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I would love there to be some discovered link between Jefferson's study of the Qur'an and the US Declaration of Independence and subsequent Constitution. Wouldn't that put the cat amongst the pigeons... :-)
@Ali - I believe LF means that it would put the lie to the mantra of some groups that the USA is a "Christian nation", which is very far from the truth. Jefferson, Franklin, as well as several other of the important Founders were Deists.In the United States, Enlightenment philosophy (which itself was heavily inspired by deist ideals) played a major role in creating the principle of religious freedom, expressed in Thomas Jefferson's letters and included in the First Amendment to the United States Constitution.
– user2590
CommentedOct 15, 2013 at 8:03
1
Yes, especially given the sharp swing against Islamic and Arabic culture since the end of WWII. Oft-times the talking heads on TV tend to forget that this is a new prejudice. Many Americans and Europeans of the 18th and 19th century were fascinated with Arabia.
@Coelacanth Some of the Founding Fathers were deists, that is true. But not deists in the sense pf "I believe in one nebulous divine entity" but as a version of Christianity. They had all read their John Locke (religious freedom) but Locke wrote within a Christian context. Even the book that the OP refers to admits that Jefferson felt "personal disdain for the faith". Whatever goodwill he might have felt toward Islam surely evaporated by the time of the First Barbary War. File this Q under "Islam's desperate need for approval from the West".
If we take the book's blurb as an accurate summary of its content, however, the author is right about one thing: the Enlightenment era did see a fashion craze about things Islamic -- e.g., Mozart's rondo alla turca and Abduction from the Serail -- as well as a concerted attempt mostly by Protestant and Jewish writers to build up an imaginary "Golden Age of Islam" in Spain as a counterpoint to (perceived) Catholic intolerance and enforcement of conformity. It was mostly a myth, of course, but like many others Jefferson did get swept up in the fad... for a while.
