Thomas Jefferson's Koran and the Barbary Pirates

Token congressional Muslim Keith Ellison recently raised eyebrows (and Dinah's ire) by swearing to uphold his Congressional duties on the Koran. This was greeted with a chorus of outrage until someone in Mr. Ellison's camp had the bright idea of using Thomas Jefferson's Koran. Brilliant, yes?

Not so fast there, Bucky. It would appear that Thomas Jefferson had a Koran because he wanted to learn all about his enemy before opening a can of whoop ass on:

"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."

In 1786 John Adams and Congress wanted to pay the jizya. Thomas Jefferson wanted to form "a coalition of the willing" trading nations to go after the pirates. An appeasing Congress went with the jizya.

"The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800."

Jefferson was inaugurated in 1801 and dispatched American frigates to the region. The battle cry of the day was "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute!" In 1805, American Marines forced Tripoli to surrender and freed all the American slaves.

"... 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."

It took until 1815 for the total defeat of the Muslim pirates. We got to hang in there people!

Read all about it in What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of Jihad. More here.

Another note about Congressman Ellison. I watched Mr. Ellison, who was clearly nervous about the whole thing, take the oath and felt a little bad for him. He was so rattled he had a hard time figuring out right from left when it came time to put his hand on the thing. It got so bad that Nancy Pelosi had to show him! Raw video is here.

Oh, and one more thing about Congressman Ellison? It looks like Nation of Islam and CAIR are in his woodpile. NAIF is there, too.