Andrew Bostom, M.D.

As this country's leaders struggle to come to grips with Islamic jihad -- still reluctant to use the term, they prefer the nebulous “war on terror”-- it is important to note that an early U.S. President possessed a remarkably clear understanding of the challenge posed by Islam to Western civilization.
I have reviewed little known essays dealing with this subject by John Quincy Adams, written after his Presidency and before his election to Congress in 1830 (Chapters X-XIV, pp. 267-402, in The American Annual Register for 1827-28-29, New York 1830). The contributions of the second Adams, thus far less recognized than those of his father John Adams, particularly in shaping U.S. foreign policy, are being rediscovered. In 1949 the distinguished Yale diplomatic historian Samuel Flagg Bemis wrote:
“Adams grasped the essentials of American policy and the position of the United States in the world more surely than any other man of his time. He availed himself of matchless opportunities to advance the continental future of his country and the fundamental principles for which it stood in the world….Even if John Quincy Adams was not to have another great career, as a crusader against the expansion of slavery, [his] first and mighty achievement, of no less than continental proportions, in laying the foundations of American foreign policy, would have been great enough for one lifetime.”

In an era untouched by cultural relativism, Adams, convinced of the truth and moral superiority of Christianity, had no hesitation in drawing a harsh contrast between Jesus and Christianity, and Muhammad and Islam.
“And he [Jesus] declared, that the enjoyment of felicity in the world hereafter, would be reward of the practice of benevolence here. His whole law was resolvable into the precept of love; peace on earth – good will toward man…On the Christian system of morals, man is an immortal spirit, confined for a short space of time, in an earthly tabernacle. Kindness to his fellow mortals embraces the whole compass of his duties upon earth, and the whole promise of happiness to his spirit hereafter. THE ESSENCE OF THIS DOCTRINE IS, TO EXALT THE SPIRITUAL OVER THE BRUTAL PART OF HIS NATURE [Capitals in original].”
Of Muhammad and Islam, he writes:
“Adopting from the sublime conception of the Mosaic law, the doctrine of one omnipotent God; he connected indissolubly with it, the audacious falsehood, that he was himself his prophet and apostle. Adopting from the new Revelation of Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal life, and of future retribution, he humbled it to the dust by adapting all the rewards and sanctions of his religion to the gratification of the sexual passion. He poisoned the sources of human felicity at the fountain, by degrading the condition of the female sex, and the allowance of polygamy; and he declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind. THE ESSENCE OF HIS DOCTRINE WAS VIOLENCE AND LUST; TO EXALT THE BRUTAL OVER THE SPIRITUAL PART OF HUMAN NATURE (Capitals in original)...Between these two religions, thus contrasted in their characters, a war of twelve hundred years has already raged. The war is yet flagrant...While the merciless and dissolute dogmas of the false prophet shall furnish motives to human action, there can never be peace upon earth, and good will towards men.”
Adams concluded solemnly,
“As the essential principle of his [Muhammad’s] faith is the subjugation of others by the sword; it is only by force, that his false doctrines can be dispelled, and his power annihilated.”
John Quincy Adams lucidly described the permanent Islamic institutions of jihad war and dhimmitude. Regarding jihad, Adams observes,
“…he [Muhammad] declared undistinguishing and exterminating war, as a part of his religion, against all the rest of mankind…The precept of the Koran is, perpetual war against all who deny, that Mahomet is the prophet of God… the faithful follower of the prophet, may submit to the imperious necessities of defeat: but the command to propagate the Moslem creed by the sword is always obligatory, when it can be made effective.”
And Adams captured the essential condition imposed upon the non-Muslim dhimmi “tributaries” subjugated by jihad, with this laconic statement,
“The vanquished may purchase their lives, by the payment of tribute.”

Adams also reported on the religiously rooted pattern of bad faith in negotiations -- the false promises of "peace," the saying of one thing in the language of "foreigners," another in Arabic -- that Israel has belatedly discovered, at great cost, and the rest of the world has yet to confront. Writes Adams: “..The commands of the prophet may be performed alike, by fraud, or by force. Of Mahometan good faith, we have had memorable examples ourselves. When our gallant [Stephen] Decatur had chastised the pirate of Algiers, till he was ready to renounce his claim of tribute from the United States, he signed a treaty to that effect: but the treaty was drawn up in the Arabic language, as well as in our own; and our negotiators, unacquainted with the language of the Koran, signed the copies of the treaty, in both languages, not imagining that there was any difference between them."
Adams continues:
"Within a year the Dey [Muslim ruler of Algiers] demands, under penalty of the renewal of the war, an indemnity in money for the frigate taken by Decatur; our Consul demands the foundation of this pretension; and the Arabic copy of the treaty, signed by himself is produced, with an article stipulating the indemnity, foisted into it, in direct opposition to the treaty as it had been concluded. The arrival of Chauncey, with a squadron before Algiers, silenced the fraudulent claim of the Dey, and he signed a new treaty in which it was abandoned; but he disdained to conceal his intentions; my power, said he, has been wrested from my hands; draw ye the treaty at your pleasure, and I will sign it; but beware of the moment, when I shall recover my power, for with that moment, your treaty shall be waste paper. He avowed what they always practiced, and would without scruple have practiced himself. Such is the spirit, which governs the hearts of men, to whom treachery and violence are taught as principles of religion."

Adams assails the subterfuges of the Ottoman Sultan in his dealings with Russia. The Sultan, he writes, prepared for war while pretending, so as to gain time, peaceful intentions. He had the Ottoman Grand Vizier send a letter to the Russian Prime Minister declaring "the Sublime Porte has at all times no other desire or wish than to preserve peace and good understanding" while at the same time another state paper was issued, addressed by the Sultan to his own subjects--this was the Hatti Sheriff of the 20th of December, sent to the Pashas of all the provinces, calling on all the faithful Mussulmen of the empire to come forth and 'fight for their religion, and their country, against the infidel despisers of the Prophet. The comparison of these two documents with each other, will afford the most perfect illustration of the Ottoman faith, as well as of their temper towards Russia."
Adams continues:
“The Hatti Sheriff commenced...'It is well known (said the Sultan) to almost every person, that if the Mussulmen naturally hate the infidels, the infidels, on their part, are the enemies of the Mussulmen: that Russia, more especially bears a particular hatred to Islamism, and that she is the principal enemy of the Sublime Porte.' This appeal to the natural hatred of the Mussulmen towards the infidels, is in just accordance with the precepts of the Koran. The document does not attempt to disguise it, nor even pretend that the enmity of those whom it styles the infidels, is any other than the necessary consequence of the hatred borne by the Mussulmen to them--the paragraph itself, is a forcible example of the contrasted character of the two religions. The fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion, is the extirpation of hatred from the human heart. It forbids the exercise of it even towards enemies. There is no denomination of Christians, which denies or misunderstands this doctrine....The unqualified acknowledgement of a duty does not, indeed, suffice to insure its performance. Hatred is yet a passion, but too powerful upon the hearts of Christians. Yet they cannot indulge it, except by the sacrifice of their principles and the conscious violation of their duties. No state paper from a Christian hand, could, without trampling the precepts of its Lord and Master, have commenced by an open proclamation of hatred to any portion of the human race. The Ottoman lays it down as the foundation of his discourse.”

Adams notes that the Sultan's pronouncement to his subjects continued:
“...all infidels are but one nation...This war must be considered purely a religious and national war. Let all the faithful, rich or poor, great or little, know, that to fight is a duty with us; let them then refrain from thinking of arrears, or of pay of any kind; far from such considerations, let us sacrifice our property and our persons; let us execute zealously the duties which the honor of Islamism imposes on us -- let us unite our efforts, and labor, body and soul, for the support of religion, until the day of judgment. Mussulmen have no other means of working out salvation in this world and the next.”
But then, writes Adams, when the Russians got wind of this declaration "summoning the whole Ottoman nation to arms against Russia, the Sultan now thinks proper to say, that it was only a proclamation which the Sublime Porte, for certain reasons, circulated in its states; an internal transaction, of which the Sublime Porte alone knows the motives, and that the language held by a government to its own subjects cannot be a ground for another government to pick a quarrel with it...that if Russia had conceived suspicions, from the Sultan's address to his subjects, she might have applied amicably to the Porte to ascertain the truth and clear up her doubts.”
An early anti-imperialist, Adams was a strong advocate for the liberation of Greek Christians, like Christians in the Balkans and the Black Sea lands of Russia, then suffering under the strictures of dhimmitude within the Ottoman Empire. Wrote Adams:
“Those provinces are the abode of ten millions of human beings, two thirds of whom are Christians, groaning under the intolerable oppression of less than three millions of Turks. Those provinces are in some of the fairest regions of the earth. They were Christian countries, subdued during the conquering period of the Mahometan imposture, by the ruthless scymetar [sic] of the Ottoman race; and under their iron yoke, have been gradually dwindling in population, and sinking into barbarism. The time of their redemption is at hand.”
Adams assails the phony “moral equivalence” the Western powers, above all England, applied to the Islamic Ottomans and their victims (shades of the approach of modern Western statesmen to the multitude of conflicts on what Samuel Huntington aptly termed, “Islam’s bloody borders”) and the moral cowardice that put the status quo above liberty. Writes Adams:
“In the king's [George IV] speech, at the opening of the session of Parliament, on the 29th of January, he said that, 'for several years a contest had been carried on between the Ottoman Porte, and the inhabitants of the Greek provinces and islands, which had been marked on each side, by excesses revolting to humanity.' Still more extraordinary was it to the ears of Christendom to hear a British king, in a speech to his parliament, style the execrable and sanguinary head of the Ottoman race, his ancient ally; and denominate a splendid victory, achieved under the command of a British admiral, in the strict and faithful execution of his instructions, an untoward event. But the last member of the paragraph from his majesty's speech...to those accustomed to the mystifications of royal speeches and diplomatic defiances, explained these apparent disparates. He declares the great objects to which all his efforts have been directed, and of which...he will never lose sight, are the termination of the contest between the hostile parties; the permanent settlement of their future relations to each other, and maintenance of the repose of Europe, upon the basis on which it has rested since the last general peace.”
In all the documents “issuing from the profound and magnanimous policy of the British warrior statesman,” writes Adams,
“nothing is more remarkable than the more than stoical apathy with which they regard the cause, for which the Greeks are contending; the more than epicurean indifference with which they witness the martyrdom of a whole people, perishing in the recovery of their religion and liberty.”
Given the global struggle with jihad terror, perhaps it is time for John Quincy Adams remarkable series of essays to be read by contemporary U.S. diplomats and politicians, and heeded.

Andrew G. Bostom, MD, MS has written extensively on jihad, and is the editor of a forthcoming collection of classical essays and primary source documents entitled, The Legacy of Jihad.