A Dubious Anniversary: America’s 234-Year-Old Shock at Jihad – IOTW Report

A Dubious Anniversary: America’s 234-Year-Old Shock at Jihad

PJM: Exactly 234 years ago this week, two of America’s founding fathers documented their first exposure to Islamic jihad in a letter to Congress; like many Americans today, they too were shocked at what they learned.

Context: in 1785, Muslim pirates from North Africa, or “Barbary,” had captured two American ships, the Maria and Dauphin, and enslaved their crews. In an effort to ransom the enslaved Americans and establish peaceful relations, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams—then ambassadors to France and Britain respectively—met with Tripoli’s ambassador to Britain, Abdul Rahman Adja. Following this diplomatic exchange, the Americans laid out the source of Barbary’s hitherto inexplicable animosity in a letter to Congress, dated March 28, 1786:

We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the grounds of their [Barbary’s] pretentions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury, and observed that we considered all mankind as our friends who had done us no wrong, nor had given us any provocation. The ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners, and that every Musselman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.

Abdul had continued by smugly noting that Islam’s “law” offers “as an incentive” more slaves to those who are first to board infidel vessels, and that the power and appearance of the seaborne jihadis—who reportedly always carried three knives, one in each hand and another in their mouths—“so terrified their enemies that very few ever stood against them.”

One can only imagine what the American ambassadors—who years earlier had asserted that all men were “endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights”—thought of their Muslim counterpart’s answer. Suffice to say, because the ransom demanded was over fifteen times greater than what Congress had approved, little came of the meeting.

Centuries before setting their sights on American vessels, the Barbary States of Muslim North Africa—specifically Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis—had been thriving on the slave trade of Christians abducted from virtually every corner of coastal Europe—going as far as Britain, Ireland, Denmark, and Iceland.  These raids were so successful that, “between 1530 and 1780 there were almost certainly a million and quite possibly as many as a million and a quarter white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast,” to quote American historian Robert Davis. read more

21 Comments on A Dubious Anniversary: America’s 234-Year-Old Shock at Jihad

  1. Arrogance, when the result of ability and accomplishment, is tolerable. But the arrogance of the stupid and inferior mohammadmen is irretrievably intolerable. At the very least, mohammadmen should be isolated — quarantined — so that they don’t inflict their barbarism on the rest of humanity.

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  2. That was 234 years ago. The religion of peace-niks are still into slavery along their famous FGM, beheading, pedophilia, acid based face wash and beatings for when your chattel (wife) gets outta line and stonings. Update: FREE flight training for the gays! So tell me, what has changed in 234 years? Nothing, except now they’re to be looked upon as some sort of protected class fully allowed to destroy any country they legally or illegally “migrate” to. End result is much like a plague of locusts. F*ck ’em.

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  3. @Heretic, that is an oft-repeated trope.
    There is much evidence that the ancients had much more knowledge than we realize, but it was lost.
    The Arabs did nothing except possess that knowledge, of the Greeks particularly, which was ‘lost’ to Europe, esp via the burning of the Library at Alexandria and other events.
    It’s a stretch to give them credit for capability that they’ve never demonstrated before or after.

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  4. “that is an oft-repeated trope.”

    Why it seems like just the other day that a magic negro expounded on the scientific contribution from the mooslims that lead to the landing on the moon.

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  5. Could someone please explain the last part of this paragraph to me?

    “Thus and despite the (rather ignorant) question that became popular after 9/11, “Why do they hate us?”—a question that was clearly answered to Jefferson and Adams 234 years ago this week—the United States’ first war and victory as a nation was against Muslims; and the latter had initiated hostilities on the same rationale Muslims had used to initiate hostilities against non-Muslims for the preceding 1,200 years.”

    To which “latter” is it referring?

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  6. I think he means “the United States’ first war and victory as a nation was against Muslims;” – latter.

    What I think he’s saying is – The US beat them down, and that was the lame excuse to hate us from the beginning.
    They also used that same excuse to hate the people they were fighting a thousand years before that. Because islam was beaten, and it disallowed their plague to spread.

    That is, until 1970’s when Europe just HAD to import them for some reason. *eye roll*

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  7. Clearly an attempt to rewrite history
    Everybody knows that the El-Nina, El-Pinta, and the El-bin-Santa Maria- al Phuckwad was loaded with pious Muzzies simply sharing the good news of Allah the effin moon god.

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  8. “between 1530 and 1780 there were almost certainly a million and quite possibly as many as a million and a quarter white, European Christians enslaved by the Muslims of the Barbary Coast,”

    tell that to a sjw and watch their heads explode

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  9. ..and thus were the Marine Corps born, and the first line of this song, too…

    “From the Halls of Montezuma
    To the shores of Tripoli;
    We fight our country’s battles
    In the air, on land, and sea;

    First to fight for right and freedom
    And to keep our honor clean;
    We are proud to claim the title
    Of United States Marine.

    Our flag’s unfurled to every breeze
    From dawn to setting sun;
    We have fought in every clime and place
    Where we could take a gun;

    In the snow of far-off Northern lands
    And in sunny tropic scenes,

    You will find us always on the job
    The United States Marines.

    Here’s health to you and to our Corps
    Which we are proud to serve;
    In many a strife we’ve fought for life
    And never lost our nerve.

    If the Army and the Navy
    Ever look on Heaven’s scenes,

    They will find the streets are guarded
    By United States Marines.”
    “The Marines’ Hymn”, Jacques Offenbach

    ..here’s an informative version, includes Muslims AND China, JUST before WWII it was recorded…

    https://youtu.be/EDkzC3OVGwQ

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  10. Supernightshade
    MARCH 31, 2020 AT 12:51 PM
    “..and thus were the Marine Corps born, and the first line of this song, too…

    “From the Halls of Montezuma
    To the shores of Tripoli;”

    …Ok, the SECOND line of the song…

    …MAN, I need an editor, I’m getting Biden-level in my mistakes…

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