Islamic Stories

The Muslim Pirate of the Caribbean

Legendary pirate of the seven seas. One of the most notorius pirates of the Caribbean.

Jack Sparrow.

One of Johnny Depp's most iconic roles, the most iconic character of the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

You may or may not know this but Jack Sparrow was based on a real person.

A real pirate named John Ward or Birdy, also known as Jack Ward.

He was born around 1553, in South East England. He spent his youth working in fisheries.

After the invasion of the Spanish Armada in 1588, Ward began working under Queen Elizabeth the first, as a privateer, plundering Spanish ships and bringing back the treasures to her.

He did this for many years until James the first assumed the throne and ended the war in 1603.

When this took place,many privateers refused to stop working as it had become their livelihood and continued to plunder. They became known as pirates.

Ward however, was still working under the navy for one year serving on a ship called the "Lyon's Whelp".

Then one drunken night, Ward and his shipmates deserted the Navy and became their own crew, naming Ward as their leader, after stealing 25-ton barque from Portsmouth Harbour.

They then stole another ship from the Isle of Wight called the "Violet" that happened to have no real treasure on it so they used this boat to steal a french ship.

This is starting to sound more like Jack Sparrow.

He's not even done yet.

After arriving in the Mediterranean, they aquire another ship - a Dutch Flyboat- which Ward named "The Gift".

After losing some men to the Algiers, several European men joined his crew in Morocco, names like Richard Bishop and Anthony Johnson.

In 1606, allegedly in accompanied by Roman Catholic slaves, Ward arranged with Uthman Dey to use Tunis as a base of operations. He was the commander of the Janissary Corps of Tunis. The agreement stated that Uthman would have first refusal of all goods.

In late 1606, Ward captured an English Merchant John Baptist and his crew captured many more English ships and merchants from their base.

That famous pirate, Ward, so well-known in this port for the damage he has done, is beyond a doubt the greatest scoundrel that ever sailed from England. He has refitted a Venetian ship Soderina and turned her into a berton, with forty pieces of bronze artillery on the lower, and twenty on the upper deck. He has given his old ship to Captain [Graves] and these two and some other four ships form six fighting ships in all.

Wikipedia

In early 1608, he set sail and by March a ship wreckage was spotted and rumours began to spread of Ward's death.

He was in fact still alive and had gone to James I the first for a pardon that was refused as Ward had bad blood with Venice and Venice currently had bad blood with England.

Ward returned to Tunis under the protection of Uthman Dey. His entire crew and himself accepted Islam and he changed his name to Yusuf Reis.

He also had a nickname, "Chakour" or "Chagour" because he was very fond of axe that he used for piracy.

He used the city of Aquilaria as an acting port then married his second wife, an Italian woman, whilst still providing money to his English wife that he'd left in England.

He did not end his acts of Piracy until 1612 when he retired, by that point he was a Commander to a fleet of Corsairs. Then spent his retirement in Tunis teaching children how to become Corsairs and skills for lives on ships.

He died in 1622, almost 70 years old.

He's not the only one.

Captain Barbossa was also inspired by a Muslim, his name was Hayreddin Barborossa, an Ottoman Naval Captain.

You learn something new everyday.