“It says that assistance can be obtained from ‘D’. Any idea what that is talking about?” asked Gary.
“Maybe, it is the Dutch?” ventured Gwyn.
“It’s possible, but it’s not critical to understanding the message,” replied Zeki.
“But, why did they abandon it?” asked Matt again.
Zeki sighed. “All we can do is speculate. Maybe they had hoped to use it to make Christians in their own realm accept Islam, but finally decided it might backfire. Maybe the plan was to retake Spain or use it in Hungary, but the political tailwinds turned to headwinds. Maybe there was internal division about how to implement the project or maybe there were theological disputes. Who knows? It could have been anything. What is clear is that they didn’t want anyone to know of the existence of such a plot.”
“Why not?” asked Gary.
“Why not?” repeated Matt, “I’ll tell you why. How do you think this news would have played out in the West? Just imagine the headlines. ‘Ottoman Empire rewrites Gospel to attract Europeans to Islam.’ By the 17th century, the Industrial Revolution was cranking out a military machine the Ottomans could not have matched if the Europeans joined forces. And, religious sentiment was still strong enough to make this happen. We already know that the only thing which did bring the Europeans together was the Crusades, a common enemy, a common threat.”
“Exactly,” said Zeki.
“Tell me this,” said Matt, turning to Gary. “If, as Zeki says, many Muslims today believe the G.O.B. is the real gospel, how did that happen if the whole project was canceled?”
“Except for the 1634 Morisco document, there is no mention of it in the Muslim world. Their erasure, if you will, was quite thorough. If the Italian version had not been preserved by Prince Eugene, modern-day Muslims would be totally ignorant of its existence along with the rest of the world. However, it was translated into English by Raggs in 1907. No sooner had it been printed in English than an Arabic translation from the English was executed in Egypt. From there, it spread like wildfire through the Muslim world. Of course, the translators left out the introduction by Raggs, which detailed all of the reasons to believe it was a fraud, and the next thing you know, the front pages of Pakistani newspapers are publishing whole chapters of it. It spread over the entire Muslim world.”
“Like we said,” remarked Matt dryly, “if it says what people already believe is true, then it’s an easy sell. Regardless of what the original project aimed to accomplish, now the news is out and everyone believes it. Ironic, isn’t it. They tried to destroy it in the 17th century. Yet now, they’re trying to protect it by hiding their involvement. You wouldn’t want to upset what people believe with the document Prof. O’Brien found.”
“I understand that,” said Gwyn, “But there is already plenty of internal evidence, everything points to a forgery. Why would the document my father found make any difference?”
“Oh, it would be quite damning,” responded Zeki, “I’m also convinced now that the book is a forgery. We have used inductive reasoning to arrive at this conclusion and the evidence is persuasive, but until your father discovered this document, there was no direct evidence outside of the text of the G.O.B. itself. A document written in Ottoman Turkish that relates a secret plot to destroy evidence of the forgery. Now that is explosive. It couldn’t be good for interfaith relations, especially now with tensions between Islam and the West rivaling that of the Middle Ages.”
“Can you imagine,” asked Matt, “how this would fuel the fires in anti-Muslim sentiment in the Bible Belt? With mosques being built all over the country and Muslims having a much higher profile in the government, I can definitely see why this would make waves. I doubt even the US government would be happy for a thing like this to come out.”
“Wait a minute,” exclaimed Gilbert, startling everyone by breaking his silence so suddenly. “There is some UN project . . . Oh, what was it called . . . It will be unveiled next month with a bunch of fanfare in New York. Our company is providing security for the event. ‘Tolerance and Unity in a Multicultural World.’ It’s a global pact of some sort. The UN is billing it as a move towards interfaith dialogue built on the foundations laid by the Prime Ministers of Turkey and Spain after 911. Muslims are playing a prominent role.”
“You mean, preach peace and prepare for war,” said Matt grimly. Gilbert had obviously touched a nerve. “I don’t believe the Muslim world wants dialogue. I was in the State Department. I know how this game is played. I’ll believe they want dialogue when Saudi Arabia allows Buddhist temples or Christian churches. No offense to our friend here,” he said, pointing to Zeki, “But all this stuff about tolerance is B.S. pure and simple. There is not a single gesture on their part to show tolerance. Millions of petro-dollars from the Saudi government are funneled into building mosques in the States, and yet you can’t even carry a Bible, much less build a church in their country. Ninety-five percent of the terrorist acts in the world, maybe more, are committed by Muslims. They expect freedom of religion when they are in the West, but won’t give a square inch of land to ensure others enjoy the same freedom in their own country. I don’t know what their Prophet says about that, but I’m pretty sure Jesus would call it hypocrisy.”
“Whatever,” said Gilbert, trying to ease the tension. “Maybe the reason they are so desperate to keep this from coming to light is because of what it would do to the launch of this initiative.”
“I’ll research it when we’re done here,” said Gary, scribbling on a notepad. Gilbert fell silent again.
CHAPTER
51
Zeki cleared his throat when it was evident that no one else was going to talk. “I must beg your indulgence. I’ve been holding back two pieces of information waiting to see where all of this was going. Now that we have gained some clarity, it is time to give the tale a Turkish twist. I remembered something related to G.O.B. back in the mid-80s in Turkey, so I did a little research on the plane to find the details. In 1986, the Turkish military claimed that a Syriac copy of the Gospel of Barnabas had been found near Hakkari.”
Gwyn raised an eyebrow and bit her lip as she twirled a pencil between her fingers, “That’s odd. I didn’t see that in my research.”
“I’m sure you didn’t,” continued Zeki. “The reason is because this extraordinary claim was later retracted when it became clear that the manuscript they found was merely the canonical Bible. However, the retraction didn’t make headline news like the discovery did.”
“Typical disinformation tactic,” observed Matt.
“If you had conducted your search in Turkish,” continued Zeki. “You would have found dozens of websites still claiming that this Syriac bible is the real Gospel of Barnabas. The book is supposedly held by the military.”
“The military?” asked a perplexed Gwyn. “Why would they be holding a religious document?”
“Because the military was the ‘shadow of Atatürk’. The fact that the military is still holding it and won’t release it is a huge controversy, fodder for more conspiracy actually. Some say the military is being pressured to keep it silent by this or that group—NATO, the Vatican, the Masons, or whatever group you want to demonize. In the end though, it doesn’t matter what the facts are. Truth is created in people’s minds. Have you ever heard of repetition-induced belief?” he asked.
“Yeah, it’s a well-documented psychological phenomenon,” replied Gary. “People have to use an information filter to make sense of all the competing truth claims they encounter, for example, whether Nokia or Samsung phones are better. As a result, subconsciously, they tend to believe the things they hear repeated. They figure that if multiple sources report the same thing as true then its chances of being true are much higher.”
“Exactly. Now let me ask you a question. Do you believe that Neil Armstrong is a Muslim?”
Zeki waited a minute for a reaction. No one said anything although he could tell from the grimace on Matt’s face that he was tempted.
“You don’t believe that, do you?”
“This is the first time I have heard it,” said Gwyn.
“My point exactly,” said Zeki. “But, if you were to ask people on the street in Turkey, nine out of ten would say, ‘Yes, he’s a Muslim. He converted when he heard the call to prayer on the moon.’”
“He did?” asked Gwyn, with a puzzled look of disbelief on her face.
“You don’t believe it because it doesn’t fit your understanding of the facts and because you are hearing it for the first time from me, a Turkish Muslim. But, imagine you were a Turk and had heard this from your local imam, had seen it in print, had heard it discussed on TV programs and your neighbors and friends had relayed the story.”
“I see your point,” said Gwyn. “Of course, I would want to believe that God had confirmed his message miraculously to an infidel on the moon and that he had responded in faith.”
“No one cares that Armstrong wrote letters disavowing it because they’ve never heard of those letters. What they
have
heard, again and again, is that Armstrong converted to Islam, and since this is what they want to believe, the standard of proof is much lower than it would normally be.”
Zeki continued pacing back and forth, speaking rapidly and with great confidence.
“I really don’t think that Turkey’s secular army invented this claim to have found the G.O.B. because they have some desire to see radical Islam rise in Turkey. They are the guardians of the secular state. But, in the mid-eighties, when this ‘discovery’ happened, Turkey had just come back from the brink of a leftist revolt and revolution was in the air. The people were tired of the elected elite fleecing them like sheep and many were turning to socialism and communism. I think that the claim made in 1986 was an attempt to stir up religious sentiment. We know that the rise of communism was viewed as a threat by both Islam and capitalism, making Muslim countries junior partners, if you will, in the crusade against atheism. European elites opposed communism too, but the common man in Europe was much more sympathetic.”
Zeki paused to let it all sink in. Matt turned to Gary and picked up where Zeki had left off.
“This was only a couple of years after the attempted assassination of the Pope, so you’ll remember the context. At the time, the State Department actively courted Muslim countries to form an alliance with Islam. It was the perfect flanking maneuver, as it ensured that Russia would not have access to warm sea ports. Turkey was the cornerstone of the Islamic alliance, not only because it bordered Russia but because it was the only NATO member country that was predominately Muslim. Hell, we even kept tactical nuclear weapons at the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey. But, if a socialist revolution had taken place in Turkey, this entire strategy would have been jeopardized. Zeki is saying that the elites used religion to turn the ideological tide against communism and atheism by resurrecting proof that God, or Allah, or whatever you want to call him, had affirmed the truth of their faith. Maybe the supposed discovery of a Syriac Gospel of Barnabas was a shot in the arm, a morale booster, if you will, an event staged to put the G.O.B. back in the headlines.”
“There is something else,” Zeki said, “I have saved it for now. I hope you’ll agree that I made the right decision. Remember how I said that the key logger Gilbert managed to install indicated this group was trying to steal something from Augustinerlesesaal?”
“I do,” said Gary, “But I forgot to research it.”
“Augustinerlesesaal,” said Zeki, “Is the reading room of the Austrian National Library.”
Gary’s eyes widened.
“And, what are they planning on stealing?” asked Matt.
“Oh my God!” exclaimed Gary. “That is where the Italian version of the G.O.B. is kept.”
“Exactly.” replied Zeki.
“They want to steal it?” asked Matt.
“Yes, and you are going to tell me why,” replied Zeki, “In the Turkish portion of the key-logger data from Gilbert, they said that an appointment had been made at the Augustinerlesesaal in four days and that the appointment was made in the name of a priest—Luigi Franchini.”
“A priest!” said Matt incredulously. Everyone could see the wheels turning in his mind. When the light came on, it was accompanied by a string of curses. “The low-life bastards!”