HenryII

The most common torture inflicted by the Muslims during the Ottoman period was whipping. The usual victims were the Christians. It was the introductory torment in every other torture, so common in the persecutions of Christians that the phrase became proverbial: "I will whip you until you change your faith." The victim was tied with exposed back, their clothes torn, and the whipping began. The executioners were usually Turkish soldiers with robust physiques, so that the blows were both critical and powerful. The number of blows was either predetermined by the court or (most of the time) left to the discretion of the executioners. Muslim judges (qadis) observed the torture. If the victim showed that they could not endure the completion of the number of blows and their life was in immediate danger, then the judge placed the Quran under the executioner's armpit. Unable to raise his arm high (since the holy text must not fall to the ground), he delivered the remaining blows with less intensity. After the whipping, the victim was often left helpless without care, or thrown into prison. In most cases, permanent disabilities remained on the body. Also, one of the harshest tortures of the Ottoman Muslims was impalement. Crowds surrounded the victim and mocked them, suggesting they convert to Islam and insulting their faith, family, and nationality. The stakes were set up in a specific area, usually in the village or town square. The victim was dragged there in public humiliation, as usual. After being severely whipped, their clothes were torn, their hands were tied tightly behind their back, and they were "seated" on the stake. Then weights were hung on their legs so that they would slide down and be skewered on the stake. In many cases, the sadism did not end with skewering the victim. The spit (with the victim on it) was placed horizontally over a fire or burning coals, and the victim was roasted alive like a lamb. The fearsome and terrible Muslim Albanian Ali Pasha of Ioannina was famous for slowly roasting his victims, thinning the coals under them to prolong the agony and the entertainment of himself and his entourage. In many cases, he forced relatives to torture and kill their own kin to avoid impalement and roasting themselves. I know what you are thinking. The religion of peace. If you want to support me in the effort I’m making, please consider becoming a subscriber to my X account for only $2. I write about the ancient, medieval, and modern history of Greece and what Christians went through because of Islam. Always with primary sources and historical facts. Thanks for reading me and for all the support. - Homer Pavlos

The testimony of the German Johann W.A. Streit, a young technician, about the massacres of Greeks in Constantinople in 1822 by the Muslim Turks is horrifying. He writes that as soon as a wool factory finished its shift, the Turkish workers seized the prisons of Katrosan and dragged out 186 Greeks who had been arrested in the preceding days. Many of them they killed on the spot, while they dragged the others through the cobblestone streets until they met a gruesome death: "They tied the Greeks’ feet and hands with ropes and pulled them in all directions, dismembering them. They cut off their heads, impaled them on the tips of their swords, and paraded them triumphantly through the streets. Even though a fire had broken out that evening in one of the outlying districts, a fire that could have destroyed the entire city, no one was bothered by it. Everyone continued with the slaughter and the looting" The next morning, Streit saw many Greeks, both men and women, hanging upside down from their windows. "The victims were writhing and screaming. Knives and swords had been nailed into the buttocks of many. From time to time, they would cut off another piece of flesh". That morning, Streit counted approximately 4,000 corpses of both sexes. He recounts the incident in which a mob broke into the house of a Greek jeweler. One of his daughters jumped out of the window and was killed. "They brought the rest of the family down to the square. There they stripped the other daughter and the maid naked, and first cut off their breasts and then their noses. The son, a robust 24-year-old young man, rushed at a Turk, punched him in the temple, seized the bloodied yataghan from his hand, and with one blow from top to bottom cut off his nose so that it remained hanging from his lips. Within a minute, a hundred swords had hacked him to pieces". Later, the impaling of many Greeks is described: "Around midnight, they brought more Greeks, men and women, among them three small children. They impaled them with their swords and threw them alive into the fire". Streit adds: "I did not see a single Turk whose face showed any compassion. Even six-year-old children vented their hatred on the dead. They stabbed the slain Greeks with knives". Wherever and however they could, the Greek population resisted the barbarity: "A Greek merchant, as soon as the Turks broke into his shop and house, took refuge with his family in the upper floor. He had with him two barrels of gunpowder. And while forty bloodthirsty Turks were climbing the stairs, he set it on fire. The house blew up into the air. A pharmacist killed 200 Turks who were besieging his house. He poisoned all the wine barrels in his cellar with arsenic and then committed suicide by cutting his throat with a razor. The Turks drank, were poisoned, and died curled up like worms in front of the house". All of this is described in detail in his book "Constantinople in the Year 1821", which was published in Leipzig in 1822. The Greek title is "Jahann Wilhem August Streit. Η Κωνσταντινούπολη κατά το έτος 1821", and in German "Constantinople im Jahre 1821". If you want to support me in the effort I’m making, please consider becoming a subscriber to my X account for only $2. I write about the ancient, medieval, and modern history of Greece and what Christians went through because of Islam. Always with primary sources and historical facts. Thanks for reading me and for all the support. - Homer Pavlos