Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an : Islam and the founders /
In this original and illuminating book, Denise A. Spellberg reveals a little-known but crucial dimension of the story of American religious freedom, a drama in which Islam played a surprising role. In 1765, eleven years before composing the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson bought a Qur&...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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New York :
Alfred A. Knopf,
2013.
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| Edition: | First Edition. |
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Table of Contents:
- Introduction : imagining the Muslim as citizen at the founding of the United States
- The European Christian origins of negative but sometimes accurate American ideas about Islam and Muslims, 1529-1797
- Positive European Christian precedents for the toleration of Muslims, and their presence in colonial America, 1554-1706
- What Jefferson learned, and didn't, from his Qur'an : his negative views of Islam, and their political uses, contrasted with his support for Muslim civil rights, 1765-86
- Jefferson versus John Adams : the problem of North African piracy and their negotiations with a Muslim ambassador in London, 1784-88
- Could a Muslim be president? Muslim rights and the ratification of the Constitution, 1788
- Jefferson wages war against an Islamic power; entertains the first Muslim ambassador; decides where to place the Qur'an in his library; and affirms his support for Muslim rights, 1790-1823
- Beyond toleration : John Leland, Baptist advocate for the rights of Muslims, 1776-1841
- Afterword : why can't a Muslim be president? Eighteenth-century ideals of the Muslim citizen and their significance in the twenty-first century.