Saturday, August 25, 2007
The rape of San Pietro
As previously advertised, I am in the middle of Richard Zacks' excellent history of America's first war against Muslims, The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805
An hour before dawn on September 3, 1798, the waves of the Mediterranean tugged at the coast of the island of San Pietro near Sardinia, lullabying the thousand or so sleeping residents. So peaceful was it, so rhythmic and hypnotic the sound -- or perhaps it was due to a bottle of local vino bianco -- that even the two municipal watchmen in the church tower had fallen asleep. So there was no one to puzzle out the faint white flecks of sails growing larger on the pinkish gray horizon, and no one to ring the massive church bells to sound the alarm that a fleet of seven ships was approaching.
Standing silently at the rail of these lateen-sailed ships, visible in faint silhouette, were bearded men in loose billowy pants and turbans, carrying scimitars and pistols. The vessels, packed with one thousand Barbary pirates from Tunis in North Africa, glided to anchor inside the harbor. The crews quietly lowered small landing boats and began to ferry men ashore. The first group, barefoot and heavily armed, raced to seal off the two roads leading out of town.
Surprisingly, the leader of this attack Moslem fleet, the pirate commodore, as it were, was an Italian who had converted to Islam. The ritual had involved losing his foreskin and gaining a new name. He was now Muhammed Rumelli, and in the Lingua Franca slang of the Mediterranean, he was dubbed a rinigado, a renegade. Over the centuries, the rulers of the Barbary countries of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli had learned that Christian captains could navigate better than their homegrown Moslem talent.
Another Italian, acting as harbor pilot, had guided the fleet to the perfect anchorage. This fellow from Capri (never identified by name) carried a deeply personal motive for joining the attack. He had married a woman from San Pietro, but she had abandoned him; he was now convinced that she was cuckolding him here on the island. He had turned Turk expressly to seek his revenge.
As the first ray of dawn caught the sails, Muhammed Rumelli gave the signal to "wake up" the townspeople. The pirates unleashed a sudden unholy thunder. The ships' cannons bellowed out broadsides. The sailors onshore added a lunatic's drumroll of small arms fire. The cacophany climaxed as close to a thousand mouths let loose impassioned Arabic war cries and the men rushed into the town. Allahu Akhbar speed their pursuit of profit.
The corsairs engulfed the tiny town; they battered down the doors, burst into homes, brandishing torches and scimitars, rousting the stunned citizens from bed and kicking them into the streets. They cursed their victims as Romo kelb ("Christian dogs"). The women cowered in corners, trying to avoid what one observer described as "shame and villainies."
A French naval officer, arriving the next day, found that five women had died in their beds of knife wounds, their bodies entwined in sheets caked with blood. The first female victim, according to local accounts, was the unfaithful wife of that pilot from Capri. A Sardinian historian later called herr a "fishwife Helen" who had no idea that her husband's jealous rage had drawn the enemy to her homeland.
The attackers spent the entire day hauling money, jewels, church silver, silks to the harbor, but by far the most valuable commodity to be stolen walked on two legs: human slaves. Sura 47 of the Koran allowed these Moslem attackers to enslave and ransom any of these captives. Young Italian women would fetch more than the men in the flesh markets of Tunis and Algiers.
The crews dragged the townspeople aboard various ships, tossing them like ballast willy-nilly belowdeck into the holds for the 160-mile voyage. The prisoners wore only what they had slipped into at bedtime on that seeming unimportant September night, which would turn out to be their last night of freedom for half a decade.
Read the whole thing!
4 Comments:
By 
Dawnfire82, at
Sat Aug 25, 12:37:00 PM:
For reference.
"Those who disbelieve and turn from God's way, He will destroy their works.
And those who believe and do good, and believe in that which has been revealed to Muhammad - and it is the truth from their lord - He will remove their evil from them and improve their condition.
That is because those who disbelieve follow falsehood, and those who believe follow the truth from their lord. Thus does God set forth their descriptions to men.
So when you meet in battle those who disbelieve, smite their necks; then, when you have overcome them, make (them) prisoners, and afterwards (set them free) as a favor or for ransom till the war lay down its burdens. And if God pleases, He would certainly exact retribution from them, but that He may try some of you by means of others. And those who are slain in the way of God, He will never allow their deeds to perish.
He will guide them and improve their condition.
And make them enter the Garden which He has made known to them."
Sura 47, Verses 1-6
This allows the slaughter of nonbelievers, (it uses the verb kafara; you might have heard it before in the words kaafer or kufaar from Islamists) and taking the survivors as slaves, who may be kept for ransom or until the end of hostilities. (which, in a Holy War, mean the destruction or submission of the other religion) Commentary in my copy says that the phrase about "God would exact retribution..." means that God could punish the nonbelievers by a way other than war, but because he has chosen to have them punished at the hands of the Muslims it is a divine command that battles must be fought. And if you die in this endeavor, you go to Paradise.
But Islam is a religion of peace.
By pst314, at
Sat Aug 25, 05:42:00 PM:
Gosh, and all this happened before Iraq! /sarcasm
By Callimachus, at
Sun Aug 26, 09:15:00 PM:
Wonderful story, isn't it? I won't spoil it for you, but there's a letter from Eaton at the end that will galvanize you, if you have any sense about current events in Iraq, or any memory of the end of South Vietnam.
By TigerHawk, at
Sun Aug 26, 09:19:00 PM:
if you have any sense about current events in Iraq, or any memory of the end of South Vietnam
I would say that everybody claims to have these things, and few do. And almost everybody would agree with that statement!
