Islam: Has It “Always Been Part of America”?
Obama’s mosque speech vs. history.
February 9, 2016
Joseph Klein
President Barack Obama spoke for the first time as president at a U.S. mosque on February 3, 2016. His choice was the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque, where he portrayed Islam as having “always been part of America.”
The Islamic Society of Baltimore was established in 1969. If Obama had wanted to speak at “the oldest purpose-built mosque that is still in use today” in the United States, in order to try to demonstrate that Islam has “always been part of America,” he would have found it in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It would not have helped his cause, however. This mosque, known as “the Mother Mosque of America,” dates way back – drum roll, please – to 1934. The oldest mosque in the U.S. was built in North Dakota in 1929.
To provide some perspective on how short a time it has been since the first mosques in the United States were built, the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, the oldest surviving Jewish synagogue building in North America, was completed in 1763.
Nevertheless, in making the case that Islam has “always been part of America,” Obama noted that Muslims were arriving on our shores as far back as colonial times.
“Starting in colonial times, many of the slaves brought here from Africa were Muslim,” Obama declared.
It is worth recalling the National Prayer Breakfast about a year ago, when Obama charged that “Slavery…all too often was justified in the name of Christ.” He evidently believes that the early waves of Muslims coming to America as slaves were entirely the victims of a Christian-based slavery system. He won’t admit the truth: that their Muslim brethren in Africa had sold some of “the slaves brought here from Africa” in the first place. These Muslim slave traders were jihadists operating in West African territories that had been forcibly taken over by Muslim warriors and turned into Islamic theocracies.
Muslims brought to America as slaves, approximately 10 to 15 percent of the overall slave population, carried with them the attitude of Islamic supremacy that they had grown up with in Africa.
“To live as a Muslim in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century West Africa was to live in an increasingly intolerant society,” Michael A. Gomez wrote in his article entitled ‘Muslims in Early America’ (Source: The Journal of Southern History). “This was the period of the jihad, of the establishment of Muslim theocracies, of self-purification and separation from practices and beliefs that were seen as antithetical to Islam.”
Some Muslim slaves – “professors of the Mahomedan religion," as a slave owner described them - were placed in positions of authority over their fellow slaves and helped put down slave insurrections. One of these “professors of the Mahomedan religion" referred to non-Muslim slaves as "Christian dogs."
Perhaps such loathing in general for the majority Christian colonial population explains why only four or so Americans with Muslim-sounding names fought for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. By contrast, more than 100 Jews served on the American side, 15 of whom served as officers.
In any event, America’s first war against foreign states since achieving its independence was against Muslim powers. Muslim potentates from the Barbary States - Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripolitania - were plundering American commercial vessels and holding Americans hostage for ransom in the years beginning shortly after the United States won its freedom from Great Britain. They went to war with the United States when their demand for tribute was refused by President Thomas Jefferson. It took two Barbary Wars to defeat this Muslim threat.
Both Jefferson and John Adams had confronted the theocratic ideology of Islamic jihad first-hand years earlier, when they sought to negotiate an end to attacks by the Muslim Barbary Coast pirates and the holding of American captives for ransom. While Jefferson was serving as ambassador to France and Adams was serving as ambassador to Britain, both men met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from the “Dey of Algiers.” They wanted to know why the Muslim rulers were sanctioning attacks on American merchant ships and taking Americans hostage when the young United States had done nothing to provoke any of the Muslim Barbary States.
As Jefferson and Adams described in a letter to John Jay on March 28, 1786, the Muslim ambassador explained that the conduct of the Barbary Coast pirates “was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, 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 who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
In short, when the newly independent United States was at its most vulnerable, our country faced Muslim enemies animated by jihad.
Nevertheless, in his remarks at the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque, President Obama attempted to demonstrate the positive influence of Islam on the Founding Fathers. He alluded to the fact that “Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Koran.” True, but this tells only part of the story.
For example, Obama neglected to share with his audience the unflattering opinion of Islam that appeared in the preface of the particular edition of the Koran that John Adams chose to purchase:
...
Islam: Has It “Always Been Part of America”?
Obama’s mosque speech vs. history.
February 9, 2016
Joseph Klein
President Barack Obama spoke for the first time as president at a U.S. mosque on February 3, 2016. His choice was the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque, where he portrayed Islam as having “always been part of America.”
The Islamic Society of Baltimore was established in 1969. If Obama had wanted to speak at “the oldest purpose-built mosque that is still in use today” in the United States, in order to try to demonstrate that Islam has “always been part of America,” he would have found it in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. It would not have helped his cause, however. This mosque, known as “the Mother Mosque of America,” dates way back – drum roll, please – to 1934. The oldest mosque in the U.S. was built in North Dakota in 1929.
To provide some perspective on how short a time it has been since the first mosques in the United States were built, the Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island, the oldest surviving Jewish synagogue building in North America, was completed in 1763.
Nevertheless, in making the case that Islam has “always been part of America,” Obama noted that Muslims were arriving on our shores as far back as colonial times.
“Starting in colonial times, many of the slaves brought here from Africa were Muslim,” Obama declared.
It is worth recalling the National Prayer Breakfast about a year ago, when Obama charged that “Slavery…all too often was justified in the name of Christ.” He evidently believes that the early waves of Muslims coming to America as slaves were entirely the victims of a Christian-based slavery system. He won’t admit the truth: that their Muslim brethren in Africa had sold some of “the slaves brought here from Africa” in the first place. These Muslim slave traders were jihadists operating in West African territories that had been forcibly taken over by Muslim warriors and turned into Islamic theocracies.
Muslims brought to America as slaves, approximately 10 to 15 percent of the overall slave population, carried with them the attitude of Islamic supremacy that they had grown up with in Africa.
“To live as a Muslim in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century West Africa was to live in an increasingly intolerant society,” Michael A. Gomez wrote in his article entitled ‘Muslims in Early America’ (Source: The Journal of Southern History). “This was the period of the jihad, of the establishment of Muslim theocracies, of self-purification and separation from practices and beliefs that were seen as antithetical to Islam.”
Some Muslim slaves – “professors of the Mahomedan religion," as a slave owner described them - were placed in positions of authority over their fellow slaves and helped put down slave insurrections. One of these “professors of the Mahomedan religion" referred to non-Muslim slaves as "Christian dogs."
Perhaps such loathing in general for the majority Christian colonial population explains why only four or so Americans with Muslim-sounding names fought for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War. By contrast, more than 100 Jews served on the American side, 15 of whom served as officers.
In any event, America’s first war against foreign states since achieving its independence was against Muslim powers. Muslim potentates from the Barbary States - Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripolitania - were plundering American commercial vessels and holding Americans hostage for ransom in the years beginning shortly after the United States won its freedom from Great Britain. They went to war with the United States when their demand for tribute was refused by President Thomas Jefferson. It took two Barbary Wars to defeat this Muslim threat.
Both Jefferson and John Adams had confronted the theocratic ideology of Islamic jihad first-hand years earlier, when they sought to negotiate an end to attacks by the Muslim Barbary Coast pirates and the holding of American captives for ransom. While Jefferson was serving as ambassador to France and Adams was serving as ambassador to Britain, both men met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from the “Dey of Algiers.” They wanted to know why the Muslim rulers were sanctioning attacks on American merchant ships and taking Americans hostage when the young United States had done nothing to provoke any of the Muslim Barbary States.
As Jefferson and Adams described in a letter to John Jay on March 28, 1786, the Muslim ambassador explained that the conduct of the Barbary Coast pirates “was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, 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 who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
In short, when the newly independent United States was at its most vulnerable, our country faced Muslim enemies animated by jihad.
Nevertheless, in his remarks at the Islamic Society of Baltimore mosque, President Obama attempted to demonstrate the positive influence of Islam on the Founding Fathers. He alluded to the fact that “Jefferson and John Adams had their own copies of the Koran.” True, but this tells only part of the story.
For example, Obama neglected to share with his audience the unflattering opinion of Islam that appeared in the preface of the particular edition of the Koran that John Adams chose to purchase:
...
Islam: Has It “Always Been Part of America”?
