The hand sign that the president appeared to be flashing at the African Leaders’ Conference in August, described by F. W. Burleigh on these pages last week, is not merely a Muslim gang sign.  It has a long and venerable history. As Burleigh notes, it represents the shahada, the Islamic declaration of faith: there is no god but God, and Mohammed is his messenger. Here’s a Barbary pirate making the sign.  Note the galley in the background. The Barbary (from Berber) pirates captured and enslaved at least 1.25 million Europeans from the 16th to the 19th century, according to Ohio State professor Robert Davis.  Davis’s figures don’t include the pirate port and slave entrepôt of Salé, on Morocco’s Atlantic coast, nor do they include the 2 to 3 million Slavs captured by Tatar and Turkish raiders.  In addition to Europeans, around 16-18 million Africans and unknown millions of Cirassians, Syrians,...(Read Full Post)