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Knights Templar, Hawala & The Origins of Modern Banking
The subject of Hawala and alternative remittance systems has got my mind going on overdrive. Whenever I learn a nice solid new concept like this, my brain will tend to leaf through old information and try to apply it to things which have been left laying around.
This line on the Hawala Wikipedia page intrigued me:
“Its origins are not entirely clear, but it is believed to have arisen first in the financing of long-distance trade around the emerging capital trade centers in the early medieval period. Hawala is mentioned in texts of Islamic jurisprudence as early as the 8th century.”
This called to mind conspiracy readings I’d once engaged in on the subject of the mysterious Knights Templar, the powerful religious order of monks and knights who in many ways were responsible for the origins of modern banking in Europe. Legend goes that they became wealthy because they re-discovered hidden treasures left by Solomon under the Temple in Jerusalem. Whether or not that’s a legend, the truth is that they became fantastically wealthy and powerful. And I wonder if a Hawala-like system of financial organization and trade may have been at least partly responsible.
By 1150, the Order’s original mission of guarding pilgrims had changed into a mission of guarding their valuables through an innovative way of issuing letters of credit, an early precursor of modern banking. Pilgrims would visit a Templar house in their home country, depositing their deeds and valuables. The Templars would then give them an encrypted letter which would describe their holdings. While traveling, the pilgrims could present the letter to other Templars along the way, to “withdraw” funds from their account. This kept the pilgrims safe since they were not carrying valuables, and further increased the power of the Templars.
The Knights’ involvement in banking grew over time into a new basis for money, as Templars became increasingly involved in banking activities.
Compare that again to the CBC description of how a Hawala works:
When a person wishes to transfer money, the thakedar of one hawala contacts his counterpart in the other location. This is now usually done via e-mail. Within minutes, the originating thakedar gets a response from the recipient thakedar, confirming that there is enough cash on hand to complete the transfer. To verify the transaction, a password is shared among the donor, the recipient and the two thakedars. The recipient must provide his thakedar with the password to receive the money. The system is based on trust between the two thakedars, in a relationship that develops over the years. The cash debt is settled later between the two thakedars.
This to me feels like a direct hit: an obvious correlation between the history of the Templars, modern banking and the Hawala system. If there’s anything to this theory, we ought to be able to find some more detailed records or perhaps discussion of the evolution of the Templar banking system. And maybe we could even find out where they learned it; did they learn it from the Arabs who they were sent to conquer? Chances are more than good, I would say.
- Lending, Secret Societies, Canon Law
- Knights Templar Goldmine
- Knights Templar & the Jolly Roger
- Hawala & Islamic Prohibitions on Usury
- Templar-Osama Duel
- Prev: Hawala & Al Qaeda
- Next: Bank Fees vs. Taxes
October 14th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
This is really intriguing to me. This fearmongering rant says with no cite that hawala developed in response to the Templars’ banking network, so that’s another possibility.
I see lots of people asserting this link online, but no cites!
October 15th, 2007 at 12:02 am
This post is gold. I’m not even sure where to start with it.
Yes it feels like a direct hit to me as well. My head is kind of reeling from taking it all in. I think we really need to think about religion as a social phenomenon in considering the origins of banking…
It HAD to be Knights, Tim. Do you understand? The code of conduct, the ethics, the martial training, the ability to keep secrets, the integrity, etc. And also, it had to be a religion. Not that musty old Christianity that turned away from science during the dark ages, but the new, fresh (400 years old as of the knights templar) faith that was studying things like math and science during the same time. It just makes too much sense.
I’m searching for words for the panorama of significance I see before me in all this, and its difficult. Religion was a necessary social precondition for the advent of banking systems though, I can see that. And Islam was a necessary catalyst, in the end it brought us fully into the enlightenment before it was surpassed:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Enlightenment
The great mystery to me is, what was the religious orientation of the Knights Templar? I sense that religion was important because I believe that faith was essential to establishing the amount of trust that made the original hawala system work, (and thus the Knights system) but they were “heretics” in the sense that they turned from Christianity in cultivating a Muslim idea, which they obviously did in some secrecy. These knights must have had religious ideas that deviated from the mainstream religious thought of their times. Could this TRULY be the origins, at least ideologically of the Masonic belief system, where numerous religions are tolerated? That would be some interesting shit, seeing masons tied to the origins of banking…
October 15th, 2007 at 4:44 am
This is an enormous subject. I mean, you start with the Templars and all of a sudden you’ve got the Grail legend, Good King Richard, nasty Prince John and the whole legend of Robin Hood who stole from the rich to give to the poor. And it’s all about wealth…
October 15th, 2007 at 9:23 am
Wow, you’re right. 100%. I have the book “The Rosicrucian Enlightenment” but I have not yet read it. It’s one of the few researched links I’ve seen between secret societies and the birth of modern science & the Enlightenment. But I’ve never seen anybody connect in a historically authentic way those guys to the origins of banking as well, the rise of the merchant class, and the modern system of nation states.
October 15th, 2007 at 10:02 am
> secret societies and the birth of modern science
I read a good book on this called ‘The Invisible College’, author Robert Lomas. But banking fits the profile too: just think awhile about the emphasis on secret means for freemasons to identify each other securely.
October 15th, 2007 at 10:35 am
See:
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007...tronic-data-handshakes-and-passcodes/
http://www.timboucher.com/journal/2007...4/manners-are-ritual-value-exchanges/
October 15th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
[…] Role of the Knights Templar and consequent secret societies in the origins of modern banking […]
October 16th, 2007 at 3:51 am
Huh, that’s why it’s called handshaking…
The algebra and geometry thing is certainly interesting. These things have subtle and powerful effects, like ideas about the shape of the Earth and its place in the universe. Y’know, there’s a school of thought that reckons WWII was actually all about quantum mechanics vs. relativity. Apparently Einstein’s geometrical theory of smoothly curving spacetime was viewed with deep suspicion by the Nazis, a kind of inferior science of an inferior people. Hiroshima is then the natural culmination of these thought patterns.
October 16th, 2007 at 10:15 am
Wow, that’s nuts.
October 16th, 2007 at 7:20 pm
Just in time and only $8,300.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-10-12-papers_N.htm?csp=34
Another new conspiracy theory! An embarassment of riches already! So, what’s the outcome of our current thought patterns?
January 11th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
[…] The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller (also, Hospitalier) were two of the most influential military/religious orders, founded to protect and care for pilgrims. The Templars became so wealthy and powerful that the Church eventually disbanded and persecuted them as a threat to Papal power, but not before they laid the foundations for modern banking: […]