CNN: Islam Part of America’s Founding

[Dashinka 24,109]

4 hours ago, ccneat said:

And where do you get your news?

Anonymous sources!

 

[The Nature Boy 7,659]

3 hours ago, Bill & Katya said:

Anonymous sources!

 

It's been a fun 3 day no MDL weekend, except for the on call MDL rep.

 

I guess it will get back to normal today with the squirrels chattering, when they all get back to work so they can post 

[eieio 1,594]

30 minutes ago, Nature Boy Flair said:

It's been a fun 3 day no MDL weekend, except for the on call MDL rep.

 

I guess it will get back to normal today with the squirrels chattering, when they all get back to work so they can post 

The good news is that here at vj we have what I consider the "cream of the crop" when it comes to our MDL members. 

 

They actually have jobs!

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

6 hours ago, ready4ONE said:

All I can tell you cyber is what you were taught, and what actually happened regarding Muslims in the New World are very much at odds. The knowledge is out there if you are interested, but the premise of the OP is flat out alternative history. Followers of Islam beat Columbus to the New World by hundreds of years.

Ok, show me proof some type of sources. Don't just try to refute my claim with air because it ain't going to work. 

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

6 hours ago, ready4ONE said:

All I can tell you cyber is what you were taught, and what actually happened regarding Muslims in the New World are very much at odds. The knowledge is out there if you are interested, but the premise of the OP is flat out alternative history. Followers of Islam beat Columbus to the New World by hundreds of years.

I believe that China made it to the New World before I will ever believe that Islamic sailors made it. 

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

1 hour ago, eieio said:

The good news is that here at vj we have what I consider the "cream of the crop" when it comes to our MDL members. 

 

They actually have jobs!

I have a job too, just yesterday was a day off. 

[Dashinka 24,109]

12 minutes ago, cyberfx1024 said:

I believe that China made it to the New World before I will ever believe that Islamic sailors made it. 

By China, do you mean the peoples that crossed over in NE Siberia/Alaska? 

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

1 minute ago, Bill & Katya said:

By China, do you mean the peoples that crossed over in NE Siberia/Alaska? 

No, they had a fairly well known Admiral Zheng He who built up the Chinese Imperial navy between 1400-1435. He is known to have sailed all the way to the Middle East and is thought to have sailed all the way to the New World as well.  It is thought that they found parts of a chinese ballast weight from a ship found off of California some years ago. 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/03/us/new-study-of-anchor-stones-rebuts-china-origin-theory.html

http://www.economist.com/node/5381851

[Dashinka 24,109]

3 minutes ago, cyberfx1024 said:

No, they had a fairly well known Admiral Zheng He who built up the Chinese Imperial navy between 1400-1435. He is known to have sailed all the way to the Middle East and is thought to have sailed all the way to the New World as well.  It is thought that they found parts of a chinese ballast weight from a ship found off of California some years ago. 

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1982/01/03/us/new-study-of-anchor-stones-rebuts-china-origin-theory.html

http://www.economist.com/node/5381851

I still think the followers of Thor were here first.  

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

Just now, Bill & Katya said:

I still think the followers of Thor were here first.  

Yeah I think so as well. I am just saying that I will believe that the Chinese made here before islamic sailors did. 

[CaliCat 3,957]

19 hours ago, cyberfx1024 said:

This is ridiculous at it's core and totally infuriates me to no end. Yes, some slaves were probably Muslim but a very very small few of them. Islam did not have any significant impact in founding our country at all and was not in our country to any large extent if hardly at all. The earliest known dealing with Islam was with the Barbary Pirates as stated above. That is because they were taking our ships and keeping the sailors as slaves, because that's what they did. That is when we sent my fellow Marines to go clean house, and we never heard anything else about the Barbary Pirates again. 

 

 

 

That's an interesting point of view, but common sense disagrees with you.

 

Islam first came to Africa in the 6th century, so we could expect that until the slave trade began, it had about 1,000 years to spread throughout the continent. 

 

We can also be certain that nobody declined to take a slave based on religion, so chances are that an unknown number of slaves were Muslim, and may of the other religions of Africa.

 

The establishment clause did not exclude any particular religion from its protection, so Islam, as any other of the world's religions, were included in the founding document, thereby making them part of the founding of America.

 

However, I am sure you must have documentation or historical documents that support your claim. Please do share them with the rest of us, so we too, can learn. 

 

But of course, if we are to look at history, the peoples of the continent, who had been here thousands of years, they had their religion, which are the true religions of the land. The rest, is all imported colonizers' stuff. 

Edited May 30, 2017 by CaliCat

[CaliCat 3,957]

15 hours ago, ready4ONE said:

It's always fascinating to watch people with little actual knowledge pontificate as though what they wish was true is in fact unassailably true. #Sad

 

 

It's rather entertaining indeed.

[Cyberfx1024 7,980]

Just now, CaliCat said:

 

That's an interesting point of view, but common sense disagrees with you.

Islam first came to Africa in the 6th century, so we could expect that until the slave trade began, it had about 1,000 years to spread throughout the continent. 

We can also be certain that nobody declined to take a slave based on religion, so chances are that an unknown number of slaves were Muslim, and may of the other religions of Africa.

The establishment clause did not exclude any particular religion from its protection, so Islam, as any other of the world's religions, were included in the founding document, thereby making them part of the founding of America.

However, I am sure you must have documentation or historical documents that support your claim. Please do share them with the rest of us, so we too, can learn. 

 

I am not disagreeing with you at all and I believe I said that in my post earlier as well. Yes, there were slave that came here that were Muslim and other religions. That is a fact and I am not disputing that at all. What I am saying is that there is no evidence that Islam had a impact on our founding at all because it did not. Because the founders choose to not exclude any religion from protection does not mean that Islam had any part of that decision. 

[CaliCat 3,957]

Just now, cyberfx1024 said:

 

I am not disagreeing with you at all and I believe I said that in my post earlier as well. Yes, there were slave that came here that were Muslim and other religions. That is a fact and I am not disputing that at all. What I am saying is that there is no evidence that Islam had a impact on our founding at all because it did not. Because the founders choose to not exclude any religion from protection does not mean that Islam had any part of that decision. 

 

In that sense, no religion had, because of the establishment clause. We can't claim that another religion had an impact on our founding, except for the fact that many who came to our country did so fleeing religious persecution. 

 

What I am trying to say is that we really don't know which religions did or did not have an impact, and Islam's contribution is likely to have been as significant as any other religion. I will say that what impact it had would have been excluded from history books, because it was most likely the religion of slaves.

[yuna628 9,646]

History and theology are two subjects the authors of the original article should really brush up on..

 

Let's first look at the claim of Islam being here during the ''founding''... whatever that's interpreted to be. Pre-Revolutionary war, Muslims were here, living in America... and not as slaves either. They and their Jewish neighbors were here amongst the Puritans even. Though for both it was a difficult time, and they became a part of our early society as ''crypto'' in nature. This is not typically mentioned in history books, but there are some very thorough and interesting books from genealogy researchers on the subject who really go in-depth into how our society were quite a bit more diverse than originally thought, and that people tended to hide their faith for survival. You can find similar research regarding ancient Britannia. They later were here in greater numbers as slaves, indentured servants, some freemen, and some of the most educated among them considered akin to a personal assistant (with their skills in reading, writing, book-keeping etc). Those who earned their freedom made enormous contributions to early American society.

 

The Smithsonian of course mentions Mustafa Zemmouri who arrived to the Americas with explorers in the 1500s. And Muslims certainly fought as Patriots in the Revolutionary War as well. These men were not slaves either. Some of them had Anglicized their names and some proudly kept them. The Anglicized holders of these versions of the names today likely have no idea as to the true origin.

 

Were there Muslim men putting their pens to the Declaration of Independence? No, and I don't think that was being implied in the aforementioned short documentary/commentary, regardless of if the article wishes to complain about it as such. Context is important. Was religious independence for all important in factor? Certainly. Thomas Jefferson is often cited at the front line regarding concepts of liberties, while being a raging hypocrite as a slave-holder. We know that Jefferson owned a copy of the Qur'ran (actually several) in his collection, but despite that harbored his own prejudice towards a variety of 'strange religions', including Middle-Eastern ones. That being said, he and our other founders did advance the idea that Muslims, Jews, Pagans, and other faiths should be just as free as a Christian and separated via establishment clause. There was often pushback to those ideas which saw changes to his works (which also included language that would have barred slavery aswell). There have been also numerous and excellent books on the subject. Jefferson and many of the founders rarely if at all had anything positive to say about Muslims and Jews or any religion they found 'strange', but they were certainly used as examples and case studies in describing how religious freedom should be, even in their limited interaction and understanding of it. They debated it again and again, even religions they found intolerable and weird, all had their clear place in our founding. It had as much impact as any other religion in our founding, but should not be swept under the rug.