Thanks to Slate for this timely and eye-opening article about Thomas Jefferson's attitudes toward Islam and Muslims. He, like other prominent Americans at the time, actually advocated for the inclusion of Muslims into the new Republic. Jefferson even owned a Koran. If people believed that Muslims should be banned from entering the U.S. solely on their faith, show them this article and help them understand how un-American their discrimination actually is.
For another fascinating bit about the English pre-modern relationship with Muslims, check out this article about Queen Elizabeth I's alliance with Islamic rulers, and how that contributed to the rise of the British Empire, and eventually the U.S.
The Barbary Pirates come to mind also.
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Correct. During Jefferson's presidency about 10% of the national budget was spent fighting Islamic Terrorism in the mediterranean.
In March 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to London to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy, ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja. When they enquired "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied: "It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.”
“He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.”
The First Barbary War (1801–1805) also known as the Tripolitan War or the Barbary Coast War, was the first of two wars fought between the United States and the Northwest African Berber Muslim states known collectively as the Barbary States. These were the Ottoman provinces of Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis, which were enjoying a large autonomy, as well as the independent Sultanate of Morocco. The war was fought because U.S. President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay the high tributes demanded by the Barbary states and because they were seizing American merchant ships and enslaving the crews for high ransoms. It was the first declared war the United States fought on foreign land and seas.
http://conservativepost.com/thomas-jeffersons-response-to-muslims-in-1801-is-more-important-today-than-ever/
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