The Sultan's Admiral Read Online Free PDF

about. A man may proudly tell you how many sons he has, but he will omit to mention his daughters.
    The sons, in the order of their seniority, were Aruj, Elias, Isaac, and Khizr (later to become the most famous man in Turkey, and indeed in the Mediterranean, under his acquired name of Kheir-ed-Din). It is possible that the two girls were brought up as Christians, under the Moslem custom which permitted the females to be raised in the religion of their mother. The four boys were, without any doubt, brought up as Moslems —and there were few Moslems more dedicated to their faith than janissaries like their father. The fact that Aruj had a red beard and Khizr a brown, or auburn, beard is an indication that they were not of Turkish blood. But, in their faith, like so many converts or sons of converts, they were more dedicated than those who had never known any other religion.
    Aruj, the eldest son, seems to have started his career by working aboard his father’s boat; Elias to have studied to become an imam; Isaac to have been a carpenter; and Khizr, the youngest, to have helped his father in the pottery. The sixteenth-century Spanish historian Gomara as well as Diego Haedo (another contemporary, and a priest) both refer to the family background of the brothers in admiring terms. Although these historians came from the country that suffered most from the later depredations of the “red-bearded” brothers, and both were acquainted with men who had lived and worked with them, they never at any time descend to the vulgar abuse of the Barbarossas which became current among later European chroniclers. Indeed, if one may judge from their accounts, Ya’Kub and his wife and children were a model family: no hint here at all of bad upbringing leading to violent or “disgraceful” lives. The more one investigates the background of Aruj and Khizr, the clearer it becomes that it was not so dissimilar from that of Sir Francis Drake. Raised in a poor, but religious, environment, taught a craft, and expected to fend for themselves as soon as they reached manhood, these Turks were far from coming from a bad background. They were to be libelled in later centuries, but not by their contemporaries, and, just as Sir Francis Drake was to be hailed by the English as a great admiral while abused by the Spaniards as no more than a pirate, so these sons of Ya’Kub were to suffer at the hands of many European writers.
    The first authentic story we hear of the early career of Aruj concerns a disastrous encounter with a galley of the Knights of St. John. The island of Rhodes, where these Christian warriors had made their home, was still firmly in their grasp. Indeed, it was not until 1522 that the Sultan, after a lengthy and bloody siege, finally expelled the knights from Rhodes. But at the time when Aruj, in company with his brother Isaac, was captain of a small galleot operating off the Dodecanese islands, the knights were very much in command of those waters. It is not known whether Aruj was at this time attempting to trade legitimately, or whether he was already embarked on a corsair’s career. But in all probability, as was quite normal at the time, he was combining legitimate trade with a little piracy on the side. As the Sultan gradually expanded his sway southward through the Aegean, independent citizens were often encouraged to harass what was left of the Italian-occupied islands. Certainly there was no discredit felt in raiding the lands and possessions of the Christian enemy.
    Unfortunately for Aruj, he was destined on this occasion to fall in with one of the galleys belonging to the redoubtable Knights of St. John. “Those who have not seen a galley at sea, especially in chasing or being chased, cannot well conceive the shock such a spectacle must give to a heart capable of the least tincture of commiseration. To behold ranks and files of half-naked, half-starved, half-tanned meagre wretches, chained to a plank, from whence they remove