CHAPTER 4. OTHER RELIGIONS • Mehmet Bulut Ottoman-Dutch economic relations: in the early modern period 1571-1699 Uitgeverij
Verloren, 2001 ISBN 90-6550-655-1 • Charles Ralph Boxer The Dutch seaborne empire, 1600-1800 Taylor & Francis, 1977 ISBN 0-09- • Benjamin Schmidt Innocence abroad: the Dutch imagination and the New World, 1570-1670 Cambridge University Press, 2001 ISBN 0-521-80408-6
• Daniel Goffman The Ottoman Empire and early modern Europe Cambridge University Press, 2002 • Jonathan Burton Traffic and Turning: Islam and English Drama, 1579-1624 University of Delaware
Press, 2005 ISBN 0-87413-913-9 • Karen Ordahl Kupperman The Jamestown project Harvard University Press, 2007 ISBN 0-674-02474- • Jack Goody Islam in Europe Polity Press, 2004,
ISBN 978-0-7456-3193-6 • Geoffrey Parker, Lesley M. Smith The General crisis of the seventeenth century Routledge, 1978 ISBN 0- • Wittenburg and Mecca issue of Logia: A Journal of On War Against the Turk
On War Against the Turk (German: Vom Kriege wider die Türken) was a book written by Martin Luther in 1528 and published in 1529.[1] It was one of several pamphlets and sermons by Martin Luther about Islam and resistance to the Ottoman Empire, during the critical period of territorial expansion of the Ottoman Empire in Europe, marked by the capture of Buda in 1526 and the Siege of Initially, in his 1518 Explanation of the Ninety-five Theses, Luther had argued against resisting the Turks, whom he presented as a scourge intentionally sent by God to sinning Christians, and that resisting it would have been equivalent to resisting the will of God.[2] This position had been initially shared by Erasmus as well, but was strongly criticized by authors such as Thomas More:
"It is a gentle holiness to abstain for devotion from resisting the Turk, and in the meanwhile to rise up in routs and fight against Christian men, and destroy as that sect has done, many a good religious house, spoiled, maimed and slain many a good virtuous man, robbed, polluted, and pulled down many a goodly church of Christ."
With the Turkish advance becoming ever more threatening, however, in 1528 Luther modified his stance and wrote On War against the Turk and in 1529 Sermon against the Turk, encouraging the German people and Emperor Charles V to resist the invasion.[4]
Compared with his anger over what he perceived as the annoying-but-not-incurable stubbornness of Judaism, Luther's positions against Islam portrayed an attitude of hopelessness and acceptance of failure, resulting in milder condemnation.[5] On the one hand Luther extensively criticized the principles of Islam, but on the other hand he also expressed a view that the practice of the Islamic faith was not worth the effort to combat as strongly:
"Let the Turk believe and live as he will, just as one lets the papacy and other false — Excerpt from On war against the Turk,
In On War Against the Turk, Luther is actually less critical of the Turks than he is of the Pope, whom he calls an anti-Christ, or the Jews, whom he describes as "the Devil incarnate".[7] He urges his contemporaries to also see that some Turks, guided by their beliefs, actually had good intentions. He refers to some who were favorable to the Ottoman Empire "who actually want the Turk to come and rule, because they think that our German people are wild and uncivilized - indeed that they are half-devil and halfman".[8]
He also argued that the fight against the Turks should not be a holy war, but only a secular one, made in selfdefense, and led by the secular authorities of the Emperor and the Princes, and strongly warned against leading it as a religious war:
"...as though our people were an army of Christians against the Turks, who were enemies of Christ. This is absolutely contrary to Christ's doctrine and name"
— Excerpt from On war against the Turk,