Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders
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“How can we preserve our dignity in negotiating with such nations?” Adams wrote in his concluding lines to Jefferson,103 though a few lines earlier he had allowed that the Muslim ambassador was “a sensible man.”104 Writing that same day to Secretary Jay, Adams likewise summed up his host: “The minister appears to be a man of good sense and temper.”105 Unfazed by the hospitality, then, Adams saw an immediate opportunity to accomplish a major national objective. He also saw an experienced, serious diplomat, one he could do business with.
Adams held two more meetings with the ambassador, the details of which he sent only to John Jay. On February 20, Abd al-Rahman sent his interpreter to initiate a noon meeting, whom Adams describes as “a Dr. Benamor, an English Jew most probably, who has formerly resided in Barbary and speaks the Arabic language, as well as the Italian and Lingua Franca.”106 By the second meeting, on the twenty-second, Adams was prepared to call the interpreter “a decent man, and very ready in the English as well as Arabic and Italian.” He had since learned that “it is the custom of all the ambassadors from Barbary to be much connected with the Jews, to whom they are commonly recommended.”107
Jews were a significant group in North Africa, especially after their expulsion from Spain in 1492 and from Portugal in 1496.108 Estimates suggest that almost two hundred thousand settled in Ottoman territories, encouraged by Muslim sultans. In contrast to their medieval and early modern persecution throughout most of Catholic and Protestant Europe, Jews in Islamic lands were defined as People of the Book according to the Qur’an, and allowed to practice their faith, often rising to positions of influence at Muslim courts, whether in medicine, commerce, or diplomacy. In North Africa, the Jewish banking house of Bacri and Busnah proved essential to brokering financial terms for the United States in treaty negotiations in Algiers and Tunis.109 But John Adams may not have been favorably impressed, to judge by his opinion of the Jewish financiers of Europe:
Jews and Judaizing Christians are now Scheeming to buy up all our Continental Notes at two or three shillings in a Pound, in order to oblige us to pay them at twenty shillings in a Pound. This will be richer Plunder than that of Algerines or Lloyd’s Coffee House.110
As Abd al-Rahman revealed at the first meeting, he had chosen the Jew Benamor over “the interpreter assigned him by the Court.” He had refused the suggestion of the British “because he was sorry to see that this nation was not so steady in its friendship to America as the French,” a quite accurate diplomatic summation.111 Adams nevertheless remained wary of the “interested motives” of “the Jews,” noting that “their interference cannot be avoided,” and concluding that “Benamor soon betrayed proofs enough that he had no aversion to the ambassador’s obtaining large terms.”112 Why Adams would have expected a Jew would do less than accurately present the intentions of the Muslim employing him is unclear, but Adams was clearly wary of both.
The ambassador presented his wish for a peace treaty as altruism, suggesting that “the whole pleasure of his life” was “to do good; and he was zealous to embrace an opportunity … of doing a great deal.” But still, he warned that “time was critical,” and if the enterprise were delayed “another year, it would after that, be difficult to make.” There were also other Islamic powers and the horrors of slavery for captured Americans to consider:
If any considerable number of vessels and prisoners should be taken, it would be hard to persuade the Turks, especially the Algerines, to desist. A war between Christian and Christian was mild, and prisoners, on either side, were treated with humanity; but a war between Turk and Christian was horrible, and prisoners were sold into slavery. Although he himself was a musselman, he must still say he thought it a very rigid law; but, as he could not alter it, he was desirous of preventing its operation, or, at least, of softening it as far as his influence extended.113
This specter of present and future American captives held in North Africa must surely have filled Adams with dread, as intended.
Abd al-Rahman went on to offer practical advice about how to negotiate with Algiers, the most powerful of the pirate states. He warned that they had the most and the largest ships. They would likely refuse a treaty at first. But they could be won over by first establishing terms with Tripoli, because once “a treaty was made by Tripoli, or any one of the Barbary states, they would follow the example.” In just this way, the ambassador allowed, a treaty had been concluded with Spain. Then, calling “God to witness,” Abd al-Rahman “swore by his beard, which is a sacred oath to them,” insisting “that his motive to this earnestness for peace although it might be of some benefit to himself, was the desire of doing good.” In reality, his humanitarianism assured the most profitable outcome for Tripoli. When the North African ambassador learned that America had also sent an agent to negotiate with Morocco, “he rejoiced to hear it.”114
Adams reported that “no harm could be done by dealing frankly” with the ambassador. Abd al-Rahman “rejoiced” to see the envoy’s congressional commission to make treaties with Tripoli as well as Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis, saying he would undertake to negotiate terms for both Tunis and Tripoli. He would “also write in favor of any person who might be sent or go with him in person, to assist in the completion of peace with all the States of Barbary,” which Adams added “was more than he had ever before said to any ambassador or minister in Europe.”115
When Adams asked Abd al-Rahman specifically about “the terms,” he was told to come see the ambassador at his house the next evening. Before leaving Adams took the opportunity to remind his visitor that although “America was an extensive country, the inhabitants were few in comparison with France, Spain, and England” and that they “were just emerged from the calamities of war” and had few potential ships that the corsairs could seize as prizes.116 Abd al-Rahman took the point immediately. “God forbid,” he said, “that I should consider America upon a footing at present, in point of wealth, with these nations.” He then said that he would rather depart than “stipulate anything precisely.”117
Adams, impressed but wary, observed of Abd al-Rahman, “This man is either a consummate politician in art and address, or he is a benevolent and wise man. Time will discover whether he disguises an interested character, or is indeed the philosopher he pretends to be. If the latter, Providence seems to have opened to us an opportunity of conducting this thorny business to a happy conclusion.”118
Despite this guarded optimism, Adams reported that money would be the problem: “If the sum limited by congress should be insufficient, we shall be embarrassed; and indeed, a larger sum could not be commanded, unless a new loan should be opened in Holland.”119
Of the second meeting, on the twenty-first, Adams reported the next day, “The ambassador, who is known to many of the foreign ministers here, is universally well spoken of.”120 Yet shortly thereafter his worst fears about the price of a peace were confirmed. Terms, Abd al-Rahman explained, differed “according to the duration.” There were two types, a “perpetual treaty” being more expensive than one of fixed term. The ambassador recommended the pricier option, counseling that once lapsed, a treaty “might be difficult and expensive to revive.” Adams was aghast at the sums he called “vastly beyond expectation,” to which the ambassador answered that “they never made a treaty for less.” This sum, he explained, had to offset what the ruler of Tripoli and his officers were entitled to by law as their share of spoils of all ships seized.121 In piracy as in peace, profit was foremost in this diplomat’s mind.
Adams’s official assessment for the secretary of state was that peace with Tripoli, though dear, would not simply keep pirates at bay, but would favor the prestige and finances of America in the long run. “If a perpetual peace were made with these states, the character of the United States would instantly rise all over the world. Our commerce, navigation, and fisheries would extend into the Mediterranean to Spain and Portugal, France and England. The additional profits would richly repay the interest, and our credit would be ad
equate to all wants.”122 He also reported that Jefferson had arrived in London on March 11, partly to assist in the effort with Tripoli, but mainly to conclude his own negotiations with Portugal.123 In Jefferson’s presence Abd al-Rahman would invoke the Qur’anic justification for continued conflict and the seizure of American captives, but his preoccupation with the finances would persist.124
JEFFERSON AND ADAMS NEGOTIATE WITH ABD AL-RAHMAN, MARCH 1786
Though signed by both Jefferson and Adams, the report of the fourth meeting was clearly written by the latter, who began the page-and-a-half-long missive to John Jay by observing, “Soon after the arrival of Mr. J. in London, we had a conference with the Ambassador of Tripoli, at his House.”125 Perhaps as ambassador to Britain, the country in which they were negotiating, Adams considered it his responsibility to author the report, but Jefferson would certainly have read and approved the contents.
The meeting began and ended with America’s financial dilemma; the new country was eager for peace but short on funds. Abd al-Rahman confirmed the price difference between a “perpetual” and a limited-term deal, again advising that “a perpetual peace was in all respects the most advisable, because a temporary treaty would leave room for increasing demands upon every renewal of it, and a stipulation for annual payments would be liable to failures of performance which would renew the war, repeat the negotiations and continually augment the claims of his nation.”126
The price asked for even one year seemed staggering to the Americans: 12,500 guineas, plus 10 percent for the ambassador. The perpetual peace at over twice as much was a bargain, though further out of reach: 30,000 guineas, plus the ambassador’s £3,000, or 10 percent127 (in present-value terms about $2.6 million).128 Abd al-Rahman, then, had a considerable personal stake in the outcome of negotiations, one for which he offered no justification, diplomatic or Qur’anic. For the same price, he said, Tunis would also be covered, but the ambassador could not predict what terms Algiers or Morocco would demand.
At this point, Adams and Jefferson attempted a diversion from the subject of money. They reminded Abd al-Rahman that the United States did not consider Tripoli, or any other nation, an enemy. It was an attempt at declaring peace unilaterally, and perhaps solving the problem by means of a technicality. The pair wrote, “We took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the grounds of their pretensions 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.”129 It was worth a try.
ABD AL-RAHMAN REFERS TO THE QUR’AN—AND THE DEVIL—IN DEFENSE OF PIRACY
It was now that Abd al-Rahman offered a religious rationale for the state of hostilities, one that conveniently also happened to support his financial objectives, both diplomatic and personal. Tripoli’s bellicosity toward the United States, he allowed, “was founded on the Laws of the 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.”130 It was, to be sure, a selective presentation of the Qur’an’s teaching, but not one meant to invite discussion even if the Americans had been so inclined or prepared.131
In fact, all of the ambassador’s references to the Qur’an were accurate, including the precedents for preemptive war against People of the Book, meaning Christians and Jews (Qur’an 9:29); the taking of captives (Qur’an 47:4); and the heavenly rewards for slain Muslim warriors (Qur’an 2:154). Jefferson may have recalled some of them from his reading of Sale’s translation eleven years before in Virginia. Might he also have remembered that various verses about warfare had been revealed in the midst of seventh-century Muslim struggles in Arabia against superior, pagan foes whom the good Muslim was obliged to fight to the death, failing an effort to convert them (Qur’an 9:5)? The presumably Christian Europeans and now Americans, as People of the Book, however, could justifiably be fought only until they were dominated. In piratical warfare in the Mediterranean, this did not mean submitting to Islamic rule and paying the jizya, or poll tax, but merely accepting Islamic terms of tribute for peace and the ransom of prisoners. To this extent, Abd al-Rahman’s quest for peace and a lucrative treaty were acceptable Islamic practices.132 All Sunni legal schools promoted the idea that peace, when in the interest of the Islamic community, was an acceptable alternative to war, even the variety of war known as jihad, or struggle.133 Variants of the word “jihad” occur in thirty-six verses of the Qur’an, covering various forms of religious exertion, but there are only ten explicitly on warfare.134
Traditionally, jihad is not considered in references to warfare and killing, the justification of which was limited to righting wrongs or self-defense: “And whoso defendeth himself after he hath suffered wrong—for such, there is no way [of blame] against them” (Qur’an 42:41).135 But Abd al-Rahman might have based his declaration of war against the United States on continuing European bombardments of Tripoli and other Muslim ports in the eighteenth century. An American captive in Algiers had explained to Jefferson that the locals retained a special hatred against the Spanish “for persecuting the Mahometan religion” and for expelling those Muslims who remained in Catholic Spain in 1609.136 But the United States, as Adams and Jefferson pointed out, had nothing to do with those assaults. (James Madison would later argue more broadly that the United States did not share this European Christian history of Muslim persecution.) Nonetheless, all the North African pirate states, including Tripoli, believed themselves to be safeguarding the Islamic frontier—on land and sea. How, Abd al-Rahman might have wondered, could the policy of the United States toward Tripoli be shown to differ from that of their European coreligionists? Nevertheless, however sound his scriptural justification for war, the fact was that hostilities, even if presumed, had never been continuous. Thanks to treaties dictated by the North African powers, interludes of peace had frequently occurred from the seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries.
The ambassador omitted to tell Adams and Jefferson that even the most bellicose pronouncements in the Qur’an included injunctions to limit conflict, establishing terms with the enemy if they were to submit and request a treaty. And this, after all, was what the Americans were attempting to do by refusing the notion of a presumed state of war with Tripoli. If he had been inclined to accept the American protestations, he could have cited very different Qur’anic verses, including one depicting Muslim reluctance to initiate conflict: “Fight in the way of God against those who fight against you, but begin not hostilities. Lo! God loveth not aggressors” (Qur’an 2:190).137 War is elsewhere described in the Qur’an as something Muslims must engage in, despite the fact that it is “hateful unto you” (Qur’an 2:216).138 Abd al-Rahman might also have referred to the second chapter of the Qur’an, where there is a marked emphasis on accepting surrender and terms of peace with one’s enemies: “But if they desist, then lo! God is forgiving, merciful” (Qur’an 2:192).139 Elsewhere, the Islamic sacred text states, “And if they incline to peace, incline thou also unto it, and trust in Allah” (Qur’an 8:61).140 Numerous verses insist that fighting must end when one’s enemy wishes to end it: “So, if they hold aloof from you and wage not war against you and offer you peace, Allah alloweth you no way against them” (Qur’an 4:90).141 Other verses repeat these sentiments, and some invoke the fulfillment and establishment of treaties for peace (Qur’an 2:193, 8:39, 9:4, 9:7). There is no mention of payment for peace in any of these verses.
Nor did the ambassador emphasize that treaties are acceptable in the Qur’an and Muslims are to abide by their terms: “Fulfill the covenant of Allah when ye have covenanted, and break not your oaths after the assertion of them, and after ye have made Allah surety over you. Lo! Allah knoweth what you do” (Qur’an 16:91).142 Abd al-Rahman’s offer of a perpetua
l peace for the United States, the most costly kind, had little precedent in Islamic history. Sunni jurists disagreed about the proper duration of treaties, and while many allowed for two years at most, others specified that the terms should not exceed a decade.143 The idea of perpetual peace seems to have been a financially motivated North African invention.
When Abd al-Rahman described the heavenly rewards of piracy to Thomas Jefferson, the latter may have remembered, as George Sale made clear in his first volume, that the religious impetus to fight for heavenly reward was not uniquely Islamic; it had likewise motivated both Jews and Christians.144 In any case the official copy of the letter to Jay suggests that Jefferson was more focused on the tribute demanded than on any Qur’anic justification offered. His original copy of the report, preserved in his correspondence, reveals a telling orthographical error: “laws of the profit,” which in the official version was corrected to read “laws of the prophet.”145 The error suggests Jefferson’s skepticism of Abd al-Rahman’s rationale, and it conforms neatly with his numerous references to “avarice” and “cupidity” where pirates were concerned. It was perhaps not an uncommon play on words: a couple of months later in a letter from Captain Richard O’Brien, a captive in Algiers, Jefferson would be told, “but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet,” a variation on the Islamic creedal statement “There is no god but God and Muhammad is His Prophet.”146