Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib Comes From A Settler Family (UPDATED)

I read it here:

Rashida Harbi Elabed — she took the last name of her ex-husband, Fayez Tlaib, when they were married in 1998 and kept it — is and remains a Detroiter. She was born and raised in southwest, where her father, Harbi Elabed, and her mother, Fatima, settled. Harbi Elabed, despite being impoverished at times, made it to Detroit from Jerusalem, via Nicaragua, and worked the line at Ford’s Flat Rock Assembly Plant; Tlaib's mother came from a small village in Palestine. 

And another thing:

She will use Thomas Jefferson’s personal copy of George Sale’s 1734 translation of the Koran into English, a two-volume work that resides in the Library of Congress. “It’s important to me because a lot of Americans have this kind of feeling that Islam is somehow foreign to American history,” said Tlaib

I am not sure what she means by the "beginning".

I do know about the Barbary Pirates who were Muslim. They were

Ottoman and Maghrebi pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Salé, Rabat, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast

As to their activities, one estimation has it that

Between 1580 and 1680 corsairs were said to have captured about 850,000 people as slaves and from 1530 to 1780 as many as 1,250,000 people were enslaved

As for a connection with Thomas Jefferson, I read that

one cannot get around what Jefferson heard when he went with John Adams to wait upon Tripoli’s ambassador to London in March 1785. When they inquired by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American shipping, enslaving both crews and passengers, America’s two foremost envoys were informed that “it was written in the Koran, that all Nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon whoever they could find 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.”

And that

Yusuf Karamanli, the pasha of Tripoli, declared war on the United States in May 1801, in pursuit of his demand for more revenue. This earned him a heavy bombardment of Tripoli and the crippling of one of his most important ships. 

The year 1801 is close to the beginning although that Barbary Coast campaign went on into 1815. 

I would presume former President Barack Obama pushed that theme:

Here's another fact: Islam has always been part of America. Starting in colonial times, many of the slaves brought here from Africa were Muslim. And even in their bondage, some kept their faith alive. A few even won their freedom and became known to many Americans. And when enshrining the freedom of religion in our Constitution and our Bill of Rights, our Founders meant what they said when they said it applied to all religions.

Back then, Muslims were often called Mahometans. And Thomas Jefferson explained that the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom he wrote was designed to protect all faiths — and I'm quoting Thomas Jefferson now — "the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan." 

And by the way, the claim that she is the first Palestinian member of Congress is probably wrong.

The first Palestinian to become a Congressman was J.H. Krebs.*

He lived in the Palestine Mandate 1933-1946 and I would presume he had Palestinian citizenship as his previous German citizenship would have been invalidated by the Nazi regime.

He was Jewish.  Even served in the Hagana.

Move over Rashida Tlaib?

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* And I asked:

Thank you for submitting your question to Library of Congress - Digital Reference Team
Question ID: 14197950
Your question: Was JH Krebs not the first "Palestinian" to serve in Congress?

You will receive acknowledgment of question receipt and an answer to your question at the e-mail address you provided.

P.S.  From Congressman Krebs' widow, Hannah:

"I have been hunting for John’s passport when he first came to the U.S. from Israel in Nov. 1946 with his passport marked “Palestinian.”  Yes, he was that before the state was founded and probably the first former Palestinian in Congress, by then an American citizen.  Obviously not an Arab Palestinian like Rashida Tlaib."

(thanks to AbuYehudah)

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I now see this:

Two more errors on Omar’s list: Tlaib, whom she lists as the first Palestinian American; is preceded by Rep. Justin Amash, R-Mich., and former Sen. John Sununu, R-N.H.

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