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Assertion alone defeats jihad

Assertion alone defeats jihad

Author: Priyadarsi Dutta
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: November 16, 2006

Daniel Pipes in his article, "US's unilateral concessions" (November 13), has quoted from the "Treaty of Peace and Friendship", signed at Tripoli (November 4, 1796) and Algiers (January 3, 1797) to demonstrate how the US had made friendly gestures towards Islamic states from its earliest days. Pipes's citation is ironic, as these treaties did not secure any reprieve for the American ships from the pirate states of the Barbary Coast. Had George Washington's homilies placated the Barbary potentates in 1797, Thomas Jefferson would not have been forced to fighting a four-year-long war between 1801 and 1805 to liquidate those thugs.

The Article 11 of the treaty says, "As the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion, as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquillity of Musselmen, and as the said states never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahomitan nation..." This is obsequious. In 1796, the US was a young trans-Atlantic republic with hardly any navy beyond its territorial waters. Independence actually deprived it of the British naval protection it had enjoyed as a colony.

By what stretch of imagination could the US have harmed Muslims in Africa or West Asia? The Barbary States, on the other hand, were living off Christian maritime commerce for nearly three centuries. They raided European ships, coasts and islands to plunder merchandise, enslave men and women, and extort ransom. Their reach was as far as England and Iceland. Two Christian orders - Trinitarian and Mercedarians - were devoted to secure release of Christian captives by doling out ransom.

This was, however, more than plain banditry. Barbary piracy had enjoyed the patronage of the Ottoman empire. Booty-taking, enslaving 'infidels' are sanctified in Islamic theology under the name of Ma'l-e-Ghanimat (legitimate loot), which the Barbary pirates adopted as the mainstay of their economy.

In 1801, when Tripoli demanded immediate payment of $225,000 and an annual payment of $25,000, President Thomas Jefferson felt enough was enough. He raised the call "millions for Defence, not a cent for tribute", and built a navy. The First Barbary War (1801-1805) dealt a lethal blow to these thugs. Thus, Jefferson's thump, rather than Washington's tributes, tamed Islam.


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