grand Lodge of England says the origins of modern Freemasonry remain debated, but gives the accepted connection to medieval stonemasons. It records an English speculative Mason in 1646, the first Grand Lodge in 1717, and the first rulebook in 1723. This supports an occupational builders background and later use of builders' legends. It does not support Riḍā's secret Jewish etymology, direction, or state-building program.

Riḍā also assigns יהודים YEHUDIM hidden control of modern finance. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum identifies false accusations that יהודים YEHUDIM control politics and the world economy, foment revolutions, and direct a Jewish-Masonic plot as longstanding antisemitic conspiracy theories gathered and amplified by the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. It notes that an Arabic translation of the Protocols was available in Syria by 1925. Riḍā's 1929 assertions reproduce this conspiracy pattern. The chronology makes circulation possible but does not by itself prove his direct source. These collective accusations are evidence of Riḍā's Jew-hatred, not proof that such a network existed. The Jesuit comparison begins on this page and continues on p. 388.

Economic history also challenges Riḍā's more specific claim that Jews established the modern financial system. Larry Neal traces central instruments of modern international finance to medieval Italian city-states, where merchants developed the foreign bill of exchange and public authorities developed forms of sovereign debt. The later centers shifted to the Low Countries and Great Britain. This does not deny Jewish participation in finance. It shows that the system had multiple institutions, peoples, and centers and cannot be assigned to Jews as a collective creation.

Riḍā's description of Catholic belief also compresses papal authority and infallibility. Vatican I's Pastor aeternus defines infallibility when the pope speaks ex cathedra as pastor and teacher of all Christians and defines a doctrine of faith or morals for the whole Church. It does not declare every papal judgment infallible or require general political obedience to the pope. The document states Catholic doctrine; it does not independently judge how Catholics acted in politics.