>>Valley Patriot>>
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(02/06/07)
What THomas Jefferson Learned From
The Muslim Book of Jihad
Ted Sampley,
U.S. Veteran Dispatch
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 Ellisons 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. It once belonged to
Thomas Jefferson, third president of the United States
and one of Americas 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 Jeffersons
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.
Ellisons use of Jeffersons 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
Algiersan 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 Deys 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 Americas 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.
Jeffersons 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
countrys battles on the land as on the sea.
It wasnt 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.
*Send your questions comments to ValleyPatriot@aol.com
The February 2007
Edition of the Valley Patriot
The Valley Patriot is a Monthly
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All Contents (C) 2007, Valley Patriot, Inc.
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