WHAT AMERICA’S FOUNDERS THOUGHT ABOUT ISLAM AT ODDS WITH OBAMA'S
REVISIONIST HISTORY
REVISIONIST HISTORY
BY DAVID CLOUD
(Friday Church News Notes, February 19, 2016, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - The following is excerpted from “What the Founders Thought,” Keith Farrell, The Federalist Papers Project: “President Obama has continually asserted that Islam was ‘woven into the fabric’ of the United States since its founding. Obama claims that Muslims have made significant contributions to the building of this nation. The claim is laughable to anyone who has studied US history. Historian David Barton ... found the first real contribution any Muslim made was in 1856 (80 years after the founding) when then Secretary of War Jefferson Davis hired one Muslim to help train camels in Arizona. ... But Muslims did have an influence on early America, and that influence was one of a foe. ... American vessels [were] raided and plundered by Muslim pirates from the Barbary Coast. After agreeing to pay 10% of the new nation’s dismal GDP in exchange for passage, attacks continued. Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Benjamin Franklin were sent as representatives to mediate the problem. It was there that they discovered that the Islamic law the pirates followed made it their duty to attack non-Muslims. ... Ben Franklin wrote of his experience: ‘Nor can the Plundering of Infidels be in that sacred Book (the Qur’an) forbidden, since it is well known from it, that God has given the World, and all that it contains, to his faithful Mussulmen, who are to enjoy it of Right as fast as they conquer it.’ John Adams, in his report to John Jay, wrote of the Muslim prophet Muhammad, and called him a ‘military fanatic’ who ‘denies that laws were made for him; he arrogates everything to himself by force of arms.’ By the time Jefferson became president the Barbary Coast was extorting 25% of US GDP and attacks were still occurring. Jefferson wasted no time in signing a war powers request which launched the US’s entire naval fleet to wage war on the Barbary pirates.”