The Barbary Pirates Were Warriors for Islamic Jihad, according to a 19th Century French historian

Islam divides the world into two parts geographically, Dar al-Islam where Islam and Islamic law [the Shari`ah] hold sway, and Dar al-Harb which is ruled by non-Muslims and is perforce in a permanent state of war [harb] with Dar al-Islam, as Muslims see things. Further, Islam sees only two nations in the world, the Nation of Islam, of Muslim believers [mu'iminun] and the nation of unbelievers [kufar], which includes the rest of the human race, no matter what their particular religion or sect or state of unbelief may be. Cesar Famin gave an account of this in 1853, an account relayed by none other than Karl Marx to readers of the New York Tribune [15 April 1854]. Yet, it seems that in the benighted 21st century, much knowledge that mankind possessed in the past has been forgotten due to the dictates of what is "politically correct."
Famin reports that between Islamic states and states of the Dar al-Harb no lasting peace is possible, although there can be truces with those who surrender, make treaties and pay tribute, which is likened to the special taxes paid by non-Muslim subjects of the Muslim state to their governments, jizyah and kharaj. The tribute can be paid "either openly or under other, sweeter names for the sake of the national amour-propre [self-esteem of non-Muslim nations] , names to which the Muslims are quite indifferent: customary gifts, gifts of good manners [or ceremonial or protocol gifts], good friendship offerings."

"This is how the permanent state of hostility of the regencies of Barbary [the Barbary Coast, North Africa], subject to the religion of Muhammad, to the infidel peoples that have not offered tribute, nor had a treaty nor have capitulated, is explained. We used to say that the Algerian or Tripolitan ships [that is, ships from Algiers or Tripoli] were manned by pirates and buccaneers, by filibuster seadogs without faith and without law. But the truth is that these so-called pirate ships were the warships of a power that, obeying the fundamental principle of its religion, considered as enemies all those who had not obtained from it capitulation [surrender] agreements or treaties, since every unbeliever who does not pay tribute is harby; he is an enemy who must be exterminated or reduced to the state of a slave. Therefore, there wasn't any notion of piracy, but the simple consequence of a principle of religion. The great seagoing nations came to understandings, not without pain, with these miserable Barbary regencies in order to put an end to these" . . .[p 9] [depredations]

"It would be in vain that he [a foreign, non-Muslim merchant in a Muslim land involved in a dispute with locals] would invoke the benefit of the peace existing between his sovereign and the chief of the believers. These words of perpetual peace belong to the political language of Europe, and are devoid of meaning for the members of the Prophet's sect. Peace cannot exist between the two nations. There can only be, as we have said, truces between them; and for every good believer, the truce is broken whenever a giaour [infidel] in a Mohammedan land commits one of those thousand infractions of the law that have been invented by ignorance and fanaticism. . . the law of Muhammad mixes together in the nation of infidels all those who do not obey the precepts of the Koran, whether they be called Christians or Magians, Jews or idolators. . . in the eyes of the true believers, there cannot be any distinction possible between these diverse peoples and diverse religions. . . " [p 11]

This is because the strict Muslim sees all unbelievers as belonging to that one nation of unbelievers, as Famin has explained. This is expressed by the Arabic proverb: Kulli kufar millatun wahidun [= All infidels are one nation]. Likewise, all Muslims are one nation [ummah]. So the Muslim in Morocco feels more in common with a Muslim in far off Indonesia than with a Jew whose family has been in Morocco for two thousand years. And the Sunni Muslim Arab in Iraq feels more in common with a Sunni Muslim Pakistani than with the Christian inhabitants of Iraq whose ancestors lived there long before Islam. So, according to strict Islam, there cannot be any "Palestinian people," since those they have been calling "Palestinians" only since the 1960s, are in fact Muslims --overwhelmingly-- who owe more loyalty to fellow Muslims far away than to the Christian minority living near them within the Palestinian Authority zones. Are the wise policy planners of the European Union aware that their dear Hamas considers the Arabs called by the EU "Palestinians" to be part of the Islamic nation?
Why has the understanding that Cesar Famin had in 1853 somehow seemingly disappeared from the minds of nearly all Western politicians, journalists, NGO aid workers, etc??

About the "Barbary regencies," except for the pirate ports in Morocco, they were part of the Ottoman Empire which had formal sovereignty up to the Moroccan border. Morocco was a separate kingdom. See more by and about Cesar Famin by searching the site.
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Coming: Jews in Jerusalem and Galilee, poems of Zion, the BBC Problem, etc.