Note to Washington Post: Thomas Jefferson Declared WAR on Muslim States, He Didn’t Cook Iftar Dinners For Them

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The Washington Post isn’t just twisting history, they are turning inside out, and completely inverting reality. The idea that President Thomas Jefferson held an Iftar dinner is so absurd, so insane, it could only be advanced by dissemblers secure in the knowledge that their readers know nothing of American history. Thomas Jefferson conducted the first of two foreign wars with the Muslim countries in North Africa. He was hardly cooking Iftar dinners.

Muslim countries known as the Barbary States were a collection of North African states, many of which practiced state-supported piracy in order to exact the jizya from Atlantic powers. Morocco was an independent kingdom, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli owed a loose allegiance to the Ottoman Empire. The United States fought two separate wars with Tripoli (1801–1805) and Algiers (1815–1816), although at other times it paid the jizya to obtain the release of captives held in the Barbary States. (more here)

Most Americans are familiar with the first line of the United States Marine Corps hymn, “From the halls of Montezuma1 to the shores of Tripoli” but most likely don’t know the source of the “Tripoli” reference. The line “to the shores of Tripoli” refers to the First Barbary War, specifically the Battle of Derna, that took place in 1805.

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Our earliest founders were familiar with the terrorist ways of radical Islamists. Thomas Jefferson, who was serving as the ambassador to France, and John Adams, the Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Ambassador Abdrahaman, the Dey of Tripoli’s ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty. Peace for an Islamist means surrender to Islam.

Peace would come at a price. If America wanted “temporary peace,” a one-year guarantee, it would cost $66,000 plus a 10% commission. “Everlasting peace” was a bargain at $160,000 plus the obligatory commission. This only applied to Tripoli. Other Muslim nations would also have to be paid. The amount came to $1.3 million. But there was no assurance that the treaties would be honored. In vain, Jefferson and Adams tried to argue that America was not at war with Tripoli. In what way had the U.S provoked the Muslims, they asked? Ambassador Abdrahaman went on to explain “the finer points of Islamic jihad” to the Koranically challenged Jefferson and Adams. In a letter to John Jay, Jefferson wrote the following:

“The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged 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 Musselman [Muslim] who should be slain in battle was sure to go to Paradise.”2

Abdrahaman was paraphrasing the Koran’s “rules of engagement” found in the 47 Surah: “Whenever you encounter the ones who disbelieve [during wartime], seize them by their necks until once you have subdued them, then tie them up as prisoners, either in order to release them later on, or also to ask for ransom, until war lays down her burdens.” (more here)

This is a little known, critical part of American history:

In the Mediterranean, the corsairs of the Barbary states began to prey on U.S. merchant ships, no longer protected by the Royal Navy. Ships and cargoes were captured, and U.S. seamen were ransomed or sold into slavery. Although the number of ships and seamen actually lost were few, the psychological effect on Americans was marked. Among the possible responses that the United States debated were paying the Barbary states [jizya] to spare U.S. commerce from attacks and building a small navy to protect trade.

The debate over naval policy was both economic and philosophical. Many Americans, among them Thomas Jefferson, later minister to the French court from 1785 to 1789, favored a naval response. Jefferson wrote in the fall of 1784: “We ought to begin a naval power, if we mean to carry on our commerce. Can we begin it on a more honorable occasion, or with a weaker foe?” (more here.)

The US Navy fought America’s first foreign war  ….. against the jihad in North Africa (the first and second Barbary wars).

Depredations against U.S. shipping by Barbary Coast pirates in the Mediterranean Sea spurred Congress to employ this power by passing the Naval Act of 1794 ordering the construction and manning of six frigates.[6] These ships were used to end most pirate activity off the Barbary Coast. In the 20th century American blue-water navy capability was demonstrated by the 1907–1909 world tour of the Great White Fleet.

 

Jefferson’s problems with Islam began long before he was President. Dr. Andrew Bostom illuminates:

Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, then serving as American ambassadors to France and Britain, respectively, met in 1786 in London with the Tripolitan Ambassador to Britain, Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja. These future American presidents were attempting to negotiate a peace treaty which would spare the United States the ravages of jihad piracy—murder, enslavement (with ransoming for redemption), and expropriation of valuable commercial assets—emanating from the Barbary states (modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, known collectively in Arabic as the Maghrib). During their discussions, they questioned Ambassador Adja as to the source of the unprovoked animus directed at the nascent United States republic. Jefferson and Adams, in their subsequent report to the Continental Congress, recorded the Tripolitan Ambassador’s justification:

… that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged 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 Musselman who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise.

Read the whole thing.

Fake News: Washington Post Claims Thomas Jefferson Held White House Iftar Dinner to ‘Celebrate Ramadan’

by Warner Todd Huston, Breitbart, 25 Jun 2017:

The establishment media became upset this weekend after President Donald Trump canceled the “White House Muslim Iftar Dinner tradition started by Thomas Jefferson.” But the media is wrong in every respect. Thomas Jefferson never held any Iftar dinner and only three out of 45 presidents ever hosted one, so there is no such “tradition” to cancel.

Amy B. Wang of the Washington Post led the pack with this nonsense that Thomas Jefferson held the “first Iftar dinner” with a June 24 piece entitled, “Trump just ended a long tradition of celebrating Ramadan at the White House.”
The often-used claim that Thomas Jefferson held the first Iftar dinner at the White House was trotted out by the Post’s Wang. She recounted the time when the diplomatic envoy from the Bey of Tunis, Sidi Soliman Melli Melli, visited Washington during Ramadan in 1805.
Jefferson invited the envoy to the White House for dinner at 3:30 PM—the time most Washingtonians had dinner in those days. But after he sent the invitation he was told that Melli Melli could not partake of a meal until after sunset because of Ramadan. Thomas Jefferson was faced with two choices: cancel the dinner entirely or simply have the meal later in the evening at a time when his guest could attend. As a good host and a decent person, Jefferson chose the latter.
In fact, all Jefferson did was change the time of his meal. He had no intention of honoring Islam. Jefferson simply was not honoring the religion of “the Musselmen”—as he termed Muslims at the time—when he changed the time of the meal. Also, there is no evidence that Jefferson asked Melli Melli what sort of food a “Musselman” would eat, so no special food was prepared to suit a Muslim’s religious needs. Jefferson neither inquired about religious accommodations nor was any made. All he did was move the time of the meal as a courtesy.
Further, Jefferson sent no letters containing proclamations about the meal being an Iftar dinner nor mentioning Islam, he never mentioned such honors in his private papers, and there is no record that he spoke to anyone about his intentions to honor the Muslim practice of an Iftar dinner.
To the Post’s Wang, that Jefferson had a dinner at all was somehow proof positive that he invented a “tradition” of some sort. As “proof” that it was an Iftar dinner, Wang quoted the words of liberal historian John Ragosta who gave the scintillating argument, “Yeah, it sounds to me like an Iftar dinner.”
Wang went on to insist there has been a “modern tradition” of having an Iftar dinner at the White House. But in truth, only three presidents in all of American history ever held an Iftar dinner.
Bill Clinton held the first one, a politically motivated dinner aimed at peeling Muslim voters away from the GOP, since at the time the growing Muslim-American community leaned toward becoming a Republican constituency.
George W. Bush, in a diplomatic effort, followed Clinton’s practice of holding Iftar dinners because he wanted to prove that the U.S. wasn’t looking to go to war with all of Islam in the wake of the attacks on 9/11/2001 and the subsequent implementation of the war on terror.
Naturally, Barack Obama held them because he had a personal connection to Islam through his childhood, growing up in Indonesia and raised during that time as a Muslim.
But three presidents out of 45 does not make a “tradition.”
In her ahistorical article, Wang also quotes John Quincy Adams who expressed “with an air of fascination” his dinner with the Tunisian envoy, but quotes Adams without also noting that the president thought Islam was a terrible and brutal creed.
What Adams thought about Islam is instructive. For instance, he described Islam as a religion of hate in a piece he wrote in the late 1820s:
The natural hatred of the Mussulmen towards the infidels is in just accordance with the precepts of the Koran. … The fundamental doctrine of the Christian religion is the extirpation of hatred from the human heart. It forbids the exercise of it, even towards enemies. … In the 7th century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab … spread desolation and delusion over an extensive portion of the earth. … He declared undistinguishing and exterminating war as a part of his religion. … The essence of his doctrine was violence and lust, to exalt the brutal over the spiritual part of human nature.
Other prominent Americans at the time also disparaged Islam.
The father of American jurisprudence, Justice Joseph Story, throughly slammed Islam:
Mahomet aimed to establish his pretensions to divine authority, by the power of the sword and the terrors of his government; while he carefully avoided any attempts at miracles in the presence of his followers, and all pretences to foretell things to come. His acknowledging the divine mission of Moses and Christ confirms their authority as far as his influence will go while their doctrines entirely destroy all his pretensions to the like authority. … And now, where is the comparison between the supposed prophet of Mecca, and the Son of God; or with what propriety ought they to be named together? …The difference between these characters is so great, that the facts need not be further applied.
Other founders agreed. Both Ben Franklin and John Quincy’s famed father, John Adams, criticized Islam as a doctrine of war, not a religion.
It is true, of course, that the founders intended that Americans should be allowed to practice Islam if they wanted to. There was no thought to outlaw Islam. In fact, some even wrote that Muslims should be allowed to attain political office. After all, we did start the country on the ideal of religious freedom. But no founder felt that Islam was something we should emulate. None felt that Islam had ideas that could be incorporated into the American ethos. And Islam played no part at all in our founding. Those who say it did, such as Barack Obama, are bending over backwards — and illegitimately so — to try and shoehorn Islam into our founding.
After all, it should also be remembered that one of our earliest military actions was against Muslims when Jefferson fought the Barbary Pirates. But historical facts do not seem to enter into the liberal world view.
During several of his Iftar dinners, Barack Obama also regurgitated the nonsense that Islam is part of our founding and that Jefferson held the “first Iftar dinner in the White House.”
No better example of this garbling of the truth can be seen than that in the words of Barack Obama. For his 2012 Iftar dinner celebration, for instance, Obama said the following:
As I’ve noted before, Thomas Jefferson once held a sunset dinner here with an envoy from Tunisia—perhaps the first Iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago. And some of you, as you arrived tonight, may have seen our special display, courtesy of our friends at the Library of Congress—the Koran that belonged to Thomas Jefferson. And that’s a reminder, along with the generations of patriotic Muslims in America, that Islam—like so many faiths—is part of our national story.
The reference to Jefferson’s so-called Iftar dinner in the 2012 speech was at least a step closer to reality than in the past when he was less equivocal. In 2010 Obama said straight out that Jefferson’s was the first Iftar dinner:
Tonight, we are reminded that Ramadan is a celebration of a faith known for great diversity. And Ramadan is a reminder that Islam has always been part of America. The first Muslim ambassador to the United States, from Tunisia, was hosted by President Jefferson, who arranged a sunset dinner for his guest because it was Ramadan—making it the first known Iftar at the White House, more than 200 years ago.
But it is historical revisionism to say this. Jefferson’s dinner is neither a sure thing nor a “perhaps.” President Thomas Jefferson simply did not hold any Iftar dinner in the White House, nor did he intend to honor Islam that day. To claim that the very first president to authorize war against Muslims would have hosted a dinner to honor Islam is an absurdity of the first order.

 

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ds
6 years ago

Islam can be thought of as a single organism, and the individual muslims as the cells of this organism.

The muslims who commit terrorism, can be regarded as hyper-active cells, while the muslims who do not commit terrorism, can be regarded as active cells.

If one regards the entire organism of islam as a threat, then every cell of this organism is to be regarded as a threat. And if one does not regard the entire organism of islam as a threat, then only the hyper-active cells—terrorist muslims—may be regarded as the threat.

Regardless of the disposition, one thing remains true – Eliminating only the hyper-active cells is pointless, as the organism of islam will soon regenerate new cells to replace them and the process will continue in perpetuity.

The only solution lies in eliminating the entire organism of islam. Alternatively, the growth of new cells–at least in the non-muslim world–can be deactivated, by outlawing islam.

Dave J Lawson
Dave J Lawson
6 years ago
Reply to  ds

Agree. Islam is cancer . weakens and kills host turning it into Islamic hellhole like somalia, pukistan

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago

The garbage the lame stream media pass off as propaganda is so blatantly stupid that it is beyond incredible that liars of that nature are allowed to deliberately print total garbage. What is worse if the fact that the population do not inform the media liars that they are lying through their store bought teeth. The education industry is full at fault for its profound lack of education, providing merely a baby sitting services for the bulk of their alleged students. After the new vigilante order purges the political system it will have to move on to reform the rest of society corrupted by democrat lies.

Kalambong Kalambong
Kalambong Kalambong
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

A glance at the name can tell you what’s wrong:
>Amy B. Wang of the Washington Post …

Is she a Smith or a Taylor?

No, she’s a Wang

She’s an implant, an implant that doesn’t have the American Spirit

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago

She is an unskilled hack writer that very likely climbed a few wangs to get where she is, in the lame stream media’s gutter.

AlgorithmicAnalystD
AlgorithmicAnalyst
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

Girls always have to watch out for that, especially in Hollywood/LA, wangers offering them a step up the career ladder in exchange. They are very good at it, and subtle.

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago

There are some things that have a high price, some girls are willing to pay it, and keep paying until someone else shows up. The problem with wannabe celebrities is they do not realize that fame is fleeting.

Dave J Lawson
Dave J Lawson
6 years ago

These Dumb wangs will do anything for money the saudi/qatar/soros cabal throw their way.

Don’t be surprised when the Left/Liberals start honoring ISIS, hamas jihadis just the way Islamonazis in America are demanding Americans do http://bit.ly/2qvcHov

MSM will not talk about it ……nor will they be deported for insulting US military & supporting jihadis.

AlgorithmicAnalystD
AlgorithmicAnalyst
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

True, I often looked at it as just a baby-sitting service.

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago

That is what I see all to often.

Steve
Steve
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

Speaking of media, I have to add that the catholic blog sites i have visited lately in some ways remind me of some of the stubborn attitude and righteousness of muslamists. They may not be violent in the same way as muslamists but they can certainly get smug and throw up a wall when challenged and if you aren’t one of them no amount of vatican II will turn heaven’s gate key. I was amazed at a couple of posters going on the attack at some of my questions to them still claiming their “righteous connection” though unable to say why the pope washes feet but folds when connecting with catholic and christian counterparts needing real help in the mideast. They’d rather put out media I think about helping sanctuary illegals and refugees than do something drastic. As far as their blogs if you have ever checked them they are more like facebook social club safe spaces than real discussion groups.

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago
Reply to  Steve

After getting banned from a Catholic site and being quite appalled at the lack of Catholicism and Christianity on others, I have arrived at the conclusion that a lot of alleged Catholics have more in common with muslims, in that they are unreasonable, dogmatic, severe, hateful, bigoted and outright ignorant. Then they add a white wash of pious angst and hand wringing prayerful remorse to all that. It has been a long time since I went to a Catholic site, as they are heavily moderated and censored, I have no use for such stupidity, even disguised as religion, I don’t go there.

Steve
Steve
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

Not glad you went through that but i have to say I’ve learned a little more about that kind of christianity.

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago
Reply to  Steve

That is not really Christianity, it is a cult of ritualists who go through the motions of something, for no reason other than to hate others for not doing it.

Robert Llywelyn
Robert Llywelyn
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

Don’t forget also that Catholics r pagen

Mahou Shoujo
Mahou Shoujo
6 years ago

Don’t be silly.

Rob Porter
Rob Porter
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

The left is now so depraved and dishonest, evident is that it has no moral compass. It’s no exaggeration to deduce that the left is now mentally ill.

Stephen Honig
Stephen Honig
6 years ago
Reply to  Mahou Shoujo

The worst is not Goebbels propaganda, it’s the people who believe it. As a matter of fact Goebbels (Minister of Propaganda) said: If you tell a lie often enough, it will become the truth.

Rocinante44
Rocinante44
6 years ago

barbary as in barbarian. nothing has changed

gv
gv
6 years ago

A society that can not restrain sabotage by its own media, is a castrated society unfit for survival.

Maranatha
Maranatha
6 years ago

The first mosque in USA was open only in 1929….any leftist hearing??

Mark Steiner
Mark Steiner
6 years ago
Reply to  Maranatha

Probably not. Leftists are too busy aligning with other leftists and Muslims to bring down an erstwhile Judaeo-Christian nation, where the God of the Bible was once welcomed,feared and revered with awe. Now He is maligned by a nation that can’t stop shaking its fist at Him. Psalm 2 provides the details that God uses to straighten the mess out right quick.

BTW lefties, get ready. Yellowstone is increasingly restless and unstable; an eruption may be sooner than you or your MSM phonies and cover-up cronies want to know.

Maranatha
Maranatha
6 years ago
Reply to  Mark Steiner

Excellent.

AlgorithmicAnalystD
AlgorithmicAnalyst
6 years ago

Good history.

Dr. Ron Polland
Dr. Ron Polland
6 years ago

Pam: This year, the White House held a Passover dinner (seder) as it has since 2009 but neither Trump nor his daughter and son-in-law (who are Jewish) attended.

Steve
Steve
6 years ago

The wapo is laughable just like the new york slimes and the los angeles crimes. These papers and others like them are in their death throes doubling down on their leftism. The next battles are on controlling the net and keeping it free as much as possible.

BonniePrinceCharlieD
BonniePrinceCharlie
6 years ago

I’m looking forward to Sean Spicer denouncing the next false story a ‘a complete wang’ (from a complete wangker)

Enchanted
Enchanted
6 years ago

Prior to obama taking office, ramadan was not celebrated in the WH. A blind person can see the reason why.

Enchanted
Enchanted
6 years ago
Reply to  Enchanted

I stand corrected. However Jefferson did not. However, none of the previous presidents neglected and dismissed Christian activities at the WH. Yes, obama still held the annual Easter egg hunt, however that is something that is very visible to the American public, versus a state dinner.

VLParker
VLParker
6 years ago

“It is true, of course, that the founders intended that Americans should be allowed to practice Islam if they wanted to. There was no thought to outlaw Islam. In fact, some even wrote that Muslims should be allowed to attain political office. After all, we did start the country on the ideal of religious freedom.”

Does Mr. Huston have any quotations or evidence to back this statement up? He says,” Some founders wrote that muslims should be allowed to attain political office.” Did they know the true nature of islam in its entirety including the mandate to make islam the religion of the world, by force if necessary? I find it hard to believe that the founders, if they were thoroughly knowledgeable about islam’s mandate to overthrow the US and all non-muslim nations, would allow such sedition to take root.

marlene
marlene
6 years ago
Reply to  VLParker

The Founders were referring ONLY to muslims who assimilate into American culture, accept our Rule of Law, and uphold our Constitution. They also put into our Constitution the prohibition to deny entry into the US to any person, individually or affiliated with any group, whose beliefs and politics do not line up with our culture, laws and Constitution.

Rob Porter
Rob Porter
6 years ago

Like Barack Obama, Wang is a liar, fabricator, ignoramus, liberal and fool. Obama started much of this lying rubbish about Islam dinner in his 2009 speeches to the parliament of Turkey and then to the Muslim world from Cairo – an occasion to which he insisted on having present members of the Muslim Brotherhood – sworn enemies of the United States who would like to destroy Western civilization. Later he concocted the Thomas Jefferson iftar dinner nonsense. To the left and its brain-dead media it matters not how many slaughters of non-Muslims Muslims conduct, Islam is not responsible. A mental illness must afflict it.

Patti ??
Patti ??
6 years ago
Reply to  Rob Porter

So agree Rob !! Keep talking. ???????

Stephen Honig
Stephen Honig
6 years ago

How about Muslim Obama who said George Washington was a Muslim and he had his own prayer rug

ConnectingDots
ConnectingDots
6 years ago

Maybe the so-called journalists for The Washington Post can get their owner to give them discount codes to buy some history books from Amazon?

kirana
kirana
6 years ago

The notion that BO held iftar dinner because he was raised in Indonesia at a point is scary notion as to emphasize that Indonesia is a dangerous country. He indeed was raised as a muslim by his step-father whp happened to be a muslim. He was registered as a muslim and assuming his step father’s name yes. But one must be careful in picking up words as it could lead to wrong interpretation, what I meant here is, Indonesia was and still is a secular country despite the muslim population. And to use such words could provoke ‘revenge’ by muslims to native minority here. What I saw all the time is while everyone is busy condemning these jihadists by connecting them to Indoneska while most of the jihadists are coming from Mid East, people do not want to learn that we worked hard as a people as a nation to eliminate these threats to our national identity and life, every day our anti-terror police and military squads working endlessly to fight them, risking their lives in the line of duty, whatever their political reason to keep the country as secular country, minority at least have some guarantee that we will not turn into mid east for sometimes. People also forget that keep using the notion that giving impression that Indonesia is an Islamic country will just giving confidence to some serious Islamic groups here to really make Indonesia as Islamic country and that would also means the minority will lose all of our already limited freedom here. The minority here is always the victims of all what happened in other part of the world. Why no one ever care to think of what might happened to us? Should we become the target of revenge by muslims here out of their solidarity with other muslims in mid-east? And should we also be victims because muslims here will actually want to be Islamic country because of everytime they read the news that giving false impression upon them that Indonesia is an Islamic country. Indonesia never an Islamic country since her birth, we have that huge muslims population for long time but for that long time also our country is not based on Islamic sharia, our national identity laid on our national spirit of unity in diversity. While Malaysia and Brunei based their country on Islamic sharia, Indonesia did not. Most muslims here also afraid of the rising of radical view of wahabism and salafism, since they also being branded as murtads for taking different view on Islamic teachings. Indonesian muslims do take moderate view on Islamic teachings, mostly because they are peaceful as a person and they believe so, but picturing Indonesia as Islamic will only enforce them to believe thst they should be like that. It put us all in danger here now our neighbor is at war, Phillippine is secular like us, with muslims ad minority but look at what happened to this Christian majority country? We fesr for them and pray for them that they will get through this evil time, this so close Islamic jihad war and also the media keep pushing the idea that Indonesia is Islamic because of her population might cause serious consequences to us, especially the minority. We are tired of western media indirectly picturing us as Islamic, we are tired being hold responsible for BO raised up as a muslim here. He was raised by his parents not by Indonesian people and he only spent some years here, before being sent back to Hawaii by his mother. I’m not defending Islam here but defending my people and my country, even they are muslims they are pretty much decent human being as far as I know living with them my whole life. I could not change them because that’s their rights to be muslims as well as I have mine to be christian as well others to have their faith. All I could do is living my best and to co-exist with them as fellow Indonesian. Mostly Indonesian muslims are ignorant of the Islamic original teaching, they just told to read quran, to pray and to learn the interpretation of quran by rather moderate stance of Islamic teaching teachers. I know they are taught that we are non-muslims are infidels, that when we die we will go straught to hell hence some of my good friends fearing that trying to covert me too, a good deed with good reward of heaven for them if they could convert non-muslims, but just that. They never push in oppressive way, if they failed then it is the infidel loss and they still have that ‘heavenly’ reward of offering Islam to infidels. My muslim friend once said ‘I feel sorry for you that you will die kafir and go to hell, and I pray for you that you will embrace Islam one day’ to which I replied ‘thank you that you cared so much for my hereafter life, but I can asure you that my salvation is granted, my price is fully paid and I have no worry of my hereafter life because I know and believe in my salvation in Christ. I do not fear of where I will go, wheter my good deeds are enough or not to enter heaven. It is fully granted by Christ’s blood, all I need to worry is my life in this world whether I could live by faith and that all my conduct in life is based in faith, that whatever good I try to be it is because of love and because that’s who I supposed to be by faith not because of I want reward in heaven or out of fear of punishmet in hell. My fear of God is out of love, not out of terror of hell.’ I do not remember the exact words but indeed I reply my friend with giving a long testimony of my faith. It surpised my friend, and she would then said OK to me. She later became distance, she said she afraid that I will Christenized her which I didn’t. I told her I mere responded to her. But I am glad that at least something in my response made her thinking that’s why she had fear. Many muslims here could converse into another religion as it is granted by constition. They do have some ‘social punishment’ by muslims in the form of being condemned, mocked, harsh treatment, etc. But the most harsh treatment usually come from their own family, but their are protected by constituion that if thei family or anyone harm them, they will be brought to justice. But we also see how our muslim fellow paraioa of ahmadi, shia or other religions that claim their prophet and quran, they really harsh toward them, and of course the atheists are their fierce enemy, because of that the legislative body abused the constitution by setting a law to only acknowledged 6 established religions, prohibiting atheism, and all other religious sects, but interesrengly it allowed tribal belief systems, which is called ‘A belief in Almighty God’ this groups basically pagan practices which mixing tradition of their tribal belief system with known religious tradition, as long as they do not claim any religious prophet or creed, they are allowed. Minority have faced oppressive behaviour too our muslims fellows yet we are equal tl them in the eyes of our justice system which means they always have to be responsible of any crime or oppression they do to others. You see people temples of worship here will be judged, muslim and non-muslim. You hurt someone because of religion you will be judged. You kill someone or many in the name of religion the most severed punishment you might get is death penalty. That’s the punishment that Bali bombing’s ‘brains’ got and some others bombing inspirators got. And deadly jihad groups in Sulawesi and even in Sharia-zone province Aceh, if resisting arrest are to be shot dead on the spot. That’s how hard we try to maintain our national identoty and security. Now we minority here faced so many fears of rising jihad movements by wahabists/salafists, ISIS and its proxies groups, now we are to fear that muslims also will fall into the idea that has been sounded over and over so many times that Indonesia is big muslim country, this and that they will want and indeed some already wanted us to be Islamic country. We have war so close on our door, yet we try our best to live normally. Tired to be reminded that we have the largest muslims as if all the terrorist jihadist in the west come from here while actually we also fight with them here as many of our local jihadist mostly because they studied in Mid East, or being taught by preachers from Mid East country especially from countries that promotes wahabism/salafism. We do fight the same fight you people face, we face the same problem you people face, all we ask is stop connecting OB with us. He is what he is because of his own choice not because of he was being raised in Indonesia. He lied about beinh as muslim as a child is his own lie not Indonesia’s mistake because he spent some of his child-age years here. I jist hope this kind of notion connecting BO with Indonesia on his Islamic view not doing anyone good. It has to stop because it could give very wrong interpretation and understanding.

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Thanks for sharing!