Thomas Jefferson, the Koran & Slavery

Last updated on: January 25, 2007 at 5:37 am by Fr. Joseph Huneycutt

Thomas Jefferson, the Koran & Slavery 2007-01-25T05:37:00-06:00 Fr. Joseph Huneycutt

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Recently, a black congressman — a Muslim — was sworn in using Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Koran (Quran). The following excerpts from an article by Ted Sampley show how ironic that was.

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.

Read the whole article H E R E.

A couple other excerpts …

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 an 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.

The article was sent to me via RC pal, Tim, in NC. In poking around on Google, it seems the article has been passed around mainly among websites that I cannot fully endorse. That said, it is food for thought. Comments on the article, and its merit, welcomed.

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