The Forgotten Slave Trade: The White European Slaves of Islam

by (Historian) Simon Webb

The great mistake in calling the corsairs sailing from the Barbary Coast ‘pirates’ is that this suggests that they were individuals operating for their own profit and advantage. They were not. Like any rational people, they wished to make a living, but they did so as part of a recognized strategic campaign, the object of which was the subjugation of Europe to the forces of militant Islam. This was to be achieved in the first instance by nibbling away at the edges, rather than by launching mighty assaults upon entire countries at a time. Targeting islands was an excellent way of pursuing such a plan. Before the Ottomans turned their eyes west and regarded Europe as the logical next step in the conversion of the known world to Islam, the Arabs had already adopted a similar strategy a thousand years earlier. Cyprus was an early victim of this territorial expansion and Mohammed’s aunt herself took part in an expedition to invade the island in 648. She fell off her mule, broke her neck and was buried where the accident occurred, just outside the modern city of Larnaca. Her tomb, in the Hala Sultan mosque, is one of the most important Muslim holy sites. Malta too was attacked by Arabs, as was Sicily. Both islands were occupied for a century or two, before being driven out by the Normans at the end of the eleventh century.