Prisoner of The Infidels Question Responses - Wyatt

 Wyatt Quillin

Mr. Roddy

IHSS

19 October 2021

Prisoner of The Infidels Question Responses

  1.  Chapter five, and most likely the rest of Prisoner of The Infidels is written very clearly for the time period. It reads more like a novel in the first person than an autobiography written in 1726. It is descriptive and written in plain language that is easy to read and understand. For example, “I was taken by the jailer to where the other Muslim prisoners were kept. During the daytime, they stayed in a small building by the guardhouse near the main town gate. But at nightfall, they took us to a cell between the inner and outer gates” (67). 

  2.  Osman’s religion was a huge part of his life and was part of the reason he was captured in the first place, as he was in the Muslim army fighting against the Hapsburgs. Because he was so strong in his faith, when Osman’s master gave him new, fancy clothes and said that they were going to Vienna, Osman realized that he was not getting released from service, and his master might try to convert him. To Osman, being forced to convert to someone else’s religion was worse than running away and potentially getting killed.

  3.  A big decision Osman had to make was to run away from his master and try to make it to Muslim territory. He came to the conclusion that his master was going to keep him forever, and so he wanted to kill his master, but while he was doing some of his tasks, the corporal’s son said that he would find someone to escort Osman to safety and hide him in the meantime. This plan ultimately didn’t work out and Osman was captured again. I still think this was a better decision than staying with his abusive master and diving farther into enemy territory. He should’ve been more vigilant of who he was trusting, because the corporal’s goal was to rob him of his clothes and other belongings. 

  4. Osman’s experience and his recording of it is important to us because it was the first autobiography written by a Muslim. At that time in history, Muslims didn’t usually interact with people outside of their territory, and Osman recorded numerous interactions with “infidels” or non-Muslims. Another thing I noted before was the plain and easy to read language and descriptions in the autobiography. Again, this is extremely rare for its time, as most writings were not very easy to read or understand. 

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