December 13 ,2013
Was Thomas Jefferson A Muslim?
Obviously, that is an absurd question. Thomas Jefferson was not a Muslim, but he was the author of the American Declaration of Independence, played a big role in the Bill of Rights, and served as the third President of the US. His relationship to Islam though is more intriguing than one would guess.
In the 18 thcentury, the common European view of Islam was that it was a false religion, that it was spread by military conquest and forced conversion, and that there was little or nothing about it that could be seen as useful or positive. This European view was the culmination of over 1000 years of conflict, between the Muslims of Spain and the Christians that eventually expelled them, between Arabs and later Turks against the Christian Greeks ruling a shrinking empire from Constantinople, and between the Western Crusaders and the Arabs in Palestine. Thomas Jefferson, as a British subject and educated man, shared these views.
However, in 1765, while a law student, he obtained a copy of George Sale’s translation of the Qur'an. This was the first rendering of the Qur'an into English, and Sale was a British scholar who learned Arabic from two Arab Christians that had come to live in London. Sale never visited an Arabic speaking land or Muslim region to observe Islam firsthand as it was practiced then. His translation is decent for the time, but betrays the anti-Muslim prejudices of the translator, and the purpose of his translation was to give missionaries a better understanding of their “competition”.
It is not clear how much time and attention the young Jefferson gave to reading the Qur'an, although it would be safe to assume that he did not simply put it on the shelf untouched. Jefferson’s Qur'an is actually now property of the White House, and is usually displayed during the annual White House iftar during Ramadan.
Jefferson did however make some comments about Muslims. He was a strong believer in a secular state that treated all citizens equally, and advocated that there be no discrimination on the basis of religion. On that basis he argued that in the new American republic a Jew or Muslim would be fully equal to a Christian. It is interesting to note how many right-wing Republicans claim that America is a “Christian” nation, when in fact that was clearly not the intent of the founders of this country. The fact that Muslims in America do have equal standing today before the law, and serve in Congress and the government at all levels is testament to Jefferson’s vision, one based on the political theories of the Englishman John Locke.
In later life, Jefferson abandoned most Christian dogma and became a Unitarian. It is here that the question of whether he was a Muslim becomes at least somewhat plausible to ask. Unitarians rejected physical miracles, did not see Jesus as anything more than a very good man and role model but not as the Son of God, and did not believe in the Resurrection of Jesus after being crucified. Jefferson’s views became much more cleanly monotheistic and he dropped the traditional Christian notions of the Trinity and Jesus’s divine status. As such, his theology became very similar to that of Muslims. He shared the Muslim belief in a single creator God that demands just conduct from humanity. While he was not a Muslim in the narrow sense of belief in the Prophet and following the Five Pillars, one could argue that he was a Muslim in the broader sense that he submitted to a single God that created us all. Comments can reach me at Nali@socal.rr.com .
