It was the 14th day of August in 1480 that Western Europe got another lesson in Islamic studies.  On that day 813 Italians were beheaded by Turkish Muslims in their own city of Otranto on the southern most tip of the Puglia Region.

History has been exceptionally kind to Islam.  Few people know that the word itself means “submission” in Arabic.  It may have roots in salaam (peace) but the message is peace [only] through submission to Allah and the Quran.  Religious tolerance has not been a hallmark of Islam despite a few exceptions that don’t quite square with the reality of current events. Christians in the Middle East still live in fear.

In 1480, Christopher Columbus was 29-years-old when news of the Otranto massacre swept Europe. It was one of the reasons he dreamed of sailing west to avoid the Muslims. The Ottoman Turks had captured the Eastern Roman Empire capital of Constantinople in 1453 and massacred or enslaved its Christian population, Soon, they invaded the nearby Balkans.  But the Christian Romanians and Hungarians successfully repulsed them.

Not to be denied further conquest, the Turkish Sultan made Rome his next target.  He figured that his conquest of Constantinople entitled him to be Rome’s new Western emperor, restoring the defunct Roman Empire as an Islamic caliphate.  The Turks landed at Otranto and demanded the surrender of the city.  As part of the deal, the Turks required that the Italians convert to Islam to be spared death or slavery.  No deal.  When the Turks stormed the city and rounded up the citizens, they enslaved the women and youngsters and slaughtered infants and the elderly, offering the fighting men conversion or death.  Seeing their families destroyed, Christian martyrdom was their bitter choice. 

The siege of Otranto cost the Turks two weeks of precious time, enough for a Neapolitan army to block the way to Rome. With the help of a Hungarian force, Neapolitans retook Otranto ending the Islamic invasion.

Fanatical Muslims today still have their sights on wiping out Christianity and Western Culture.  They first tried it in AD 732 from their base in Islamic Spain but were stopped at the Battle of Tours (France) by Charles Martell (the “Hammer”). In 1571, a Catholic fleet of Italians and Spaniards stopped another Turkish advance at the Battle of Lepanto.  Centuries later, if 90% of Muslims are tolerant and of goodwill, 10% are still focused on our demise and that of the Jews.

From Lebanon to Iran and Afghanistan the scourge of Islam reveals itself every day.  We should be tired of historians blaming the West for colonization and exploitation without conceding our immense material and scholarly contributions to humanity.  Now, the descendants of those “victims” want to airbrush their history and demonize ours.  Yes, we had the Crusades, the Inquisition, conquistadors, and the Nazis for short times, but imagine 1,400 years of Islamic Nazis constantly planning our elimination.

As the late Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci observed, “Our weakness in the West is born of our so-called ‘objectivity’… No, sir: Sometimes, truth stays on one side only.” In her post-9/11 book The Rage and the Pride she denounced Islamic fundamentalists, described Imams as “spiritual guides of terrorism.”  Recall that the terror attack on the World Trade Center in 2001 was motivated by Saudi Arabia requesting American troops to protect it against Saddam Hussein in 1991.  Such is the level of “provocation” that launches Islam into terrorism.

With the current massive influx of Muslim immigrants into the West, we must insist that the sordid history of Islam—from establishing the slave trade in Black Africa and the degradation of their own women to the 1,400-year war against Western humanism—be taught in schools so their children learn the other half of the truth.  -JLM