[He] sais “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 Other stories recommended for you At a time when most Americans were uninformed, misinformed, or simply afraid of Islam, Thomas Jefferson imagined Muslims as future citizens of his new nation. His engagement with the faith began with the purchase of a Qur’an eleven years before he wrote the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson’s Qur’an survives still in the Library of Congress, serving as a symbol of his and early America’s complex relationship with Islam and its adherents. That relationship remains of signal importance to this day. That he owned a Qur’an reveals Jefferson’s interest in the Islamic religion, but it does not explain his support for the rights of Muslims. Jefferson first read about Muslim “civil rights” in the work of one of his intellectual heroes: the seventeenth-century English philosopher John Locke. Locke had advocated the toleration of Muslims—and Jews—following in the footsteps of a few others in Europe who had considered the matter for more than a century before him. Jefferson’s ideas about Muslim rights must be understood within this older context, a complex set of transatlantic ideas that would continue to evolve most markedly from the sixteenth through the nineteenth centuries. Amid the interdenominational Christian violence in Europe, some Christians, beginning in the sixteenth century, chose Muslims as the test case for the demarcation of the theoretical boundaries of their toleration for all believers. Because of these European precedents, Muslims also became a part of American debates about religion and the limits of citizenship. As they set about creating a new government in the United States, the American Founders, Protestants all, frequently referred to the adherents of Islam as they contemplated the proper scope of religious freedom and individual rights among the nation’s present and potential inhabitants. The founding generation debated whether the United States should be exclusively Protestant or a religiously plural polity. And if the latter, whether political equality—the full rights of citizenship, including access to the highest office—should extend to non-Protestants. The mention, then, of Muslims as potential citizens of the United States forced the Protestant majority to imagine the parameters of their new society beyond toleration. It obliged them to interrogate the nature of religious freedom: the issue of a “religious test” in the Constitution, like the ones that would exist at the state level into the nineteenth century; the question of “an establishment of religion,” potentially of Protestant Christianity; and the meaning and extent of a separation of religion from government. http://www.salon.com/2013/10/05/our_founding_fathers_included_islam/
I think it should go without saying that nobody should be excluded from civil rights because of their religion. Sadly, in the Muslim world, this is very often not true, if you are not a Muslim.
okay? He also felt Islam fought against free thought and was critical of it... as he was of virtually every other major religion. Indeed Jefferson had an interest in and studied virtually all major faiths. Why is this a big deal?
They should't but they do anyway http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-semitism/Luther_on_Jews.html
So American leaders from 200+ years ago are more tolerant and civilized than current Muslim leaders. Thanks for sharing.
Foxnews on behave of zionest's community interpretations " ....the founding fathers of this country were born in Kenya "
This really doesn't tell me anything about the context. Thomas Jefferson also owned slaves. So I'm not sure what is the significance of this single quote.
Why is this interesting? We learned in elementary school that the founding fathers were all about freedoms. We had to memorize the Bill of Rights as kids, and yes the very first one is freedom of religion. Islam is a religion so again, why is this interesting now? Smells like propaganda and click bait.
"They (the Jews) work more effectively against us than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in. It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pests to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America." Source: Maxims of George Washington by A.A. Appleton & Co. As the American colonies rose in revolt against political oppression occasioned by the attempt of Jewish banking houses in Europe to consolidate their economic foothold in the New World, no man among the Founding Fathers was more alert to the designs of international Jewry than that shrewd elder statesman of the American Revolution, Benjamin Franklin. Perhaps Ben Franklin's most damning indictment of Jewry was contained in his famous prophecy at the Constitutional Convention of 1787 in Philadelphia. In one of the most anti-Jewish utterances of all time, he declared: "I fully agree with General Washington, that we must protect this young nation from an insidious influence and impenetration. That menace, gentlemen, is the Jews. In whatever country Jews have settled in any great number, they have lowered its moral tone; depreciated its commercial integrity; have segregated themselves and have not been assimilated; have sneered at and tried to undermine the Christian religion upon which that nation was founded by objecting to its restrictions; have built up a state within a state; and when opposed have tried to strangle that country to death financially, as in the case of Spain and Portugal. "For over 1700 hundred years, the Jews have been bewailing their sad fate in that they have been exiled from their homeland, as they call Palestine. But, gentlemen, did the world give it to them in fee simple, they would at once find some reason for not returning. Why? Because they are vampires, and vampires do not live on vampires. They cannot live only amongst themselves. They must subsist on Christians and other people not of their race. If you do not exclude them from these United States in the Constitution, in less than 200 years they will have swarmed here in such great numbers that they will dominate and devour the land, and change our form of government, for which we Americans have shed our blood, given our lives, our substance, and jeopardized our liberty. "If you do not exclude them, in less than 200 years our descendants will be working in the fields to furnish them substance, while they will be in the counting houses rubbing their hands. I warn you, gentlemen, if you do not exclude the Jews for all time, your children will curse you in your graves. Jews, gentlemen, are Asiatics, let them be born where they will or how many generations they are away from Asia, they will never be otherwise. Their ideas do not conform to an American's, and will not even though they live among us ten generations. A leopard cannot change its spots. Jews are Asiatics, are a menace to this country if permitted entrance, and should be excluded by this Constitutional Convention." Franklin's remarks were recorded in "Chit Chat Around the Table During Intermissions," a section of the Diary of Charles Cotesworth Pinckney of South Carolina. Pickney (1746-1825) attended the Convention as a delegate, and took down excerpts of some of the outstanding addresses and discourses, which he later published in his diary. Perhaps the best proof of the Franklin prophecy—as with any prophecy—lies in its actual fulfillment. What Benjamin Franklin foresaw as an ominous possibility in 1787 has today—a little over two hundred years later—become painful reality.
In August of 1781, our Southern forces had trapped Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis in the little Virginia coastal town of Yorktown. George Washington and the main army and the Count de Rochambeau with his French army decided to march from the Hudson Highlands to Yorktown and deliver the final blow. But Washington's war chest was completely empty, as was that of Congress. Washington determined that he needed at least $20,000 to finance the campaign. When Morris told him there were no funds and no credit available, Washington gave him a simple but eloquent order: "Send for Haym Salomon". Haym again came through, and the $20.000 was raised. Washington conducted the Yorktown campaign, which proved to be the final battle of the Revolution, thanks to Haym Salomon. On December 15th, 1941, the City of Chicago erected the statue of George Washington, flanked by Haym Salomon and Robert Morris. It stands today at the intersection of Wabash and Wacker Drive. Under the image of Salomon it says "Haym Salomon - Gentlemen, Scholar, Patriot. A banker whose only interest was the interest of his Country. " Source:Revolutionary War Historical Article Haym Salomon -The Revolution's Indispensable Financial Genius http://www.revolutionarywararchives.org/salomon.html
Does that obviously reputable(sarcasm) site link or cite their sources of where Jefferson looked at the Quran to see why pirates want booty? I would think that would be common sense?!?! No?
BTW, **** you for supporting an article like that bull**** piece. I'm all for criticism of Islam as I believe it to have several bad ideas (along with Christianity), but to attack the American Muslim population who by a significant majority are law abiding hard working citizens is disgusting. Seriously, **** you. Go suck Jesus's **** some more and hopefully his message of tolerance can be shot into you. And yes, you deserve harsh language like this when you are willing to attack the character of millions of law abiding citizens because you don't believe in the same sky daddy.
Or a Palestinian. They don't deserve civil rights because they aren't human right? It's ok to practice ethnic cleansing on them according to you. We all know what a hypocrite you are.
What does mocking the name of a particular group of people and mocking their leader's name get you, man? I mean, aside from no one taking you seriously from now on... ?
