Your view: Ellison the second Muslim elected
By Steve Casey | Stonewall, La.

The fact that Americans are not the students of history they once were has allowed major national headlines of the past few weeks to go unchallenged.

Keith Ellison from Minnesota has been hailed as the first Muslim elected to Congress. This is not true. The first Muslim elected to Congress was John Randolph of Virginia, who served in Congress from 1799 to 1834. During his political career, Randolph was befriended by Francis Scott Key, author of the “Star Spangled Banner,” and president of the American Sunday Union — a position he held for 55 years. Through the influence of Key, Randolph later converted to Christianity. But, the fact remains, when he was elected to Congress, Randolph was Muslim.
A second irony in the news versus history of this event was that there was much to do about Ellison being sworn into office with his hand on a Quran that had been owned by Thomas Jefferson. That copy of the Quran had a very interesting history, which apparently Ellison did not know.

In 1784, Jefferson was part of a delegation of Americans sent to negotiate with the Barbary Powers, which consisted of four Muslim countries: Tunis, Morocco, Algiers and Tripoli. These groups had been attacking American merchant ships and enslaving their crews. The American delegation found that it was necessary to understand the Quran in order to seek to negotiate with this enemy. Since America did not have a Navy at the time, we had no choice but to pay high ransoms and extortion fees to protect our merchant ships.

While John Adams was president, America developed the Navy. Then when Jefferson became President, knowing from experience that negotiations were not possible, he sent the American Marine Corps aboard our new Navy vessels to subdue the Barbary Powers. Facing the force of the new American Navy and the Marine Corps, three of the Barbary nations backed down, but Tripoli did not. Therefore, the American Marines stormed the “shores of Tripoli” and successfully subdued America’s first major post-revolutionary enemy. This was done under commander in chief Thomas Jefferson.

For Ellison to take his oath of office on the Quran that belonged to Jefferson was certainly not a compliment to the Muslims.

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