“America’s First Ramadan Break-Fast Was Hosted by Thomas Jefferson,” says Atlas Obscura, a site that says “our mission is to inspire wonder and curiosity about the incredible world we all share.” The article yesterday by Natasha Frost attempts to suggest that the “tradition” of the Iftar Dinner goes all the way back to Thomas Jefferson who, as is well known, was asked by a visiting Muslim envoy of the Bey of Tunis, one Sidi Soliman Mellimelli, to postpone the dinner to which Jefferson had invited him, along with others, until after sundown, which Jefferson, as a matter of courtesy, did.
Frost states:
Observing this holy month and its daily fasts in such a foreign environment must have been a challenge. Newspaper commentators at the time thought of him contemptuously, variously “depicting him as a sex-crazed barbarian, or associating Islam with licentiousness,” writes Jason Zeledon. But in Thomas Jefferson, he had an unexpected ally. Despite facing criticism for his hospitality from Federalists in Connecticut and Vermont, Jefferson looked after his Muslim visitor graciously, going so far as to rearrange a dinner party around Mellimelli’s fast. In doing so, America’s third president became the country’s first ever host of an iftar meal.
What actually happened is clear for those without an insensate need to make Islam, as Barack Obama repeatedly claimed it was, “always part of America’s story.” Jefferson was not putting on an Iftar dinner. A little history will help: Mellimelli came to Washington as the envoy of the Bey of Tunis. The Americans had blockaded the port of Tunis in order to force the Bey to halt his attacks on American shipping. Mellimelli was sent to make an agreement that would end the blockade. Invited by Jefferson to a dinner at the White House set for 3:30 (dinners were earlier in those pre-Edison days of our existence), he requested that it be held after sundown, in accordance with his Muslim practice, and Jefferson, a courteous man, obliged him. There is no hint that the dinner had changed in any way; no one then called it, or thought of it, as an “Iftar dinner.” Mellimelli himself did not describe it as an “Iftar dinner.” There is no record of it being anything other than the exact same dinner, the same menu, with wine (no removal of alcohol, as would have been necessary had it been a real Iftar dinner), the only change being that of the three-hour delay until sunset.
Frost continues:
It was, by no stretch, a traditional iftar, nor what Mellimelli would have been used to, without sweet dates to start the meal or the Tunisian dishes he was familiar with. But this gesture of hospitality must have seemed an outstretched hand at what was perhaps a very lonely time—a recognition that Jefferson and his peers respected and valued Mellimelli’s religious practice, and would do whatever they could to accommodate him, and it.
Yet nothing Jefferson said or did at the time, or in his later writings, indicates that he thought of that delayed dinner as an “Iftar dinner”; nor did he think he was in any way honoring or accommodating the practice of Islam.
In fact, Jefferson had a very dim view of Islam, which came out of his experience in dealing with the Barbary Pirates, that is, the North African Muslims (in Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli), who attacked Christian shipping and seized ships and Christian sailors and then demanded ransom. The sums were not trivial; the American Republic found itself spending 20% of its national budget on such payments. These continued until Jefferson became President, stopped the practice of paying such tribute, and instead made war on the Barbary Pirates. And that worked.
In 1786, years before he became president, Jefferson, along with John Adams, met with the Tripolitanian envoy Sidi Haji Abdrahaman in London. Perhaps by then Jefferson had read the Qur’an he had purchased in 1765 out of curiosity (no one knows how much of that Qur’an Jefferson may have read, or when, though some Muslim apologists have baselessly claimed he must have bought his Qur’an out of sympathetic interest in Islam). If he did read it, it would have helped him to understand the motivations of the North African Muslims. Certainly by the time he became President in 1801, he was determined not to negotiate with the Barbary Pirates, but to implacably oppose with force these Muslims whom, he knew from his encounter with Abdrahaman in London, were permanently hostile to all non-Muslims.
In London, Jefferson and Adams had queried the Tripolitanian ambassador “concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury,” for the Americans had done nothing to deserve being attacked, and the ambassador replied, as Jefferson reported:
“It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise.”
And later, Jefferson reported to Secretary of State John Jay and to Congress at greater length, with a nearly identical quote from the ambassador:
“The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have answered 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 Mussulman who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”
These reports do not sound as if they came from someone who thought well of Islam. The more dealings Jefferson had with the representatives of the Barbary states, and the more he learned from them directly of the tenets of the faith, the more he began to understand the aggressive nature of Islam, the centrality of Jihad, the inculcation of permanent hostility toward non-Muslims, and the heavenly reward for Jihadis slain in battle.
The Iftar dinner “tradition” begins not with Jefferson in 1805, and that three-hour delay in a meal that was otherwise unchanged, but with our latter-day interfaith outreach presidents — Clinton, Bush, Obama — each of whom, in his own way, has managed to ignore or misinterpret the texts and teachings of Islam.
That “tradition” of Iftar dinners in the White House is less than 20 years old, as compared with the other “tradition,” ten times as long, that is, the 200 years of Iftar-less presidencies. That short-lived “tradition” has been ended, for now, by an administration that continues to exhibit a better sense of what Islam, foreign and domestic, is all about, than its predecessors. The interfaith outreach farce that the Iftar Dinner at the White house embodies, honoring Islam — while, all over the world, every day brings fresh news of Muslim atrocities against non-Muslims, more than 33,000 such attacks since 9/11/2001 alone, not to mention attacks as well against other Muslims deemed either of the wrong sect, or insufficient in the fervor of their faith — has now come to an end, if only for four years. That is certainly what Jefferson (and John Adams, and that most profound presidential student of Islam, John Quincy Adams), if not Atlas Oscura, would have wanted.
And since John Quincy Adams has been mentioned, why doesn’t Atlas Obscura take it upon itself to share with its readers what that most scholarly of our presidents wrote about Islam? It does not date. And it might prove most instructive.
dan christensen says
“our mission is to inspire wonder and curiosity about the incredible world we all share.”
The sharing is incredible; islam always craves the lions share.
J D S says
Islamist stretches the truth like a rubber band…but you know what…stretch a rubber band enough and it will break..
gravenimage says
+1
DogOnPorch says
Barbary Pirates…a real bunch of peace loving Muslims…fer sure.
Carol the 1st says
Pirates motivated by divine purpose and inspiration! And the the Islamic Pied Piper was none other than Moe! Allahu Akbar! Jumping Jehosafat!
Mary says
How can we share when they want it all?
elee says
Good post DogOnPorch, I was thinking exactly the same thing. Backgrounder: Muslims overran North Africa in the 7th century. They plundered and enslaved Europe and Africa from there for more than a millennium; they were still doing this stuff small-scale when Josiah Slocum had to run from them during his solo circumnavigation around 1900. Through that entire millennium plus European powers kept sending them polite communications saying please stop this pirate s##t, to which they always replied that Allah said it was helal. Sometimes there were wars. Nobody ever did quite as much toward shutting them down as the American Marines did at the Shores of Tripoli. The Muslim scripture still commands war against the infidel, with killing and enslavement and all. Everywhere they get or retain control of an acre or two—-Razza, Mauritania, Libya—-there are slave markets. “Muslim” country with no slave markets? No problem, they’re apostates, kill them all.
Michael Copeland says
“Muslims have a long shared history with Britain”, says an imam in England.
Indeed, Muslim jihadi slave-takers have “a long shared history” with Britain’s coastal villages.
See “The Jihadi Pirates Who Took British Slaves” at Liberty GB:
https://libertygb.org.uk/news/jihadi-pirates-who-took-british-slaves
gravenimage says
+1
mummymovie says
Are we getting tired of ‘history jihad’ yet?
mummymovie says
Sheesh… The only time Jefferson ever uttered anything even remotely resembling the mohammedan word ‘iftar’ is when he was blowing his nose.
What a bunch of malarkey!
Walter Sieruk says
Hugh Fitzgeraid is right by his declaring that “No Thomas Jefferson did not host the first Ramadan dinner at the White House” What Thomas Jefferson did was have the wisdom ,with his great intellect , to teach precepts that not only applied to his own time but our time as well. Meaning in the post – 9/11 America withe continued threat of Muslim terrorists engaging in the scheming for jihad attacks against this nation .For Mr Jefferson taught “Let the eye of vigilance never be closed.” and “A conviction that we are right accomplishes half the difficulty of correcting wrong.” Likewise, Mr. Jefferson had also stated “Fortitude…teaches us to meet and surmount difficulties; not to fly from them.” So in other words we , as Americans ,should have learned keep moving on strongly with Vigilance, Conviction and Fortitude.
Furthermore,concerning the jihad minded Muslim who have a blind and unquestioning faith is the bogus promises of Islam for the jihadist who dies for the cause of Islam in an Islamic terror attack. Thomas Jefferson gave warning about the fools folly of believing in ideas ,doctrines and teaching with proof and sold verification that an idea, doctrine and teaching is true Jefferson’s precepts thus apply to those who are so thoroughly brainwashed and deluded that they actually think of their murderous actions as “martyrdom operations.” This jihad evil and madness is based on the Koranic doctrine, 9:111. , of a far-fetched and nonsensical doctrine of a sex- filled paradise with many virgins, hours, in it for the use only the jihadist/Muslim male who dies as a “martyr” fighting for the cause of Islam. This weird religious/Islamic teaching is found contained the Koran in 44:56. .55:56. 78:31. This bizarre and odd, irrational Koranic doctrine is not open, to the jihadist, to inquiry, questioning, logic or reason. So this blind unreasoning kind of “faith” in the Koran is a reminder that Thomas Jefferson had written. “Man, once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without a rudder, is the sport of every wind. With such persons, gullibility, which they call faith, takes helm from the hand of reason and the mind becomes a wreck.” Likewise, Benjamin Franklin had printed in POOR RICHARD’S ALMANACK something which may apply to this topic. For Mr. Franklin had printed “The way to see by faith is to shut the eye of reason.”
,
Walter Sieruk says
If the question is “Did Thomas Jefferson host a Ramadan dinner ? “Then the answer is “No”. By contrast, if the question is “Did Thomas Jefferson have any wisdom which may apply to our current times as how to handle the problem of the violent and murderous jihadists , be they of al Qaeda , ISIS or be they members of any other similar Islamic terrorist entity ?” Then the answer is “Yes.”
This is because Mr. Jefferson had wisely declared “With every barbarous people…force is law.”
Granddaddy says
I find it curious that Muslims would want so much to be a part of our history that they would make up a story of an “iftar” with Thomas Jefferson, like it makes him a hero in Islam, just because he owned a copy of the Quran, and then they call us the Great Satan (which is what they actually think of us, along with Thomas Jefferson). He owned a Quran because he wanted to know why the Barbary pirates were attacking our ships. In the meanwhile, Jefferson gets conveniently slandered with an unsubstantiated story being passed around that he kept one of his slaves as a concubine and fathered children with her when the fact is it could have been any male in Jefferson’s family who did this. That has been proven by DNA analysis. But that doesn’t matter, Jefferson ends up being a pervert on the one hand and a muzzie-lover on the other, and he just coincidentally happens to be the author of the Declaration of Independence. All of which Obama would would tell us was “always part of America’s story.”
Bull Shiite.
Granddaddy says
They’re trying to dirty the Declaration of Independence. That’s what they’re after.
WPM says
The United States Marines were founded to combat the Islamic pirates off the coast in Northern Africa who keep raiding our ships and kidnapping American sailors into slavery. The Islamics method and MO has not change in 1400 years ,history has taught us they only respect strength, appeasement gives the bully an excuse to want more, Islam is the biggest bully on the planet. It is a lying cowardly bully who toadies to weak leaders to get it ugly foot in the door before it invades your house.
gravenimage says
True.
Peter Clemerson says
Hugh Fitztegerald writes “all over the world, every day brings fresh news of Muslim atrocities against non-Muslims, more than 33,000 such attacks since 9/11/2001 alone, not to mention attacks as well against other Muslims deemed either of the wrong sect, or insufficient in the fervor of their faith”
He has made the same claim in Jihad Watch articles before and I have to make the same challenge now as I have in the past. The figure of 33,000 almost certainly comes from the people at the Religion of Peace website https://www.thereligionofpeace.com/ (and more power to their elbows) but if so, this figure includes the attacks by Muslims on fellow-Muslims rather than referring only to attacks by Muslims on Non-Muslims.
Much as I admire Fitzgerald’s careful and detailed investigations and revelations, I say again that he should get this particular detail right. If there is a source of information about the attacks by Muslims on Muslims other than the RoP, what /where is it and what figures are to be found there?
Let’s all be accurate and not provide an opportunity for apologists of Islam to accuse their critics of inaccuracy.
Terry Gain says
Peter Clemerson
The Religion Of Peace website refers to attacks carried out by Islamic Terrorists. Yes, it does not distinguish between attacks carried out on non-Muslims and those carried out on Muslims. Are you suggesting that we should not be concerned about the attacks on Muslims? Are you anti- Muslim? Or just not very logical.
Peter Clemerson says
To Terry Gain.
Please read my comment again.
If Hugh Fitzgerald’s source is the RoP, then his comment that “all over the world, every day brings fresh news of Muslim atrocities against non-Muslims, more than 33,000 such attacks since 9/11/2001 alone, not to mention attacks as well against other Muslims deemed either of the wrong sect, or insufficient in the fervor of their faith” is wrong, incorrect, false or any synonym you care to use.
As I said in my comment, I am a great admirer of Fitzgerald’s articles and on the assumption that he reads the comments made about them, I was drawing his attention to a particular error and requesting greater accuracy on this point in the future. That is all.
There was no need to descend into ad hominem attacks.
Terry Gain says
Peter Clemerson
I concede your point and apologize. Thank you for correcting me.
Hugh Fitzgerald says
Thank you for pointing out my error. I will be more careful in the future.
You are right — I have been taking my figures on the number of attacks from RoP.
What I should have indicated is that while this figure includes attacks on every kind of non-Muslim — Christian, Jew, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, agnostics, atheists, you name it–it also includes other categories of victims.
To complicate matters, there are those whom we non-Muslims may think of as Muslims, but whom their Muslim attackers do not.
Many uber-Sunni groups, such as ISIS, and Sipah-e-Sahaba in Pakistan, attack Shi’a because they regard them as Infidels, indeed as the worst sort of Infidels. Should these attacks be counted as attacks on Muslims, or as attacks on non-Muslims?
Ahmadi Muslims are regarded as non-Muslims by many, though not all, Muslims. In Pakistan, they are required by law to identify themselves as non-Muslims on all official documents. Ahmadis– pejoratively described as Qadianis –have been killed by mainstream Muslims, and not only in Pakistan, for being non-Muslims who dare to present themselves as Muslims (there have been a few Ahmadi victims of attack, and at least one Ahmadi death, in the U.K.
A final category of victims of Muslim attacks are those who are treated as non-Muslims because they are insufficiently devout.
Finally, there are those Muslims who attack other Muslims to gain greater political or economic power, or because of ethnic disputes. When Saddam Hussein had his Arab soldiers kill 182,000 Kurds that had nothing to do with punishing non-Muslims. in Libya, the local militias, based in Benghazi or Tripoli or Zintan, battle one another for power; this has nothing to do with Muslims attacking non-Muslims.
Perhaps the best one can do is simply to refer to “33,000 attacks by Muslims since 9/11/2001, with most of the intended victims attacked because they were regarded as non-Muslims.” It’s a bit awkward, but also more accurate.
gravenimage says
Fine points, Hugh.
Peter says
I also read the article and Mr. Fitzgerald does indeed mention that not all those terrorist attacks were solely against non-muslims but also against muslims of dfferent sects or not sufficiently ‘muslim’.
Kepha says
I am not so sure it is the Muslims who are pushing the narrative that Jefferson hosted the WH’s first Iftar dinner as it is the Anti-culturals (oops, multiculturalists) of the Left. As far as I can tell, all Jefferson did was engage in a bit of diplomatic pragmatism.
As someone who signed on to be a teacher, but, in the interests of keeping a reasonably well-paying job and thus followed the curriculum to become a professional swindler of the young, I am utterly appalled by the nonsense being fobbed off on our youth. Thanksgiving is now about thanking the Indians (sounds very, very cynical and condescending to me); Jeffersonian diplomacy becomes a respect for Iftar and Islam; Islam was present at the founding of America; Christians who want homosexuals to repent are vilified, while Muslims who want to throw them off buildings are feted; motral equivalence; Mao somehow brought about the “independence” of China; etc. No, I am not appalled. I am downright sick of the pandering and dishonesty.
Folks, amass some good personal libraries. Talk with your young about the past. Do not trust the school–or the media. We live in a huge system of mutually reinforcing lying.
gravenimage says
I’ve heard this tripe from both.
Lydia Church says
mohammed was satan’s messenger, not God’s!
And obummer was mohammed’s…
Terry Gain says
Thank you Hugh Fitzgerald for correcting this pro Islam attempt at revising history. It is distressing to realize that our understanding of Islam is decidedly not as good as it was 240 years ago.
Joe says
In short, for 200 years American Presidents have known Islam would always try to defeat us. Yet Bush and Obama both praised Islam and accommodated it. Is this not treason?
Carolyne says
I bought a Koran and it was certainly not out of “Sympathy.” Thomas Jefferson was a most learned man. He was curious about everything, and likely wondered what the Barbary pirates believed was their due in attacking merchant ships.
This person should try something else. This isn’t working.
Vann Boseman says
Natasha Frost’s book will not sell well outside of western markets. Thomas Jefferson is well known and reviled by “mainstream” scholarly Muslims.
Carolyne says
George Bush had extensive oil interests in the Middle East. Hussein Obama was born a Muslim, raised as a Muslim and was a Muslim. End of story.
tony46 says
”They were here from the very beginning”(Obomit)
…..however the first mosque built in America is dated to 1929.
Go figure..☺
the thought offender says
Simpletons consider peace to exist where and when there is the absence of warfare.
Connoisseurs of history understand that real peace follows victory and is the savoring of the subjugation of the despicable enemy with horrifying slaughter. All good Muslims crave peace and crave the opportunity to earn it firsthand. Pursuit of this peace is our only reason Allah blessed us with life; this life is but as a tool, a key, in fact, to unlock the Gates of Paradise. Allah-hu Akbar!!
Smitn says
The fact is that islam and muslims are screwing america
Smitn says
There was only one mosque about 1929. Now there are THOUSANDS of mosques. The plan is to destroy usa from within. And it’s working
bouboulina says
Yes we are riddled with signs of Islamic incursion—one of the first & most grisly were the (fake) nation of islam/black muslim mosques of Louis Farrahkan’s [sp.?] invention that gave rise to the “Zebra killings”–look them up folks, they were quite a wake-up call. I doubt that anyone would be able to find the book written by the 2 San Francisco detectives who investigated the horrendous, cowardly subhumans who were the perpetrators of the murders of innocent American men & women–many of whom were the homeless kidnapped from the streets for ritualistic torture-murder rituals at the hands of Farrakhan’s subhuman mutants. Don’t forget that Farrakhan is a Communist of the Soviet variety. The fact that he is not in prison is one of the greatest failures of the American justice system.
gravenimage says
Yes–I lived through that period as a child, before most of us understood what Jihad was.
bouboulina says
P.S.: At the time of the Zebra killings all 4 U.S. military services were being infiltrated by crypto-Nation of Islam volunteers, &their ritualistic assassinations of service members in their sleep were carefully covered up, especially by the US Army. Unbelievable, but believe it.
bouboulina says
Postscript: It is scandalous that there are prominent Democrats who still cozy up to Farrakhan–most recently the intellectually compromised Maxine Waters. Never forget.
gravenimage says
Hugh Fitzgerald: No, Thomas Jefferson did not host the first Ramadan iftar dinner at the White House
……………………..
True, Hugh–Jefferson just moved the time back a couple of hours. He likely would have done the same if one of his guests had had an urgent errand that would have made him late. This was just politeness–not bowing to Islam.