by: Brent Smith at the Common Constitutionalist

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I read an article yesterday from the Daily Wire which I was just going to reprint. Then I read it and thought, rather than just post the article, I should set the record straight by adding some context.

The article is simply about newly elected Muslim Congresswoman, Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), who decided to take the oath of office using, not the Bible, but the Koran. And not just any Koran, but Thomas Jefferson’s Koran.

I encourage you to first read the Daily Wire piece, which gives an accounting, without commentary, of the swearing in and why she used Jefferson’s Koran.

Then come back and read the actual historical accounting of why Thomas Jefferson owned a Koran.

For more than a century and a half prior to America declaring its independence from Great Britain, the Muslim pirates of the Barbary Coast (North Africa) had been invading European settlements, villages and capturing merchant vessels from the Mediterranean Sea, to the Atlantic coast of Europe and the English Channel. Thousands upon thousands of Europeans were sold into slavery as laborers and concubines throughout the Islamic world. Most would never be seen again. read more