Our Founding Fathers included Islam III on October 11, 2013Even earlier in his political life — as an ambassador, secretary of state, and vice president — Thomas Jefferson had never perceived a predominantly religious dimension to the conflict with North African Muslim powers, whose pirates threatened American shipping in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic. As this book demonstrates, Jefferson as president would insist to […]
Our Founding Fathers included Islam II on October 10, 2013In 1783, the year of the nation’s official independence from Great Britain, George Washington wrote to recent Irish Catholic immigrants in New York City. The American Catholic minority of roughly 25,000 then had few legal protections in any state and, because of their faith, no right to hold political office in New York. Washington insisted […]
Our Founding Fathers included Islam I on October 9, 2013[He] said “neither Pagan nor Mahamedan [Muslim] nor Jew ought to be excluded from the civil rights of the Commonwealth because of his religion” — Thomas Jefferson, quoting John Locke, 1776. At a time when most Americans were uninformed, misinformed, or simply afraid of Islam, Thomas Jefferson imagined Muslims as future citizens of his new […]