History Main / BarbarousBarbaryBandits

Oddly enough, unlike other pirates in fiction, you rarely see them as heroes, anti- or otherwise: The best you'll usually get out of these cold-hearted cutthroats is a code of honor as warriors that keeps them from being completely irredeemable.

Operating out of North Africa, known as the Barbary Coast to Europeans all the way back to the Middle Ages, the Barbary or Ottoman corsairs were a group of privateers who devastated coasts as far away as Iceland. Nowadays they aren't quite as well-known as their European counterparts as seafaring plunderers go, but they make their appearance in media now and again, whether as the genuine article or a fantasy counterpart who decided to [[DressedToPlunder Dress To Plunder]] with turbans and scimitars instead of tricorns and cutlasses. If an ArabianNightsDays work gets anywhere near the coast, you can almost guarantee these guys will make an appearance.

Oddly enough, unlike other pirates in fiction, you rarely see them as heroes, anti- or otherwise: The best you'll usually get out of these cold-hearted cutthroats is a code of honor that keeps them from being completely irredeemable.

* ''Literaure/TheRiftwarCycle'': The island nation of Queg is based loosely on the Barbary states. Quegan raiders carry scimitars and wear loose tunics and pants with turbans on their heads. Queg also harbors a number of fairly wealthy merchants who make lots of money buying and selling plundered goods.

* ''Literature/TheHeroicLegendOfArslan'' (and its 1990s OVA and 2015 remake) is set in Pars, a FantasyCounterpartCulture of Ancient Persia, and during the story, Prince Arslan and his comrades will occasionally encounter scimitar-wielding, turban-wearing Arabic pirates.

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* In ''Film/PiratesOfTheCaribbeanAtWorldsEnd'', the Nine Pirate Lords are a CosmopolitanCouncil representing the major bodies of water of the world. The Black Sea is ruled by Ammand the Corsair, who fits this trope right down to the cutlass and giant mustache. His personal army of pirates is also composed of nothing but corsairs.

* ''WesternAnimation/PeterPan'': One of Hook's crew, simply known as "The Turk", has a visibly Middle-Eastern look to him with a thick black mustache, a big ol' scimitar, and a fez.

* One of Barbarossa's major allies was [[PirateGirl Sayyida al-Hurra]] (1485-1561). Born with the name Lalla Aicha bint Ali ibn Rashid al-Alami, she was an Andalusian noblewoman who was forced to flee her home in Granada for Morocco as a child ahead of the Reconquista. She turned pirate as an adult, taking much plunder and prisoners in raids on Spanish coastal waters. She also ruled a fief in Morocco in her own right for thirty years after her first husband died (hence her moniker ''Sayyida al-Hurra'', meaning "noble lady who is free and independent" or "the woman sovereign who bows to no superior authority"), even getting her second husband to come to her to for the wedding and recognize her independent title. She was finally deposed by her son-in-law from her first marriage in 1542 and retired. She's very much a case of YourTerroristsAreOurFreedomFighters, considered a national hero in Morocco and a mass-murderer in Europe.

Oddly enough, unlike other pirates in fiction, you rarely see them as heroes, anti- or otherwise: The best you'll usually get out of these cold-hearted cutthroats is a code of honor that keeps them from being completely irredeemable. The closest famous example we get is probably [[Literature/SinbadTheSailor Sinbad]], and even then, [[DependingOnTheAuthor that's a]] [[AdaptationalJobChange maybe]].

* ''Literature/SinbadTheSailor'' may count as a rare heroic example: He could just as easily be "Arabian Jack Sparrow" as he could be just some ordinary merchant; what exactly his job is really depends on what story you're reading. Sometimes he's a swashbuckling hero, other times he's a NonActionGuy who prefers to avoid combat and trick his foes, and when he is forced into conflict, he'll use [[CombatPragmatist every dirty trick in the book to come out on top]]. Regardless, he has most of the trappings and aesthetics of the trope: a Middle-Eastern man sailing the seas with a quirky crew, going on grand adventures, and making a lot of money.

* The HackAndSlash action game ''VideoGame/PirateHunter'', with assorted pirates as enemy types, also include Middle-Eastern pirates weearing turbans and armed with schmitars, including an Ottoman Pirate captain who attacks the Pirate Hunter with GunsAkimbo.

!!Examples

Oddly enough, unlike other pirates in fiction, you almost never see them as heroes, anti- or otherwise: The best you'll usually get out of these cold-hearted cutthroats is a code of honor that keeps them from being completely irredeemable. The closest famous example we get is probably [[Literature/SinbadTheSailor Sinbad]], and even then, [[DependingOnTheAuthor that's a]] [[AdaptationalJobChange maybe]].

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* ''ComicBook/DeCapeEtDeCrocs:'' Subverted with the Raïs (Arabic for "leader") Kader, an ex-janissary and corsair captain seeking a treasure that will allow him to raise a fleet big enough to conquer Maracaïbo (a port in modern-day Venezuela). He's introduced as willing to be a BadBoss (threatening to impale a dozen of his sailors for losing the treasure map) and is at first seen as an evil heathen by the staunchly Catholic Don Lope, but eventually it's revealed his plans for conquest are fueled by his desire to find his daughter whom he last saw there [[spoiler:and turns out to be Hermine]]. Kader keeps getting into fights with Don Lope (despite, or because of, the fact that both are honorable to a fault), but eventually accepts him as [[spoiler:his son-in-law]].

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For more on the real-life Barbary Corsairs, see UsefulNotes/BarbaryCoastWars

** "Night of the Saracen" has Donald and his nephews finding a map hidden in a prop sword that purportedly leads to the treasure of the Saracen corsair Don al-Din, sunk off the coast of Italy. [[spoiler: The treasure turns out to be a love poem that Don wrote to an Italian girl with whom he fell in LoveAtFirstSight while raiding, making him give up his piratical ways.]]

* A few examples in the DisneyDuckComicUniverse:

* A few examples in the DisneyDucksComicUniverse:

* A few examples in the DisneyDuckComicsUniverse:

[[caption-width-right:262:"[[Series/LazyTown Yar-har, fiddle-dee-dee, robbing an infidel fills me with glee...!]]"]]

* In the ''Literature/{{RCN}}'' novel ''Though Hell Should Bar the Way'', Roy Olfetrie gets kidnapped from a port call and enslaved as crew aboard a freighter before being dumped off on a world inspired by the Barbary (confirmed by Creator/DavidDrake's foreword). He ends up orchestrating a slave revolt against the local lord to escape and rescuing Monica, a harem slave he'd fallen in love with, in the process.

--> The sky?s a bit dull but the fridge is full

--> It?s not like you?ve been captured by Barbary Corsairs

* ''VisualNovel/FunbagFantasySideboobStory2'': The corsairs in the employ of [[BedlahBabe Queen Serebria]] strike an odd appearance that crosses this with medieval European knights: while they wear turbans and have [[AmbiguouslyBrown darker skin]] than the rest of the cast, the rest of their outfit is a mix between plate armor, leather armor and cloth sashes.