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

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التي انتظم في سلكها الملايين من النصارى ومن غيرهم وأكثرهم لا يشعرون، لذلك بذلوا جهدهم في السعي لكشف الأستار عن أسرارها، وجاهدوا بأموالهم وأنفسهم لصد تيارها، بتتبع عوارها، وتقليم أظفارها، وتحريم الدخول فيها على من يدينون دينهم الكاثوليكي ويقلدونهم في فهمهم وعملهم به، وقد توسلوا إلى معرفة أسرارها بعقيدة الاعتراف الديني الذي استباح به كثير من الكاثوليك الحنث بالأيمان المغلظة، ونقض العهود الموثقة، بترجيح العقيدة الدينية على ما عاهدوا عليه الجمعية، ولا سيما وقت الاحتضار، حيث يغلب خوف النار على ذلك العار.

من خفي عليه نفوذ اليهود في أحرار أوربة الغربية والوسطى وملاحدتهم وما كان من حربهم للكنيسة الكاثوليكية في القرون الوسطى، فلا أراه يخفى عليه ما كان من نفوذهم في ملاحدة الروس الذين أضعفوا سلطة الكنيسة الأرثوذكسية بمجلس الدوما، ثم أسقطوها بثل عرش القياصرة - دعاتها وحماتها - وتأسيس حكم البلشفية في تلك الممالك الواسعة، وما كان من نفوذهم في ملاحدة الترك بإسقاط نفوذ الخلافة التركية العثمانية، ثم بهدم الشريعة الإسلامية من المملكة التركية، وجعل حكومتها إلحادية تسعى لمحو الإسلام من الشعب التركي ومن الشعوب الأعجمية الإسلامية التي كانت تابعة لها كالألبان والبوشناق وغيرها كالإيرانيين والأفغانيين.

وهم - أعني اليهود - لا يزالون يدينون الله تعالى بتأسيس ملك ديني مدني في فلسطين، يكون ملكهم فيه المسيح الذي ينتظرونه منذ ألوف السنين، كما ينتظر جماعة النصارى والمسلمين المسيح الحق عيسى بن مريم عليه السلام، الذي ورد في الأحاديث أنه سيقتل مسيح اليهود الدجال - أي الذي ينصبونه في فلسطين - فعقائد الملل الثلاث في هذه المسألة متعارضة؛ ولكن المسلمين والنصارى فيها متفقان على تكفير اليهود بجحود المسيح الحق - وهو عيسى بن مريم البتول عليه وعليها السلام - والطعن فيهما، وكل منهم يؤمن به، على الاختلاف المعروف بينهما في صفته، وإنما نقول هذا لبيان الواقع المعروف لا لتحريض الفريقين عليهم، على أنهم استخدموا دول النصارى فظاهرتهم على المسلمين.

(8) كان اليهود متكلين على ما في كتب أنبيائهم من الإنباء بمجيء مسيح (مسيا) يعيد مُلك إسرائيل سيرته الأولى ويجمع أشتات أسباطهم ... ويعتقدون أن

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whose ranks include millions of Christians and others, most without realizing it. The Jesuits therefore exerted themselves to uncover its secrets and spent their wealth and lives to stem its advance by pursuing its faults, clipping its claws, and forbidding Catholics who follow their understanding and practice of the faith from joining it. They sought its secrets through the practice of religious confession. Through this, many Catholics considered themselves permitted to break solemn oaths and binding covenants, preferring religious belief to their pledges to the association, especially at the approach of death, when fear of the fire overcomes fear of disgrace.

Anyone who does not see Jewish influence over the freethinkers and atheists of Western and Central Europe, or their war on the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages, should still see their influence over the Russian atheists, who weakened the Orthodox Church through the Duma and then overthrew it by toppling the throne of the tsars, its supporters and protectors, and establishing Bolshevik rule in those vast lands. Their influence over Turkish atheists likewise brought down the authority of the Ottoman Turkish caliphate, removed Islamic law from the Turkish state, and made its government atheistic, seeking to erase Islam from the Turkish people and from non-Arab Muslim peoples formerly subject to it, such as Albanians and Bosniaks, as well as from others, such as Iranians and Afghans.

They, meaning the Jews, still regard it as a duty before God to establish a religious and civil kingdom in Palestine, ruled by the Messiah for whom they have waited thousands of years. The Christian and Muslim communities likewise await the true Messiah, Jesus son of Mary, peace be upon him. According to hadith reports, he will kill the Jewish messiah, the Antichrist, meaning the figure whom they will install in Palestine. The beliefs of the three communities conflict on this matter. But Muslims and Christians both regard the Jews as unbelievers for denying the true Messiah, Jesus son of the Virgin Mary, peace be upon them both, and speaking against them. Each believes in Jesus, despite their known disagreement about his nature. We say this to describe what is known, not to incite the two groups against the Jews, although the Jews have used Christian states to support them against Muslims.

(8) The Jews relied on prophecies in the books of their prophets about the coming of a Messiah who would restore the kingdom of Israel to its former state and gather their scattered tribes. They believe that

Analysis

Riḍā portrays the Jesuits as the only group that recognized a supposed Jewish Masonic plot. Pope Leo XIII's 1884 encyclical Humanum genus shows formal Catholic opposition to Freemasonry and says earlier popes had forbidden Catholic membership since 1738. It attributes that policy to the papacy and the wider Church, not to an exclusive Jesuit discovery, and it does not allege Jewish direction. The encyclical is itself a polemical primary source for Catholic policy, not neutral proof of Masonic aims.

Riḍā also says Jesuits learned Masonic secrets through sacramental confession. The 1917 Code of Canon Law, in force when he wrote, declared the seal inviolable, bound everyone who learned confessional material, and prohibited a confessor from using such knowledge even without risk of disclosure. The law does not prove that no breach ever occurred, but it conflicts with his portrayal of confession as an authorized means for institutional intelligence. He provides no named example.

He extends hidden Jewish agency to the fall of Russian and Turkish religious authority. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum describes the charge that יהודים YEHUDIM caused communism and plotted the Bolshevik Revolution as the false accusation called “Judeo-Bolshevism.” It distinguishes the tsar's abdication amid a popular uprising from the later Bolshevik seizure of power. Riḍā's collective assignment of Jewish agency repeats that conspiracy claim.

Marc David Baer's study of Dönme conspiracy theories says opponents portrayed the Salonican Young Turks as a cabal of secret Jews after the 1908 constitutional revolution and later extended the charge to Atatürk and the secular republic. This closely matches Riḍā's account of Jewish influence over Turkish atheists who ended the caliphate and Islamic law. The comparison identifies the conspiracy tradition. It does not deny every individual Dönme or Jewish role in Ottoman politics.

Riḍā then describes Jewish hopes for restored rule through a messiah. His assertion that he does not mean to incite Muslims and Christians is part of his own presentation. It does not erase the collective accusations. The final paragraph begins a contrast between waiting for divine action and organized Zionist action, which continues on p. 389.

Ezekiel 37 supplies a direct scriptural parallel to the restoration outline. Verses 21-28 describe gathering the Children of Israel from the nations, making them one nation in the land, placing one king over them, and naming David as their king. This supports Riḍā's narrower claim that Jewish scripture contains a gathered-restoration hope under a Davidic ruler. It does not show that all Jews in 1929 held one messianic program or that the prophecy itself called for political action through Zionism.

Sahih Muslim 2937a supplies the narrower report that Jesus will kill al-Dajjāl at the gate of Ludd. The report does not call al-Dajjāl a Jewish messiah, say that Jews install him in ארץ ישראל EREẒ YISRAʾEL, or contain Riḍā's parenthetical explanation. Those elements are Riḍā's interpretation of the tradition.

The documented mechanism of the Turkish reforms was republican legislation. The Turkish Grand National Assembly enacted the abolition of the caliphate on 1924-03-03, and Turkish institutional histories place the wider legal and religious changes within decisions by the republican leadership and assembly. This record identifies Turkish actors and institutions. It supplies no evidence for Riḍā's allegation that hidden Jewish influence caused the abolition or the reform program.