When Turkey’s ‘Hero’ Beheaded 800 Christians for Refusing Islam

 The ritual decapitation of 800 Christians who refused Islam on August 14, 1480 — 540 years ago Friday — sheds much light on contemporary questions concerning the ongoing conflict between Islam and the West.

Background: When he sacked Constantinople in 1453, Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II was only 21 years old—meaning he still had many good decades of jihading before him. He continued expanding into the Balkans, and, in his bid to feed his horses on the altar of Saint Peter’s basilica—Muslim prophecies held that “we will conquer Constantinople before we conquer Rome”—he invaded Italy and captured Otranto in 1480. More than half of its 22,000 inhabitants were massacred, 5,000 hauled off in chains.

To demonstrate his “magnanimity,” Sultan Muhammad offered freedom to 800 chained Christian captives, on condition that they all embrace Islam. Instead, they unanimously chose to act on the words of one of their numbers: “My brothers, we have fought to save our city; now it is time to battle for our souls!”

Outraged that his invitation was spurned, on August 14, Muhammad ordered the ritual decapitation of these 800 unfortunates on a hilltop (subsequently named “Martyr’s Hill”). Their archbishop was slowly sawed in half to jeers and triumphant cries of “Allah Akbar!” (The skeletal remains of some of these defiant Christians were preserved and can still be seen in the Cathedral of Otranto.)

Now consider how this event relates to current realities:

First, whenever Islamic individuals or organizations engage in violence against non-Muslims—and cite Islam as their motivation—we are instantly told the exact opposite, that they are mere criminals and psychopaths, and that their actions have “nothing to do with the reality of Islam.”

Yet it was not just run-of-the-mill “Muslims” who committed atrocities atop Martyr’s Hill, but the virtual leader of Sunni Islam, the sultan himself, who further always kept a pack of Muslim ulema—clerics, scholars, and muftis—to guide and confirm his decisions vis-à-vis infidels (including massacring those who reject Islam).

Incidentally, Muhammad II is a hero for Turkey and its president, Erdoğan, who recently transformed the Hagia Sophia into a mosque, partly to honor the murderous sultan.

Nor was Otranto an aberration. Over the course of nearly 14 centuries, Islam’s official leaders and spokesmen—from sultans and caliphs to ulema and sheikhs—always spoke and acted just like the Islamic State (or rather vice-versa).

Also interesting to reflect on is how even then, over half a millennium ago, Western nations preferred to engage in denial and wishful thinking than come to grips with reality or aid their beleaguered coreligionists. Soon after the Otranto massacre, Pope Sixtus IV chided an indifferent West accordingly:

Similarly, today’s jihadi organizations—the Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Boko Haram, Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Shabaab et al.—are the latest “brood of vipers” to be hatched by the perennial jihad.