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.