News Analysis
The first Muslim African American congreessman
Keith Ellison is 43 years old lawyer who has been elected to serve in the congress in the November mid term election and is the first African-American from Minnesota to be elected to the U.S congress. He is Muslim who converted to Islam when he was 19. Ellison won 56 percent of the vote, defeating Republican Alan Fine and the Independence Party's Tammy Lee, both of whom garnered 21 percent of the vote. He is opposed to Iraq war and insisted on withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Ellison is very religious man who is inspired by the Quran's message of an encompassing divine love, and a deep faith guides his life every day. He has a moderate idea about Israel and Palestine issues that both have the right. One of the American Jewish newspapers said about him:" "In Ellison, we have a moderate Muslim who extends his hand in friendship to the Jewish community and supports the security of the State of Israel."
I think the reason why he, Keith Ellison, as Muslim African American has been elected to serve in the congress is that Immigrants issues have been controversial matter in America. There are so many demonstrations taking place in America which opposing toughening of the rules against immigrants and specially the illegal one. Also American government has made a new policy toward immigrants. The US government has unveiled a new citizenship test for immigrants which will focus on the concepts of democracy rather than on historical facts. The director of the US government's Citizenship and Immigration Services, Emilio Gonzalez said that this test is for betterment of citizen's situation. This is by the way that immigrants named this policy as anti immigrant plan. The articulation of this news pinpointed to sensitivity of immigrant's situation in America. That is why Ellison is becoming the first Muslim African American congress man to spoke from the side of people of the color.
The first Muslim African American congreessman
Keith Ellison is 43 years old lawyer who has been elected to serve in the congress in the November mid term election and is the first African-American from Minnesota to be elected to the U.S congress. He is Muslim who converted to Islam when he was 19. Ellison won 56 percent of the vote, defeating Republican Alan Fine and the Independence Party's Tammy Lee, both of whom garnered 21 percent of the vote. He is opposed to Iraq war and insisted on withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. Ellison is very religious man who is inspired by the Quran's message of an encompassing divine love, and a deep faith guides his life every day. He has a moderate idea about Israel and Palestine issues that both have the right. One of the American Jewish newspapers said about him:" "In Ellison, we have a moderate Muslim who extends his hand in friendship to the Jewish community and supports the security of the State of Israel."
I think the reason why he, Keith Ellison, as Muslim African American has been elected to serve in the congress is that Immigrants issues have been controversial matter in America. There are so many demonstrations taking place in America which opposing toughening of the rules against immigrants and specially the illegal one. Also American government has made a new policy toward immigrants. The US government has unveiled a new citizenship test for immigrants which will focus on the concepts of democracy rather than on historical facts. The director of the US government's Citizenship and Immigration Services, Emilio Gonzalez said that this test is for betterment of citizen's situation. This is by the way that immigrants named this policy as anti immigrant plan. The articulation of this news pinpointed to sensitivity of immigrant's situation in America. That is why Ellison is becoming the first Muslim African American congress man to spoke from the side of people of the color.
posted by Najmeh Mohammadkhani | 4:50 AM
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What Thomas Jefferson learned from the Muslim book of Jihad
Democrat Keith Ellison is now officially the first Muslim United States
Congressman. True to his pledge, he placed his hand on the Quran, the
Muslim book of jihad and pledged his allegiance to the United States
during his ceremonial swearing-in.
Capitol Hill staff said Ellison's swearing-in photo opportunity drew more
media than they had ever seen in the history of the U.S. House. Ellison
represents the 5th Congressional District of Minnesota.
The Quran Ellison used was no ordinary book. It once belonged to Thomas
Jefferson, third president of the United States and one of America's
founding fathers. Ellison borrowed it from the Rare Book Section of the
Library of Congress. It was one of the 6,500 Jefferson books archived in
the library.
Ellison, who was born in Detroit and converted to Islam while in college,
said he chose to use Jefferson's Quran because it showed that "a visionary
like Jefferson" believed that wisdom could be gleaned from many sources.
There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could
be "gleaned" from the Muslim Quran. 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.
Ellison's use of Jefferson's Quran as a prop illuminates a subject once
well-known in the history of the United States, but, which today, is
mostly forgotten - 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.
Over the course of 10 centuries, Muslim pirates cruised the African and
Mediterranean coastline, pillaging villages and seizing slaves.
The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages
had a high casualty rate. 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 and children could be collected.
Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines
in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of
Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and
to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.
Boys, as young as 9 or 10 years old, were often castrated to create
eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle
East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African
slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated
that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived
after the surgery. Of course, none of those sired children.
When American colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American
merchant ships lost Royal Navy protection. With no American Navy for
protection, American ships were attacked and their Christian crews
enslaved by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the "Dey of
Algiers"--an Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
Because American commerce in the Mediterranean was being destroyed by the
pirates, the Continental Congress agreed in 1784 to negotiate treaties
with the four Barbary States. Congress appointed a special commission
consisting of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, to
oversee the negotiations.
Lacking the ability to protect its merchant ships in the Mediterranean,
the new America government tried to appease the Muslim slavers by agreeing
to pay tribute and ransoms in order to retrieve seized American ships and
buy the freedom of enslaved sailors.
Adams argued in favor of paying tribute as the cheapest way to get
American commerce in the Mediterranean moving again. Jefferson was
opposed. He believed there would be no end to the demands for tribute and
wanted matters settled "through the medium of war." He proposed a league
of trading nations to force an end to Muslim piracy.
In 1786, Jefferson, then the American ambassador to France, and Adams,
then the American ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji
Abdul Rahman Adja, the "Dey of Algiers" ambassador to Britain.
The Americans wanted to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress' vote
to appease.
During the meeting Jefferson and Adams asked the Dey's ambassador why
Muslims held so much hostility towards America, a nation with which they
had no previous contacts.
In a later meeting with the American Congress, the two future presidents
reported that Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja had answered that
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."
For the following 15 years, the American government paid the Muslims
millions of dollars for the safe passage of American ships or the return
of American hostages. The payments in ransom and tribute amounted to 20
percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Not long after Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, he
dispatched a group of frigates to defend American interests in the
Mediterranean, and informed Congress.
Declaring that America was going to spend "millions for defense but not
one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue by deploying American
Marines and many of America's best warships to the Muslim Barbary Coast.
The USS Constitution, USS Constellation, USS Philadelphia, USS Chesapeake,
USS Argus, USS Syren and USS Intrepid all saw action.
In 1805, American Marines marched across the dessert from Egypt into
Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all
American slaves.
During the Jefferson administration, 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.
Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn,
with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli, we
will fight our country's battles on the land as on the sea."
It wasn't until 1815 that the problem was fully settled by the total
defeat of all the Muslim slave trading pirates.
Jefferson had been right. The "medium of war" was the only way to put an
end to the Muslim problem. Mr. Ellison is right about Jefferson. He was a
"visionary" wise enough to read and learn about the enemy from their own
Muslim book of Jihad.
What have you learned from reading all this?
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