Sword and Scimitar: Fourteen Centuries of War between Islam and the West

by Raymond Ibrahim

Finally, on April 27, 1805—in what became the United States’ first historical victory as a nation—Eaton reached, attacked, and conquered Tripoli’s coastal town of Derne. Soon thereafter, as he was preparing to march on to Tripoli itself, he learned that, as of June 10, the war was over: U.S. consul-general Tobias Lear had negotiated what was later deemed an ignoble peace treaty with Tripoli; it included the surrender of Derne back to the Barbary state and the American payment of $60,000 to ransom the Philadelphia’s crew. Four months later, in October 1806, the first American edition of the Koran was printed in the United States. As the editor’s note makes clear, its publication was not for the “cultural enrichment” of Americans—as is often claimed today—but to inform them why they had been at war for the last four years. After opening up by saying, “This book is a long conference of God, the angels, and Mahomet, which that false prophet very grossly invented,” the editor concluded: “Thou wilt wonder that such absurdities hath infected the better part of the world, and wilt avouch, that the knowledge of what is contained in this book, wilt render that law [sharia] contemptible.”