TURNING OUR CHILDREN OVER TO THE ENEMY
By Dr . Donald Larson
The term Janissary comes from the Turkish word
“ yeniçeri ,” which means new troops . In the early 1300s , Bey ( or Sultan ) Murat 1 of the Ottoman Empire established the Janissaries . This was an elite corps of soldiers who elicited terror in opposing armies because of their ferocity . These troops were primarily Balkan Christians who were put in an intense monastic environment and subjected to strict Islamic training .
In the late 1300s , the devshirme system was used to recruit boys and young men , ages eight to twenty , into the Janissaries . Devshirme was an Ottoman tax upon Christians . One boy from every forty families was conscripted . The Turks primarily selected boys from the villages and small towns because they considered boys from the city to be too soft . They assessed them both physically and intellectually ; they only wanted the best and brightest .
The Janissaries were considered slaves , but they had a higher status than what we understand a slave to be . They proudly bore the name of kul , which was a slave of God ( Allah ). The boys were given Muslim first names and circumcised as a part of their initiation into Islam . Initially , they served on Turkish farms to learn the Turkish language and Islam . Top students were selected for the Royal schools and would receive the best education in the empire . The rest would still learn Turkish , Persian , and Arabic literature , music , and basic mathematics . All were trained for combat — horseback riding , archery , and basic infantry skills . At the end of the training , they were selected for various positions , from serving in the Sultan ’ s palace to being a basic infantryman .
Many Christian families volunteered their sons because they would receive a good education and live a better life . They became the Sultan ’ s elite shock troops — they would attack in a dense V-shaped formation that overwhelmed their enemies . They were experts in siege warfare and were the primary force used to conquer Constantinople , Belgrade , and other European cities . These boys who were given to the
38