During the torture of an accused of heresy in the Inquisition (Getty)
Catholic courts were established by the papacy at the beginning of the 13th century and continued until the 16th century in order to “protect the purity of belief against false teachings,” and gave those in charge of them comprehensive powers to fight all those who violate them and those accused of heresy and heresy. Then the courts spread throughout Europe, but the courts of Spain in particular were historically famous for the methods of torture they used against Muslims, Jews, and Christians who disagreed with their beliefs.
When the Inquisition was first officially established, it was declared that its main purpose was to punish and prosecute heretics throughout Europe and the Americas;
The real purpose was to force people to convert to the religion of the rulers.
These courts were active in the 16th and 17th centuries when religious conflicts reached their peak in Europe and many European scientists, thinkers, and philosophers such as Giordano Bruno, Galileo Galli, and Rene Descartes became victims.
As for the victims of the Inquisition among Muslim scholars in Spain, they were too numerous to count.
The Inquisition was known for its bad reputation over the years, due to the severity of its torture and persecution of Muslims and Jews alike, the most severe of which was in Spain.
The Spanish Inquisition remained a dominant force for more than 200 years, and during that period it was said that it carried out about 32,000 executions.
It is worth noting that the Catholic Church has known 3 main Inquisition courts throughout the ages.
The most important of these was established in the form of an office with powerful authority within the Catholic Church.
Despite all the intimidating policies followed by the Spanish Inquisition, they did not succeed in achieving the goal of the Catholic Church, which is “religious and racial purity,” and its policies remained historically known as political and intellectual tyranny and ethnic cleansing under the name of “the right Catholic belief.”
The beginning of the idea of the "Inquisition"
Forcing people to convert to the religion of their rulers and follow their beliefs is a behavior that humanity has known since ancient times, but during the rule of the Germanic tribes in the Middle Ages, the need for the Inquisition did not arise due to the harsh and aggravating nature of life at that time.
The Germanic tribes were known to have stricter laws than ancient Roman law.
Therefore, heresies were almost non-existent, and one of the laws that it applied was that it obligated those who disagreed about something to fight until one of them killed the other.
Based on the fact that “God will choose the winner of the two.”
The Germans are tribes of northern European origin who settled in Lower and Upper Germany and Greater Germania, and used the Germanic language dating back to the pre-Roman Iron Age.
But the German system did not last long, as the Germans were conquered, and Roman law began to be applied during the Middle Ages.
In it, anyone who opposed the emperor's beliefs was considered an enemy of the state, as there was no separation between church and state.
Then people began to communicate with each other, education spread and thinkers appeared, and here began the emergence of heresies that conflicted with the Bible and the teachings of the Church, which necessitated the establishment of the Inquisition to stop heresies and heresies, and they were not necessarily determined by heavenly books, but rather by the balance of power, as the strongest is the one who imposes his law on everyone.
A painting by Henry Duff Linton in 1860 depicting the Spanish Inquisition’s torture of those accused of burning to death (Getty)
The first Inquisition
At the beginning of the fourth century AD, Rome was living on paganism and persecuting violators until Emperor Constantine I converted to Christianity and founded his capital, Constantinopol, and made it a purely Christian city.
The Emperor wanted to spread Christianity throughout his empire, so he began, through Christian clergy, to invite the pagans to Christianity to the point of coercion, and the Catholic Church was established to achieve this goal in Europe and all of its colonies.
In order to ensure the imposition and spread of the Catholic religion, the new church established the first courts known as the Roman Inquisition in 1542 AD to try those accused of heresy in order to preserve and defend the doctrines of the Roman Catholic Church.
In these courts, Galileo was convicted due to “dangerous suspicion of being a heretic” in 1633 AD, and all his works that showed that the Earth and other planets revolve around the sun were banned.
In 1965 AD, Pope Paul VI reorganized the Holy Office and renamed it the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and it is still active today.
Muslims in Andalusia
When Muslims conquered Andalusia;
They found a unified people ruled by colonial kings from the Vandals and Goths;
They impose the doctrine of the Trinity on him by force.
The inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula found in the religion of the new conquerors the foundations of their monotheistic belief, which they were forced to hide.
Hence, we can understand the reason that enabled the construction of a prosperous civilization that lasted for 8 centuries, in which Muslims, Christians, and Jews coexisted in peace and security.
Then the Catholic Church, in alliance with the rulers of Castile, was able to expel the Muslims from Andalusia in 1492 AD, and soon established what was called the Inquisition.
The Spanish kings guaranteed religious freedom to Muslims after the fall of Andalusia in 1492 AD, but the policies of persecution practiced by Spain pushed Muslims into a revolution in 1499 AD, which the Spanish violently suppressed, leaving Muslims between two options: either conversion to Christianity or expulsion.
A large number of Muslims chose to convert to Christianity to remain in the country, so they were called “Moorish Christians” (Moriscos). It was said that their conversion to Christianity was superficial, and they hid Islam in their hearts for fear of the terror of the Inquisition. Anyone among them who discovered their conversion to Islam was burned, tortured, and repatriated.
The Spanish Inquisition began in the 12th century and continued for hundreds of years, and its origins go back to the early organized persecution of non-Catholic Christian religions in Europe.
In 1184 AD, Pope Lucius III sent a group of bishops (a bishop is a priestly rank in the Christian religion) to southern France to track down the heretics called Cathars.
It is a word of Greek origin that means purification or purity.
The Cathars are considered the true followers of the disciples of Christ Jesus, son of Mary, peace be upon him. This movement appeared in France and Italy between the 10th and 12th centuries. It initially resisted the outcomes of the Nicene Conference, and its followers continued to practice the religion of monotheism as brought by the Prophet of God Jesus, but the Catholic Church considered them heretics. They are innovators who must be fought.
This movement spread in southern France and northern Spain in the Middle Ages, and continued until recently.
The second stage of torture in the Inquisition was by tying the accused with a rope. The tighter it was, the more it crushed his ribs.
(Getty)
These (heretics) continued to be pursued until the fourteenth century, but the bishops were unable to carry out the tasks required of them due to the territorial nature of the bishop’s authority, but they continued to be in the leadership position in the Inquisition.
During the same period, the church also tracked down the Waldensians (affiliated with the Evangelical Waldensian Church) in Germany and northern Italy, and in 1227 AD, Pope Gregory IX assigned several judges the task of tracking down heretics and their children and gave them absolute authority.
They were considered inquisitors, and among them were the Dominican friars and the Franciscan friars.
The paternal inquisitors had authority over everyone except the bishops, who had their own responsibilities and later relied on the joint conduct of tasks.
Establishment of the Inquisition in Spain
The idea of the Inquisition appeared in the 13th century AD at the hands of the Catholic Church to monitor people in the countries that were under its control. This system was initially applied in Italy, France, and Germany. The Pope of Rome assigned some bishops to travel around the country to investigate people’s news and accuse everyone whose ideas contradicted them. The Church declared disbelief and then arrested and punished him.
The Church initially held temporary church councils for the accused, which served as preliminary inquisitions, after which they were transferred to the courts, and the Church continued to pursue generations of thinkers and scholars throughout Europe.
King Ferdinand of Aragon and Queen Isabella of Castile at the time were particularly concerned with the conversions in Andalusia, hoping that a time would come when all the inhabitants of Andalusia would become Catholics throughout the peninsula.
For this reason, Isabella established a school for the fundamentals of religion to teach them. However, many of them kept their faith secret and taught it to their children.
Queen Isabella of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon (Shutterstock)
Andalusian society at that time was turbulent, as Catholics hated unbaptized Jews, and their hatred for the new Christians intensified, against whom strife broke out in Toledo (1467 AD), Valladolid (1470 AD), Cordoba (1472 AD), and Segovna (1474 AD).
Racism against religions intensified in Andalusia, so the two kings used all possible means to try to create a harmonious social mix.
Queen Isabella was a fanatical Catholic and held extreme views against those who opposed her religion, including Muslims, Jews, and other Christians.
Despite Ferdinand's doubts about these measures, he was convinced that unifying religious belief would make Spain easier to govern and more capable of overcoming its enemies.
The two kings decided that the most appropriate way to achieve their hopes of unifying the faith among the population was to establish the Inquisition in Spain. They first issued an order to expel the Jews from Spain, and many of them decided to convert to Christianity to remain in the country.
On November 1, 1478 AD, Pope Sixtus IV issued in Rome, based on the desire of the two kings, a decision to form an Inquisition of 6 priests to investigate “charges of heresy.”
At the beginning of its establishment, the court did not pay attention to Jews who had not converted to Christianity, but rather focused on converts who were suspected of converting to Islam or Judaism, or even Christians accused of heresy.
Until the year 1492 AD, the non-Christian Jew was more secure in himself than the baptized one.
On the other hand, the Jesuits resisted church laws for half a century, but they also prevailed, and the Inquisition demanded that all civil servants cooperate with them.
Before its judges arrived in a city, the church would broadcast to the people through church pulpits a religious circular “demanding everyone who has knowledge of heresy to reveal it to the investigating officers, and encouraging everyone to be a witness, to inform his neighbors, friends, and relatives.”
A drawing of a view from a Spanish Inquisition by Alessandro Magnasco, showing notaries recording the investigation (Getty)
In the year 1459 AD, King Enrique IV of Castile issued a royal order to the bishops to search and investigate in their circles about renegades harboring ideas contrary to Catholicism.
Thus began the ecclesiastical persecution against the converted Jews, and many of them were burned before the fall of Granada.
These courts at that time did not include Muslims or Mudéjars (the Muslims who remained under the rule of the Christian kingdoms in the Iberian Peninsula after the fall of Andalusia), but Pope Stycus IV soon sent a decree ordering the investigation, arrest, and punishment of those who disobeyed the Church and those who had apostates from it.
At first, Kings Ferdinand and Isabella feared for their authority and stood against this papal attempt, so they stopped the priests from following Christians of Jewish origin.
But the resistance of the two Catholic kings did not last long;
They sent their ambassador to the Pope in the year 1478 AD, and the Pope issued a decree in November 1478 AD in which he ordered the establishment of an Inquisition in Castile and the appointment of inspectors to hunt down infidels and try renegades.
Then the Pope sent inspectors to Seville, the capital of Castile at the time.
Thus, the Inquisition began its work against Muslims in Spain.
The procedures of these courts were carried out in the name of the Catholic religion, exterminating those who opposed it and its policy by confiscating their property, and ordering their torture and burning. Then these courts moved to Granada after it fell into the hands of the Spanish in 1492 AD.
The two kings entrusted the presidency of the Inquisition in Spain to the priest Thomas Dorkmada, who was notorious and known for his dictatorship and cruel methods of torture, until European sources reported that he ordered the burning of about 10,000, and the slaughter of about 6,000 accused of heresy for adhering to their Islam or Judaism, and the torture to death of about 65,000. 12,000 were hanged, and 19,000 were sentenced to life with hard sentences.
The Inquisition spread in several places, such as Portugal and the Balearic Islands, and its end was in the Iberian Peninsula, where its activity diminished due to the spread of enlightened ideas. The last victim of the Inquisition was a deistic school teacher (a monotheist of God), and he was not a Jew, as was rumored.
After that, on July 15, 1834, Queen Maria Christina decided to abolish the Inquisition and all its powers after a bloody life that lasted for three and a half centuries.
The courts initially pursued the converted Jews until Pope Stichus IV issued an order to prosecute all apostates (Getty)
Investigation of the Inquisition
When an Inquisition was conducted in an area, the inquisitor would usually announce a commutation of sentence to those who voluntarily confessed to heresy (meaning heresy or heresy in religion), in order to extract information from them about others suspected.
The investigation with the accused was distinguished by several matters:
The investigation is attended by a notary public, who is the holder of records of investigation procedures, and sworn witnesses who attest to the accuracy of the information in the record.
Suspects do not have the right to appoint a lawyer to defend them, as this lawyer may be considered an instigator of heresies.
Suspects are not told that they are accused.
The accused has the right to appeal to the Pope or seek his assistance before starting investigation procedures, but this entails significant responsibilities and expenses.
Rulings of the Inquisition
After consulting with a Sharia lawyer, there are types of defendants, and as a result the rulings differ:
The inquisitor will judge those found guilty with a public homily (a religious speech given by a priest from the Bible for spiritual formation).
As for those who were found guilty and then retracted their action, judicial penalties will be imposed on them.
The most common punishments were the Hajj of Repentance, the wearing of yellow crosses over their clothes (the accused feared this gesture because it usually led to ostracism), and imprisonment.
A torture chamber was discovered in the Chancellor's Palace in Granada, during the time of the Inquisition, and old torture tools were found in it (Getty)
The Inquisition included two types of prisons, both staffed by ordinary men:
The first type is the open prison, which consists of cells built around a large courtyard. Prisoners can enjoy a little freedom in it, but it is also highly secure.
The other type is solitary confinement. Prisoners are held in isolation and chained.
As for those who admitted their mistake and that they were guilty, but did not recant from the mistake, those were doomed to death, as they were handed over to the civil authorities, who took measures requiring them to be tied to wooden poles and lighting a fire around them so that they would burn to death.
Methods of torture to death
Ny hooligans
It was one of the methods used to torture victims. It consisted of a large ring placed around the neck of the offender, and there were other small rings in which his fingers were placed. This instrument was heated to a temperature that depended on the mood of the torturer, causing deep skin cuts that reached the bones and joints and could ultimately lead to death.
Iron bull
A solid copper piece in the shape of a bull, open on one side, into which the victim is inserted. A fire is then lit under it until the bull turns yellow and steam emerges from its nostrils. From there, they listen to the sound of the victim screaming as he is roasted to death.
An investigation inside the Inquisition in 1520 AD with those accused of heresy, and on the right are the responsible monks (Getty)
The basin
The person is placed in a basin and ordered to sit in a cross-legged position, keeping his face visible, to be covered in milk and honey so that the insects can feed on him. He remains immersed in his own excrement until the worms attack him and kill him very slowly.
Finger breaker
An instrument consisting of iron nails, the fingers of which are placed between the jaws, and are closed slowly until the bones are shattered and crumbled, and the tormentor continues to close them until the upper and lower nails meet.
Their shapes are varied and numerous, including one type for crushing toes and others for the knee and elbow.
The dislocated one
This tool was designed to remove every part of the victim's body. He would lie on it and his hands and feet would be tied. Then the tool would be rotated through pulleys located on its end, so that the tortured person's body would begin to expand in an unbearable way until the muscles and the rest of the body were torn apart.
The heretic thorn
It is a collar that is wrapped around the neck with an iron tool that resembles a fork directed toward the chin and another toward the chest. Thus, the person will not be able to fall asleep or close his eyes, because if he does that, it will become embedded in his body and destroy him.
A nineteenth-century drawing showing notaries and priests supervising torture on a rack, with rollers, and burning (Getty)
Chair of the Inquisition
A chair with a huge number of nails attached to every part of it. The victim is pinned to it so that the nails penetrate his entire body. The torturers not only do that, but they also place weights on top of him to ensure that the nails penetrate his organs.
The hanging cage
After the guilty person is tortured and it is discovered that he did not die after being tortured, he is transferred to the hanging cage, which is an iron cage in which the person is placed outdoors under the sun so that the iron absorbs the heat, in addition to placing needles under the victim on the floor of the cage to make his feet painful.
Do the Inquisition still exist?
The Inquisition remained in place in France until it was abolished by the French Revolution in 1789 AD, then Joseph Bonaparte abolished it in Spain in 1808 AD, but it was restored after Spain's liberation from French occupation, and it remained until 1834 AD, when it was finally abolished.
Currently, most evangelical denominations have councils to protect their vision and preserve their testimonies of faith, as the Inquisition in the Vatican still operates as an institution as it includes the Doctrine of the Faith community.
But without torture, they are trying to strengthen their vision and promote their faith. However, the Church reserves the right to ask people who spread teachings contrary to the Church to leave its area.
In 1965 AD, Pope Paul VI reorganized the Holy Office and renamed it the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and it is still working today.
Source: websites