Dear Infidels: A Warning to America | PragerU

On March 28, 1786, two of America's founding fathers documented the United States' first exposure to Islamic jihad in an important letter to Congress.

One year earlier, 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 its enslaved crew and establish peaceful relations, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams—then ambassadors to France and England 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:

"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 [dated March 28, 1786]"

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."

Does any of this mean that all Muslims are enemies of America? Of course not! However, to those who strictly interpret the Quran, those Muslims who are not enemies of America are apostates.