What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of jihad
By Ted Sampley
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
January 2007
Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States
congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the
Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States during
his ceremonial swearing-in.
Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more
media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison
represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.
The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas
Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's
founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the
Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in
the library.
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college,
said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary
like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could
be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. At the time Jefferson owned the book,
he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to
advocate war against the Islamic "Barbary" states of Morocco, Algeria,
Tunisia and Tripoli.
Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once
well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is mostly
forgotten - the Muslim pirate slavers who over many centuries enslaved
millions of Africans and tens of thousands of Christian Europeans and
Americans in the Islamic "Barbary" states.
Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and
Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.
The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had
a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many
of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred
"booty" of only young women and children could be collected.
Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines
in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim
men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have
as many concubines as their fortunes allow.
Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs
who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East.
Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave
routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that
only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after
the surgery.
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American
merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for
protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews enslaved
by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of Algiers"--an
Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the
pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties with
the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission consisting
of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to oversee the
negotiations.
Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean, the
new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing to
pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and buy
the freedom of enslaved sailors.
Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get American
commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was opposed. He
believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and wanted
matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league of
trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams, then
the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul
Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.
The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote to
appease.
During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why
Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they
had no previous contacts.
In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents
reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that
Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in
their Quran, 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 (Muslim) who should be slain
in
Battle was sure to go to Paradise."
For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims
millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of
American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20
percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he dispatched
a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and
informed Congress.
Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not one
cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American
Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.
The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake,
USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.
In 1805, American Marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into
Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all
American slaves.
During the Jefferson administration, the Muslim Barbary States, crumbling
as a result of intense American naval bombardment and on shore raids by
Marines, finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.
Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn,
with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we
will fight our country's battles on the land as on the sea."
It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat
of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put and
end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison was right about Jefferson. He was a
"visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own
Muslim book of jihad.
This original article may be viewed at:
<http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm>
http://www.usvetdsp.com/jan07/jeff_quran.htm
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