The Dark Roots of Anti-Semitism

The neo-pagan movement born in the 19th century maintained that European societies should return to pre-Christian paganism. Some neo-pagans, inimical to Divine religions such as Judaism and Christianity, favored the barbarian lifestyle of pagan societies. The Nazi propaganda poster (top right) equates the SS with ancient pagan warriors.

The ideology known as anti-Semitism is a pagan teaching that no Muslim could possibly adopt.

To realize that, we need to examine the roots of anti-Semitism. The term is generally understood to mean "hatred of Jews," though it really means "hatred of the Semites", in other words, of all Semitic peoples: Arabs, Jews and some other Middle Eastern ethnic groups. There are close similarities between Semitic cultures and languages. For example, Arabic and Hebrew closely resemble one another.

The second great linguistic and racial group that has influenced world history is the Indo-European, including most of the nations in present-day Europe.  

Prophets have come to all these different civilizations and societies to tell them about the existence and oneness of God and His commands. From the written record, however, we see that Indo-European nations have held pagan beliefs since very ancient times. The Greek and Roman civilizations, the barbarian German tribes and the Vikings who lived in northern Europe at around the same time, all held polytheistic pagan beliefs. That explains why those societies were devoid of any moral criteria. They regarded violence and savagery as justified and praiseworthy, and widely engaged in immoral practices such as homosexuality and adultery. (We must never forget that the Roman Empire, widely regarded as the most advanced of the Indo-European civilizations, was a savage society in which human beings were tortured and torn apart in the arenas for public entertainment.)

Friedrich Nietzsche, one of the leaders of the neo-pagan movement in 19th-century Europe.

These pagan tribes dominating Europe came to believe in one God only under the influence of Jesus (pbuh) who was sent down as a prophet to the Semites and the children of Israel. He himself was racially and linguistically a Jew. His message gradually spread over Europe, and one by one, formerly pagan tribes came to accept Christianity. (We should make it clear that at this point, Christianity had been corrupted, and included in its teachings was the twisted idea of the Trinity).

In the 18th and 19th centuries, however, Christianity weakened throughout Europe. Along with the growing strength of ideologies and philosophies that supported atheism, a peculiar movement was born: Neo-paganism. That movement's leaders maintained that European societies needed to reject Christianity and revert to their ancient pagan beliefs. According to the neo-pagans, the ethical understanding of the pagan European societies was superior to that which emerged later, after they turned to Christianity.

One of the main representatives of that trend, and also one of the principal theoreticians of fascism, was Friedrich Nietzsche. Implacably hostile to Christianity, he believed that this religion had destroyed the warrior spirit of the German race and therefore, its so-called "noble essence." He attacked Christianity in his book The Antichrist and glorified ancient pagan philosophy in Thus Spake Zarathustra. (Zoroastrianism, widespread in ancient Persia, was one of the pagan religions of Indo-European culture).

The neo-pagans also harbored great hatred for Judaism, which they regarded as the basic root of Christianity, which they considered a "Jewish conspiracy" and even described as "the world being conquered by the Jewish idea." (Without question, the neo-pagans also hated Islam, the sole true religion, in much the same way.)

This neo-pagan movement fanned the flames of anti-religious hatred and also gave birth to the ideologies of fascism and anti-Semitism. Examining the foundations of Nazi ideology in particular, it is quite clear that Hitler and his partisans were pagans in the true sense of the word.

The Nazis' devotion to neo-pagan teachings was the main reason for their hostility towards the Jews. Throughout the years of Nazi rule, spectacles reminiscent of ancient pagan ceremonies were staged all over Germany. The opening ceremony of the Berlin Olympics, shown here, was one of these.