The Crescent and the Compass: Islam, Freemasonry, Esotericism and Revolution in the Modern Age

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A timely survey of radical spirituality and political activism in Islam and the West over the last century and a half, The Crescent and the Compass uncovers numerous previously unknown and unexplored connections between European, American, and Muslim movements, organizations, secret societies, and thinkers. Subjects covered include Ayatollah Khomeini and Islamic mysticism, Sufism and Shi'ism, the influence of the ideas of René Guénon, a former Catholic and Freemason, and convert to Sufism, and Charles, the Prince of Wales, Traditionalism and Islamic spirituality. At the heart of the book, however, are the many connections, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, between various Muslim revolutionaries and Freemasonry, a fraternal movement that was influential in the spiritual and occult avant-garde of Western Europe and America. The Crescent and the Compass not only explores how revolutionaries and anti-colonialists, such as Sayyid Jamal ad-Din al-Afghani, attempted to mold Masonic Lodges for political aims, but how interpretations of Islam and Freemasonry converged in the writings and practices of such figures as poet and occultist Aleister Crowley, Noble Drew Ali, founder of the faith of Moorish Science in the USA, Abdullah Quilliam, Shaykh-ul-Islam of the British Isles, and, as anti-Freemasonry, in the contemporary Takfiri, Islamist movement. Exploring one of the least documented yet one of the most important historical chapters of the modern era, the picture that emerges will challenge the way reader looks at the Middle East and Islam, and their relationship to the West. Angel Millar is the author of Freemasonry: Foundation of the Western Esoteric Tradition (2014) and Freemasonry: A History (2005). His articles and papers have been published in The Journal of Indo-European Studies, and by Eurasian Review dot com, among others.