New Muslim congresswoman picks Jefferson's Quran for swearing-in

A newly elected member of Congress, Rashida Tlaib of an urban district in Minnesota, reportedly has revealed that she has chosen to be sworn in as a member on an English translation of the Quran that once was owned by Thomas Jefferson, the third president.

It was Roya News that reported she claimed, "It's important to me because a lot of Americans have this kind of feeling that Islam is somehow foreign to American history."

She continued, "Muslims were there at the beginning … Some of our founding fathers knew more about Islam than some members of Congress now."

The report said Tlaib will borrow the Quran, the same as that used by Rep. Keith Ellison, a Muslim, several years ago, from the Rare Books and Special Collections section of the Library of Congress for her ceremony. He made a similar claim, that Jefferson owned the Quran because he loved Islam and the Quran.

She actually is somewhat right, the experts explain.

But those early leaders of the United States, including Jefferson, knew of Islam not because they were fans.

They saw its advocates as enemies.

The issue was explored when former Rep. Ellison was elected and sworn in a decade ago.

At the time, Ellison boasted that Thomas Jefferson gleaned knowledge from the Quran.

"It would have been something that contributed to his own thinking," Ellison was quoted as saying at the time.

In an interview with USINFO, Ellison spokesman Rick Jauert went further, saying the choice of Jefferson's Quran was significant because it "dates religious tolerance back to the time of our founding fathers."

"Jefferson was ... one of the more profound thinkers of the time, who recognized even then that there was nothing to fear, and in fact there was strength in recognizing religious tolerance," he said.

But Ted Sampley, the publisher of U.S. Veteran Dispatch at the time, pointed out the realities when Jefferson was president.

"There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be 'gleaned' from the Muslim Quran," Sampley wrote then. "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."

He noted that over 10 centuries, Muslim pirates had cruised the African and Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and abducting slaves, mostly by making pre-dawn raids that left high casualty rates.

"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 could be collected," he explained. The women were sought for their value as concubines in Islamic markets.

"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," Sampley continued.

When American colonists rebelled against the English in 1776, merchant ships from what later would be the United States lost British navy protection, and they were attacked "and their Christian crews enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the 'Dey of Algiers' – an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria."

The Continental Congress then met in 1784 to talk about treaties with leaders of the region, and John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin were appointed to oversee the work.

"Tribute" and "ransoms" first were paid to the Muslim slavers, and Adams argued that was the cheapest way to get commerce moving, Sampley wrote. But Jefferson was opposed, proposing a settlement of the issue "through the medium of war."

Sampley writes that two years later, when Jefferson was ambassador to France, and Adams was ambassador to Britain, they met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from the "Dey of Algiers."

Seeking a peace treaty, based on Congress' vote to pay tribute, the two Americans asked Dey's ambassador why Muslims had so much hostility towards America. They later reported to Congress the ambassador told them 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."

Sampley notes that for years the American government paid Muslims millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages, but not long after Jefferson's inauguration in 1801, he dispatched the USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake, USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid to the Mediterranean.

Jefferson's first presidency coincided with what generally is called the Barbary Wars running from approximately 1801-1805. That year the Marines marched from Egypt into Tripolitania, freeing Americans held there as slaves, he wrote.

It is from that time period that the Marines got their anthem, which includes the line, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli."

Author Joseph Wheelan also wrote "Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror," noting Jefferson said, "Too long, for the honor of nations, have those Barbarians been [permitted] to trample on the sacred faith of treaties, on the rights and laws of human nature!"

At Jihad Watch, Islam expert Robert Spencer wrote, "Tlaib's statement here is part of the ongoing effort to rewrite early American history to put Muslims in it, and to recast Thomas Jefferson as an Islamophilic multiculturalist. Reality was different. Jefferson owned a Quran because he understood that one must know one's enemy in order to know how to defeat him."

Tlaib already has established her anti-Christian attitudes.

She recently went to social media to mock the Christian faith of Vice President Mike Pence.

She posted an image of Pence, with his eyes closed, during the Oval Office meeting with President Trump, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leadef Chuck Schumer.

While the other three were arguing about the need to protect the nation's southern border, Pence was quiet.

The congresswoman, who has been accused of lying to voters, captioned the image of Pence with the snarky comment, "Jesus take the wheel!"

Jesus take the wheel! #BorderWall pic.twitter.com/aEPle6HFF1

— Ilhan Omar (@IlhanMN) December 11, 2018

Spencer wrote: "Just imagine the establishment media uproar that would ensue if Pence had mocked Omar's faith. But in this case, leftist 'journalists' will just join in with Omar and mock Pence themselves."

On Twitter, however, Omar was not getting a smooth ride.

"Yeah, make fun of someone for their faith. Good job," wrote Paul "The Book Guy" Alves.

And Musicmama said, "This is abusive to Christians and Pence. Geez if anyone said it about her they'd be an islamaphobe."

WND reported when Omar and fellow Muslim Rep.-elect Rashida Harbi Tlaib of Michigan were accused of lying to voters.

The charge came from Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, who wrote that most of the media coverage since their election Nov. 6 "has been effusive in praise of their Muslim identity and personal history."

"Less known is that both women deceived voters about their positions on Israel. Both women, at some point during their rise in electoral politics, led voters – especially Jewish voters – to believe that they held moderate views on Israel. After being elected, both women reversed their positions and now say they are committed to sanctioning the Jewish state."

Kern noted that both of the new Congress members support the anti-Israel boycott, divestment and sanctions, or BDS, movement.

"Both are also explicitly or implicitly opposed to continuing military aid to Israel, as well as to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – an outcome that would establish a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Instead, they favor a one-state solution – an outcome that many analysts believe would, due to demographics over time, replace the Jewish state with a unitary Palestinian state."

Kern explained that Omar, who replaced the first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Rep. Keith Ellison, in Minnesota's 5th congressional district, made her claims after controversy arose during her campaign.

There was a "disturbing report" she had married her own brother in 2009 for fraudulent purposes, "as well as a tweet from May 2018 in which she refers to Israel as an 'apartheid regime,' and another tweet from November 2012, in which she stated: 'Israel has hypnotized the world, may Allah awaken the people and help them see the evil doings of Israel,'" he explained.

Faced with headwinds, she "met with members of her congressional district's large Jewish population to address concerns over her position on Israel, as reported by Minneapolis's Star Tribune," Kern said.

"During a Democratic Party candidates' forum at Beth El Synagogue in St. Louis Park on August 6 – one week before Omar defeated four other candidates in the party's primary – Omar publicly criticized the anti-Israel BDS movement. In front of an audience of more than a thousand people, Omar said she supported a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict and that the BDS movement aimed at pressuring Israel was not helpful in trying to achieve that goal."

But less than a week after winning, she "admitted that she supports the BDS movement," Kern pointed out.