Tolkien and Islam

Tolkien and Islam

It is well known that Tolkien said that he ‘cordially despised allegory in all it’s forms’.  However he was not always entirely true to this.  ‘Leaf by Niggle’ a well loved short story of his is clearly and unambiguously allegorical, and probably semi-autobiographical in its expression of what seems likely to be his own feelings about his work, constantly erasing and reworking, refining but never complete or satisfied.

It is also clear from his writings and the great amount of work that has been done on the sources of his huge range of imagery that his work is filled with imaginative versions of things he had known and seen in his life.  I have made a small contribution on this subject myself

http://cosmicclaire.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/tolkien-and-headingley.html

of local landscapes and landmarks that are likely to have had some influence as sources since they are things that he experienced in his daily life, and which bear striking resemblances to actual locations and things in Middle Earth.

Allegory can blend with unconscious reference and half remembered image so that a piece can be a combination of many ideas.  Tolkien did not deny that there was a moral meaning to his tales and it is clear that his world is a representation of the Catholic universe before the Incarnation of Jesus.  (I think he might have even said that.)

Just as with, in The Hobbit, he drew unashamedly from literary sources such as the Eddas and Beowulf, we should not be surprised if in his works there are unconscious references to the historical world that we know, or simply contextual embedding of geographical patterns and the cultures that inhabit them.

The geography of Middle Earth in the Third Age has an overall layout which is reminiscent of Europe and the Middle East, as it might have been after the sinking of Atlantis, the race memory which he translated into the Fall of Numenor.  The languages were where it all started and these principally began with Finnish, Welsh and Norse tongues, and his world is built around the kind of people he thought would speak them.

So it is not pushing Tolkien too far in my view to suggest that the geographical and cultural references may have more detail, texture and depth than the simple and obvious facts of the Shire representing England and so forth.

As an Art Therapist I have spent much time looking at images and finding hidden material.  Some might be my own projection, but some were undoubtedly there waiting for me to find.

Ever since I first saw the map of Middle Earth in The Lord of The Rings as a child, I have always been aware of the similarity in shape between Mordor and Turkey.  One detail alone may be coincidence, but when others conform with it, the hypothesis is supported.

The separation between Mordor and Gondor is defined by the Great River which passes between them, like the Bosphorus, and Gondor stands like Constantinople facing towards the East.

Tolkien wrote LR and his whole legendarium to be a mythology for England, since it had lost so much after the Norman Invasion.  While I am content to acknowledge that it was intended as an inspiration to the English people, and a reworking of myths into literature somewhat in the way that Vaughan Williams turned folk song into symphony, it does not seem impossible that there may have been deeper purposes.

He was a lifelong Catholic from the days of his childhood when his mother converted.  It is also well known that he felt a deep sense of regret at the loss of Anglo-Saxon culture, almost as if it were something that had only happened recently and that it was his duty to restore.

Would it be so impossible that in someone so conscious of the racial, linguistic and cultural history of the peoples of Northern Europe, resonances of the various invasions from the East might be found embedded in his imagination?

The great fear of Europe was from the East.  Attila, the Saracens, Turks, Genghis Khan and the Ottomans.  Can we project that the threat of Sauron might in any way be comparable to these?  In archetypal form, these things are near identical.  It might be considered not very politically correct to suggest as much, but Tolkien clearly describes the inhabitants of Mordor, the Orcs, as swarthy and slant eyed.  We must accept that this is probably how the mediaeval Europeans saw those from the Middle East who were continually trying to invade and take over the West.  And their weapons are scimitars.

Victory for Sauron would mean the end of everything for the West.  Sauron is seen as the Antichrist, (or had Melkor not already taken that part, Satan).

A picture is building here of a demonic power, residing in a country to the East that resembles Turkey (and beyond), with swarthy inhabitants wielding scimitars.  It is the will of Sauron that all must submit to him and acknowledge him as master.  Any treaties would be worthless.  He would always make more complaints and aggression against the men of the West, as he has always harried and preyed upon them and coveted their lands.

Are you, dear reader arriving at the same conclusion as I have done?  That the demonic power of Mordor characterised by the Will of Sauron is archetypically identical with none other than that of Islam today?

I am not suggesting that this is an intentional meaning from Tolkien, but rather that it is unconsciously prophetic.  Perhaps a repeating cycle that he characterised, and which has come round again.

One last point I would like to add is to remind the reader of both Tolkien’s Catholic faith, and his devotion to the survival and meaning of Anglo-Saxon culture.  To suggest that he would agree with the current Pope that Christians should abandon their past and embrace the muslim hordes who press like orcs at our gates is to my mind, absurd.  Such a course will clearly lead to the end of European civilisation, indeed probably the European peoples.  During the Crusades, the then Pope declared Mohamed and Islam were the AntiChrist.  Saruman in the books symbolically represents the Pope who has submitted his will and is now working for the success of the Enemy.  The Lord Denethor represents the collective will of the Europeans, against this, but despairing.  I have seen a muslim site which suggested that Aragorn represented the Mahdi.  I think not, since Aragorn came to free the West from domination, but all the Mahdi would do is subject it perpetual slavery. 

If Tolkien felt so much grief about the loss of a root culture 900 years ago, how much more would he grieve for the loss of Christendom and his own people?

I would assert that it is plain for any who study the works of the Professor that he would have no truck with the politically correct movement which seeks to open the doors to invaders and betray our people.  In fact, I would go so far as to suggest that his great work, The Lord of The Rings, voted the nation’s most popular book at the millennium, is no less than a prophetic warning from the levels of deep racial memory and the collective unconscious.

Islam is the hordes of Mordor, and Sauron the guiding will of their demonic mentor, Mohamed.

There may be more symbolic meaning in the stories and images, but so far, this much is clear from many years of consideration, and I wouldn’t be surprised if thousands of Tolkienists the world over have thought it too.  But it is time to reserve those thoughts no more and speak the truth, that Islam is the Will of Sauron. 

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 My other blogs

 http://pcnewspeak.blogspot.co.uk/

Deconstruction of politically correct material, such as feminism and immigration. 

 

 http://cosmicclaire.blogspot.co.uk/

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