Does anyone know what Jefferson wrote in his Koran?

[Quixote1818]

Al Franken just said Jefferson had written notes in his Koran that Keith Ellison is going to use tomorrow. It would be interesting to know what he wrote.

On edit: When I heard Ellison was going to do this I started laughing out loud! Brilliant move on Ellison's part!

[htuttle]

1. He had a habit of writing margin notes in all of his books

Many of them are very interesting -- no idea what he wrote in his Koran, though.

[billbuckhead]

4. Is Ellison using Jefferson's Koran?

That would be great.

[Quixote1818]

6. Yes, look at the DU home page or Late Breaking News. nt

[Deep13]

2. "Property of Thomas Jefferson, ...

...just like the mother of his children."

[jobycom]

5. Nice.

:thumbsup:

[Deep13]

7. Guess which was sold upon his death.

x(

[Quixote1818]

8. Jefferson and slavery

I can't remember where I found this or I would post the link.


Jefferson and slavery
Jefferson has been criticized for the keeping of slaves. In his own mind he knew it was an abhorrent system but felt that the wholesale release of a people unprepared for freedom in that particular society was equally irresponsible. He made his position clear with this statement, "The whole commerce between master and slave is a perpetual exercise of the most boisterous passions, the most unremitting despotism on the one part, and degrading submission on the other . . . Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever . . . But if something is not done, and soon done, we shall be the murderers of our own children . . ." This was the author of the words, "all men are created equal." Is it any wonder that the issue of slavery was to be an agonizing conflict for Jefferson all of his life? He was born into a family of privilege and a society where the holding of slaves was commonplace. He knew that the public at large would not allow slaves to live as free men, but he sincerely believed that they should be free. He drew up a Bill in his native Virginia to prevent the further importation of slaves which was passed and this was, at least, a first step to the eventual emancipation which was to come in future generations.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

9. LOL

Yes, it would have been mean to the slaves to have freed them.

:rofl:

[Quixote1818]

18. Jefferson tried to end slavery in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence

Jefferson tried to end slavery in his original draft of the Declaration of Independence but his southern colleagues struck that part out. If Jefferson had had his way slavery would have been ended with the Declaration of Independence.

Here is Jefferson's rough draft of the D of I where he tried to end slavery. Parts of this never made it in:

he has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating it's most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incure miserable death in their transportation hither. this piratical warfare, the opprobium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. determined to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce determining to keep open a market where MEN should be bought and sold: and that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he had deprived them, by murdering the people upon whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

http://www.let.rug.nl/usa/D/1776-1800/independence/doitj.htm


Also, Sally Hemmings could have left in France and she didn't. Under the laws of France he could not keep slaves. From everything I have read about Jefferson and his slaves. They probably would have stayed with Jefferson anyway. There were few good jobs for blacks at the time and those who were free mostly ended up in the ghetto.

Sure it wasn't right for Jefferson to keep slaves but it was not a simple situation as my in our day seem to think it was and Jefferson was considered a "radical" for many of his stances on Slavery.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

19. Hmm. No he didn't.

One could argue that he paid lip service towards abolition. He recognized his own hypocrisy. But he didn't really mean it, obviously.

[The_Casual_Observer]

13. He wasn't about to give them 40 acres an a mule.

At least not HIS 40 acres and a mule.

[Deep13]

15. Adams refused to do business if it meant slave labor would be used.

He farmed his own land with his own hands and never had slaves. Washington had them and freed them on his death. Jefferson had a slave hand him his robe in the morning and turn down his bed covers at night. He worked them harder to keep up with his lavish spending. (His letters reflect this.) On his death, the mother of his children was sold to pay his debts.

[jobycom]

3. Dunno, but it was either inciteful and inspiringly brilliant, or it was

some self-serving, self-absorbed tripe about himself. Everything he wrote was one or the other.

[Richard D]

10. He probably wrote something like . . .

“There is no God but Allah and Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah.”

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

11. Brilliant move

to use Jefferson's Qur'an. Shows that at least one Founding Father knew about Islam -- do you suppose some folks might decide to actually read up about the lives of Jefferson, Adams, et al? They might be shocked to learn they weren't born again Christians.

[Deep13]

16. true

Maybe they will read the Constitution while they are at it to learn that religious tests for office are illegal.

[meegbear]

12. Supposedly he wrote ...

Donald Rumsfeld is giving the president his daily briefing. He concludes by saying: "Yesterday, 3 Brazilian soldiers were killed."

"OH NO!" the President exclaims. "That's terrible!"

His staff sits stunned at this display of emotion, nervously watching as the President sits, head in hands.

Finally, the President looks up and asks, "How many is a brazillion?"

[underpants]

17. Oh LOL

:spank:

[Virginia Dare]

14. Jefferson was the first American President to go to war with...

Muslims in the Middle East, was he not? Jefferson had his faults, no doubt, but he was a man of his times after all. I tend not to judge 18th century people with 21st century morals and values. However, Jefferson never stopped educating and enlightening himself about the world around him. Our present day "president" never started.

[Xithras]

20. Yep, the Barbary War.

America's first foreign war, and one that's nearly forgotten today. The North African rulers had a thriving business exacting tributes from seafaring nations in the Mediterranean for a while...your nation paid them off, or they sunk your ships and sold your people into slavery. When they started sinking American ships, Jefferson refused to pay the "bribes" and instead launched the Navy and Marines to invade and conquer the Barbary Pirates. We won.

Unlike Bush, Jefferson studied them first to understand what he would be up against. He understood that to the Barbary's, Christians were infidels and they used religion to justify their theft and slavery. He wanted to understand how they thought, which is why he studied the Koran. I would imagine that most of the notes in his Koran are related to that study.

[wuushew]

22. How many people died as a result of those bribes?

Fighting a war where more people die as a result of combat than the status quo is senseless. The total monetary losses from ransoms could never have approached the capital costs of the naval ships the U.S. lost.

Also the United States has no inherent dominion over the open ocean. I can however understand policing one's own territorial waters. The two solutions to piracy are private insurance and the arming of one's own merchant men with non-government supplied weapons.

[Xithras]

23. Ironically, the issue wasn't so much money as slavery.

When the Berbers captured non-Muslim sailors, the placid ones were sold into slavery. The violent ones were tossed into dank cells until they starved to death (which, according to their interpretation, wasn't actually murder and therefore didn't violate the Koran's anti-murder commands).

The Barbary Pirates didn't hold prisoners in exchange for ransoms (unless they captured someone really important), they demanded a flat ransom in exchange for sailing the Mediterranean. If you violated their "waters" (which they defined as "wherever we happen to be right now"), they would kill or enslave you...the ransom demand was to keep the NEXT ship from being captured. The king of England paid a flat yearly ransom to the Berbers to protect English ships from attack. The Pope paid a ransom to protect his ships. The French, likewise, paid the Berbers not to attack their vessles. Thomas Jefferson sank their ships, destroyed their army, and invaded their cities.

And while I agree that the US has no dominion over the open sea, neither did the Berbers. The difference was that the US fought the Berbers to keep the seaways open for all nations, while the Berbers fought to close the seas to anyone they didn't approve of. In that particular war, I happen to agree with Jeffersons decision to invade.

[wuushew]

24. I guess I don't see what the United States needed from the Mediterranean to survive

Slaves? Spices?

If the point is for the United States to make the world safe for profit how is that different from what we are doing in Iraq?

[Xithras]

25. It wasn't just the Med.

Shipments to the Mediterranean coasts of France and Spain were attacked. Ships heading to the papal states, Greece, and the Black Sea were sunk. Heck, ships heading to Istanbul and Greece to trade and negotiate with the Ottomans were overrun. The Berbers claimed that the Med was theirs, and that if you wanted to do business with any Mediterranean port you had to pay their ransoms. The US took the CORRECT position and said that international waters should be free from piracy. If we want to trade with Italy, and Italy wants to trade with us, a bunch of crooks in Tunis have no right to demand that we pay them a royalty or enslave the people of either nation.

And there is one other important difference. The Berbers attacked us first. They were actively hunting and enslaving Americans who were simply traveling in international water. We're talking international waters here, not territorial waters along the Barbary Coast. We had just as much right to be there as they did.

[wuushew]

26. Again, people living outside the geographical confines of the United States trying to make money

People do stupid things all the time. Nobody forced those passengers onto the Lusitania but yet a big stink was made when it was sent to the bottom of a war zone.

The United States goes to war for completely trivial reasons. When was the United States last a victim of real deal foreign pillaging? Poncho Villa 1916?

[Xithras]

27. Personally, I believe in standing up to bullies.

That means standing up to the US when we're the bully, and standing up against other nations when they're the bully. In our war with the Berbers, they were the bully. Instead of kowtowing and handing over our lunch money to avoid a beating, we kicked the bully's ass. That's the right way to handle a bully.

If you spend all your time picking fights with people, you have no right to complain when someone knocks your teeth in. The Berbers were NOT a nice people, and they certainly weren't the victims in that war.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

28. Thank you for the excellent history lesson

All I knew about the Barbary War was "the shores of Tripoli" from the Marine's Hymn. Always appreciate getting more insight into our past.

[Hatalles]

31. Seems like Jefferson picked up the Qur'an while he was studying law.

See below. =)

[Hatalles]

30. I disagree.

I don't think he studied the Qur'an to learn about the Barbary Pirates' interpretation (if they had one at all) of Islam.

According to the recent NPR interview w/ Mark Dimunation, chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, Jefferson probably acquired the book in 1765. I don't think the First Barbary War began until at least 40 years later.

Here's a short, relevant bit from the interview:

"We think that he acquired it in 1765, which would make sense -- this is a 1764 edition of the translation by George Sale. This would have been a period of time when he was studying law. In fact, many of his law texts refer to the Qur'an as an alternative view of certain legal structures and maybe that when he saw this offered, he picked it up as part of his legal studies."

You can listen to the full interview here:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6718662

I guess you could say Thomas Jefferson was also a student of Islamic Law. Wait till Prager and Goode learn about that... :rofl:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

21. Yes.

He also was the first to declare peace with the "musselmen" and insisted they be at peace forever.

[Cocoa]

29. Death to America!

isn't that what all Koran-wielders write?