On War Against the Turk

On War Against the Turk

Author	Martin Luther
Original title	Vom Kriege wider die Türken
Country	Holy Roman Empire
Language	German
Genre	War Religion
Publication date	1528

On War Against the Turk (German: Vom Kriege wider die Türken) was a book written by Martin Luther in 1528 and published in 1529. 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 Vienna in 1529.

Content

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. 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."

— Thomas More.

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.

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. 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 Christians live."

— Excerpt from On war against the Turk, 1529.

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". 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 half-man".

He also argued that the fight against the Turks should not be a holy war, but only a secular one, made in self-defense, 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, 1529.

External links

• On War against the Turk (English translation)

References

• Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, 1521–1532, Minneapolis: Fortess Press, 1994, ISBN 0-8006-2814-4.
• William Miller The Ottoman Empire and Its Successors, 1801-1927 Routledge, 1966 ISBN 0-7146-1974-4
• Daniel Goffman The Ottoman Empire and early modern Europe Cambridge University Press, 2002 ISBN 0-521-45908-7
• Andrew Cunningham, Ole Peter Grell The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: Religion, War, Famine and Death in Reformation Europe Cambridge University Press, 2000 ISBN 0-521-46701-2