islamic-jihad-legacy-of-forced-conversion-imperialism-slavery

Islamic JihadEuropean slaves were in special demand for serving as concubines, in the royal army and palaces, and inestablishments of the rich in Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya. According to Giles Milton’s White Goldand Robert Davis’ Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters, since the 1530s, North African Muslim pirates raidedEuropean coastal towns and villages from Sicily to Cornwall as well as European ships for some threecenturies and enslaved over one million Europeans (including many American seamen). British humanistauthor Christopher Hitchens queries on this enslavement: ‘How many know that perhaps 1.5 millionEuropeans and Americans were enslaved in Islamic North Africa between 1530 and 1780? …what of thepeople of the town of Baltimore in Ireland, all carried off by ‘corsair’ raiders in a single night?’ 869The Barbary Muslim pirates kidnapped Europeans from ships in North Africa’s coastal waters(Barbary Coast). They also attacked and pillaged the Atlantic coastal fishing villages and town in Europe,enslaving the inhabitants. Villages and towns on the coast of Italy, Spain, Portugal and France were thehardest hit. Muslim slave-raiders also seized people as far afield as Britain, Ireland and Iceland.In 1544, the island of Ischia off Naples was ransacked, taking 4,000 inhabitants prisoners, whilesome 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari Island off the north coast of Sicily were enslaved. 870 Turgut Reis, a Turkishpirate chief, ransacked the coastal settlements of Granada (Spain) in 1663 and carried away 4,000 people asslaves. In 1625, Barbary pirates captured the Lund Island in the Bristol Channel and planted the standard ofIslam. From this base, they went ransacking and pillaging surrounding villages and towns, causing a stunningspectacle of mayhem, slaughter and plunder. According to Milton, ‘Day after day, they struck at unarmedfishing communities, seizing the inhabitants, and burning their homes. By the end of the dreadful summer of1625, the mayor of Plymouth reckoned that 1,000 skiffs had been destroyed and similar number of villagerscarried off into slavery.’ 871 Between 1609 and 1616, the Barbary pirates ‘captured a staggering 466 Englishtrading ships.’Murad Rais, a European convert to Islam, became a leader of the Barbary pirates at the coastalCorsair town of Salé off Morocco. In 1627, he went on a pillaging and enslaving campaign to Iceland. Afterdropping anchor at Reykjavik, his forces ransacked the town and returned with 400 men, women and childrenand sold them in Algiers. In 1631, he made a voyage with a brigand of 200 pirates to the coast of SouthernIreland and ransacked and pillaged the village of Baltimore, carrying away 237 men, women and children toAlgiers. 872 The barbaric slave-raiding activities of the Muslim pirates had a telling effect on Europe. France,England, and Spain lost thousands of ships, devastating to their sea-borne trade. Long stretches of the coast inSpain and Italy were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants until the nineteenth century. Thefinishing industry was virtually devastated.Paul Baepler’s White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary CaptivityNarratives lists a collection of essays by nine American captives held in North Africa. According to his book,there were more than 20,000 white Christian slaves by 1620 in Algiers alone; their number swelled to morethan 30,000 men and 2,000 women by the 1630s. There were a minimum of 25,000 white slaves at any timein Sultan Moulay Ismail’s palace, records Ahmed ez-Zayyani; Algiers maintained a population of 25,000white slaves between 1550 and 1730, and their numbers could double at certain times. During the sameperiod, Tunis and Tripoli each maintained a white slave population of about 7,500. The Barbary piratesenslaved some 5,000 Europeans annually over a period of nearly three centuries. 873869. Hitchens C (2007) Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates, City Journal, Spring Issue870. Povoledo E (2003) The mysteries and majesties of the Aeolian Islands, International Herald Tribune, 26September.871. Milton, p. 11872 Milton, p. 13–14; Lewis B (1993) Islam and the West, Oxford University Press, New York, p. 74873. Milton, p. 99,271–72245