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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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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.
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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 desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.
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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.
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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."
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It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
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Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put an end to the Muslim problem.

1/17/2007 4:02:20 AM

Quote :

"Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty."

Thomas Jefferson

1/17/2007 5:09:35 AM

^^ Good point. We definitely need to go to war against a religion. (Btw, this is the same guy who organized Vietnam Vets Against John Kerry)


^ So you're using that to protest the attacks on civil liberties that have been occurring since the War on Terror started, right?

Because it'd be hilarious if you, a social conservative, were using Jefferson quotes to justify your views.

[Edited on January 17, 2007 at 4:26 PM. Reason : .]

1/17/2007 4:26:15 PM

I don't think anything that this administration has done other than dramatically lowering taxes for the rich could be construed as classical conservatism.

[Edited on January 17, 2007 at 4:31 PM. Reason : .]

1/17/2007 4:31:19 PM

neoconservatism

1/17/2007 5:18:15 PM

^that's cute
Class Warfare (regardless of accuracy) FTW

1/17/2007 5:18:46 PM

Quote :

"I don't think anything that this administration has done other than dramatically lowering taxes for the rich could be construed as classical conservatism."

This thread isn't about what the current administration is doing with taxes. It's about Jefferson's views on Islam.

1/17/2007 5:28:11 PM

No, it's about Jefferson's views on Piracy.

And Jefferson and Adam's narrative of what one Muslim said to them.

1/17/2007 5:34:40 PM

^^i think its more about jefferson's view of american sovereignty and protecting its interests.

[Edited on January 17, 2007 at 5:37 PM. Reason : d]

1/17/2007 5:37:05 PM

Islam sucks big balls.

Everybody knows that.

Moving on...

1/17/2007 5:37:40 PM

I guess this guy failed to read the treay of tripoli.

Quote :

"Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. "

1/18/2007 5:08:02 AM

Quote :

"Btw, this is the same guy who organized Vietnam Vets Against John Kerry"

shit. I just noticed this was Ted Sampley. Thats good. I didnt want to actually read anything that was posted.

1/18/2007 8:47:29 AM

^^Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli.

I'm tryna put all this together in my head.

[Edited on January 18, 2007 at 10:07 AM. Reason : sss]

1/18/2007 10:06:21 AM

To Boone: I'm not a "social conservative," dumbass. Stop acting like you have me all figured out--you don't. You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

1/18/2007 10:27:55 AM

neoconservatism isn't

1/18/2007 10:49:50 AM

Quote :

"http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/01/17/warwithin.overview/index.html"

crazy muslims and i thought christians were bad about trying to spread there religious ideas to others.

1/18/2007 2:23:59 PM

this piece by ted sampley is strangely similar to a piece by christopher hitchens published in Slate on Jan. 9th. coincidence? not sure who ted sampley is, but i didnt see any kind of link in the original post in this thread so i have no way to verify where it came from...


http://www.slate.com/id/2157314/fr/flyout

1/18/2007 9:36:12 PM

I doubt its a coincidence. Ted Sampley is pretty much complete and total scum.

And I dont mean because he is a Republican. Its the constant legal trouble he has been in.

1/18/2007 9:41:56 PM

one response? i figured id get more outta you soapbox people. i mean american idols not even on tonight...

1/18/2007 10:23:51 PM

^

what's your point, noob?

i read the two articles -- other than quoting the same primary source material (all of which is old news) theres not much similarity. sampley's article is weak, and like always, he uses non-sequiters to make his "point" (that our so-called war on terror is somehow justified).

the Slate article goes a completely different direction and makes a different point entirely.

1/19/2007 1:50:52 AM

So wer're comparing Jefferson's war on the Barbary pirates to Bush's war on Al Qaida. Excellent...

Jefferson's war

1) Targeted a specific group
2) Economically viable - pay for war over paying for tributes
3) Ended quickly and decisively


Bush's war

1) Targeted a specific group initially then invaded an entire country.
2) Economic drain - $400 billion and no oil profits
3) Continues to drag on.


"It's not unAmerican to think that war, except in self defense, is a failure of moral imagination, political nerve, and diplomacy..."
-Bill Moyer

Jefferson acted in self-defense, Bush acted (in Iraq) with a political agenda. Big difference.

1/20/2007 12:20:19 AM

I didn't know this thread was about iraq

1/20/2007 12:29:31 AM

aren't they all?

1/20/2007 12:30:28 AM

It's more about wanting to kill all Muslims than Iraq

1/20/2007 12:34:13 AM

or muslims wanting to kill non muslims

1/20/2007 12:38:36 AM

nobody here supports the killing of all muslims.

1/20/2007 12:43:04 AM

i do...






























...right after we kill all the christians.

1/20/2007 2:31:43 AM

^and who's "we"?

1/20/2007 4:47:51 PM

your mom.

1/20/2007 7:40:10 PM

your wife and kid. Oh but wait....it'd be pretty hard for them or you to kill me, so....

1/21/2007 10:22:29 AM

um.... youre a ted samply quoting, gun toting, bitter conservative partisan.

i'd like to apologize to you now:

I was just kidding about the christian thing, and please accept my sincere regrets for having insinuated anything negative about your family.





[Edited on January 21, 2007 at 1:46 PM. Reason : what the hell was i thinking?]

1/21/2007 1:44:58 PM

muslims... lol

1/21/2007 1:56:42 PM