Thomas Jefferson, Unitarianism and Islam

Thomas Jefferson, Unitarianism and Islam The role of Unitarianism, a Christian theological movement, in the founding of the U.S.

BY ZULFIQAR ALI SHAH

President Trump said that Islam hates us. Evangelists claim that the U.S. was founded on Christianity and that virtually all of the Founding Fathers were Biblebelieving, Christ-loving, devout and orthodox Christians. For instance, Baptist evangelical minister Tim LaHaye (19252016), author of the very popular apocalyptic “Left Behind” series with Jerry B. Jenkins, concludes that President John Adams was “deeply committed to Jesus Christ and the use of Biblical principles in governing the nation,” and George Washington, if he were alive today, “would freely associate with the Bible-believing branch of evangelical Christianity that is having such a positive influence upon our nation” (Mark David Hall, “Did America Have a Christian Founding?” 2019). But just how accurate are such assertions?

The U.S. has always been a predominantly Christian nation, and the Founding Fathers were born in Christian households. However, many of the leading ones were Unitarians, which has been called “Muhammadan Christianity” due to its denial of the Trinity, Jesus’ divinity and death for humanity’s sins, Original Sin, salvation through grace and the Bible being God’s word. Fathers like Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine were followers of English Unitarians and Deists who were called Muhammadans by their orthodox opponents. Jefferson’s Federalist opponents called him an outright Muslim in 1771 and during the 1800 election.

“Muhammadan Christians” were a vocal community in 16th- to 18th-century England and France. They opened Turkish coffee shops in both capitals, dressed in Islamic clothes and turbans and refused to attend Church services and take the sacraments.

Jefferson, one of the most important Founding Fathers and the principal author of the Declaration of Independence — despite owning slaves — had this to say about Unitarianism, “I rejoice that in this blessed country of free inquiry and belief, which has surrendered its creed and conscience to neither Kings nor priests, the genuine doctrine of one only God is reviving, and I trust that there is not a young man now living in the United States who will not die an Unitarian” (http://www. beliefnet.com/resourcelib/docs/53/Letter_from_Thomas_Jefferson_to_John_ Adams_1.html; Allen Jayne, “Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence,” 1998).

Like the English Unitarians, Jefferson believed that the Roman Catholic Church had corrupted the original true monotheistic Christianity and that Prophet Muhammad (salla Allahu ‘alayhi wa sallam) had preserved it.

Like the Enlightenment thinkers, Jefferson denied Original Sin, Biblical inerrancy, Church authority, predestination and salvation through Jesus’ crucifixion; preferred reason over revelation; and believed that the laws of nature were the laws of God (Jayne, p. 25). In his “Letter to William Short,” Jefferson wrote the following: ■ Biblical laws were “cruel” and “remorseless,” and the Biblical God who chose the Hebrews over others was a “family God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob, and the local God of Israel.” ■ The Jews “had presented for the object of their worship, a being of terrific character, cruel, vindictive, capricious and unjust.” ■ “Moses had bound the Jews to many idle ceremonies, mummeries and observances, of no effect towards producing the social utilities which constitute the essence of virtue…” ■ “[A]mong the sayings & discourses imputed to him [Jesus] by his biographers, I find many passages of fine imagination, correct morality, and of the most lovely benevolence: and others again of so much ignorance, so much absurdity, so much untruth; charlatanism, and imposture, as to pronounce it impossible that such contradictions should have proceeded from the same being. I separate therefore the gold from the dross; restore to him the former, & leave the latter to the stupidity of some, and roguery of others of his disciples of this band of dupes and impostors. Paul was the … first corrupter of the doctrines of Jesus. These palpable interpolations and falsifications of his doctrines led me to try to sift them apart” (http://tjrs.monticello.org/letter/1559; https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/mss/mtj// mtj1/051/051_1224_1227.pdf).

This appears in what became known as the “Jefferson Bible,” which was given as a state gift to the visiting heads of foreign states. He circulated it only among his closest friends because “I am unwilling to draw on myself a swarm of insects [clerics], whose buz[z] is more disquieting than their bite.”

In sum, Jefferson believed that historical Christianity and its institutions were antithetical to science and progress, disdained how faith backed by civil government persecuted scientific inquiry, ridiculed such a faith and prophesized that such an erroneous faith would soon flee once “reason and experiment have been indulged.”

Jefferson’s copy of the Quran is in the Library of Congress. Congressman Keith Ellison (DFL-Minn.) took his 2007 oath of office on it. Jefferson’s notes show that he read it with appreciation and was well acquainted with Muslim history, political and diplomatic thought. According to John Andrew Morrow, he owned a copy of Prince Demetrius Cantemir’s “Histoire de l’Empire Ottoman,” which contained a complete account of the “Covenant of the Prophet Muhammad with the Monks of Mount Sinai”and a full translation of Sultan Selim I’s decree of authentication, renewal and perpetual protection (https://themaydan.com/2020/01/thomas-jefferson-and-the-covenants-of-the-prophet-muhammad/).

While in France, Jefferson befriended Ishak Bey, a high profile Ottoman emissary, and frequently discussed with him Islam, Christianity and politics. He also knew a number of French converts.

From the prism of this Unitarian-Islamic syn- ■ “The president here refers implicitly to the fact that his country, unlike cretism, Article 11 of the Treaty of Tripoli (1797) those in Europe, is not officially Christian, and therefore without any inherent unequivocally asserts: “As the government of the antagonism toward Islam” (p. 225). United States of America is not in any sense founded ■ “To many of his political opponents, Thomas Jefferson may have been our on the Christian Religion, — as it has in itself no first Muslim president. That a Muslim might legally have attained the office in the character of enmity against the laws, religion or tran- eighteenth century was not out of the question, insofar as the U.S. Constitution quility of Mussulmen, — and as the said States never affirmed the possibility in theory… Nevertheless, he had been defamed and have entered into any war or act of hostility against denigrated as a Muslim since 1791— especially during the vicious presidential any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties campaign of 1800 — as an infidel and atheist” and “The accusation that Jefferson that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall was a Muslim placed him, unknowingly, in the same category as his intellectual ever produce an interruption of the harmony exist- hero John Locke, who was charged with professing “the faith of a Turk.” ing between the two countries” (“The Debates and ■ Political opponents condemned Jefferson for “advocating religious tolProceedings of the Congress of the United States with eration, including civil rights for Muslims, as well as embracing Deism and an Appendix…”, 3:3094-95). The Senate approved the Unitarianism” (p. 271). treaty and its language. ■ “Three years after his election, fears of Jefferson’s ungodly and possibly

Some Federalists were opposed to this article. For Islamic presidency persisted” (p. 230). example, in the June 23, 1797, issue of the Porcupine ■ In private, Jefferson “affirmed a much more pointed approval of the faith in one letter to Tripoli and in four to Tunis, the last in 1806, wherein he assured his ‘great and good friend’ of I REJOICE THAT IN THIS BLESSED the mutuality of their beliefs in a single supreme being. Jefferson’s kind words for Hammuda Bey’s faith may

COUNTRY OF FREE INQUIRY AND BELIEF, have been purely an expression of diplomatic politesse, WHICH HAS SURRENDERED ITS CREED AND or even desperation, but considered alongside his final placement of the Qur’an, they suggest something more

CONSCIENCE TO NEITHER KINGS NOR akin to respect for a monotheism that would have seemed PRIESTS, THE GENUINE DOCTRINE OF ONE to him theologically closer to the faith into which he had grown than the one into which he’d been born” ONLY GOD IS REVIVING, AND I TRUST THAT (pp. 236-37).

THERE IS NOT A YOUNG MAN NOW LIVING ■ Jefferson, who “knew the Qur’an well, having owned a copy of it for more than a quarter century…” (p. 205), IN THE UNITED STATES WHO WILL NOT DIE showed affinity with Muslim religious terminologies

AN UNITARIAN.” — THOMAS JEFFERSON, THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE U.S. and sentiments and theological intricacies; used such Muslim cultural terms as “God, the very Great” (Allahu Akbar) in his letters to North African Muslim rulers (p. 224). His repeated insistence upon God’s Oneness and greatness in all such letters was meant perhaps to Gazette, editor William Cobbett opined, “it certainly emphasize the common theology and close affinity. looks a little like trampling upon the cross.” Denise ■ “What is perhaps most interesting was that Jefferson, whatever his innermost Spellberg notes that to the Federalists “the article intent, should express repeatedly a personal belief in God to a Muslim ruler at a seemed an attack on Christianity, and what he pre- time when many of his own countrymen considered their president an atheist, sumed to be the Christian character of his nation. And an infidel, or even a Muslim outright. These letters dare to assert that Jefferson, so he detected the blame, speculating that Muslim offi- at least, agreed that North Africans and Americans worshipped the same deity, cials in Tripoli or the American diplomat Joel Barlow and that this common belief would enhance their diplomatic relations” (p. 224). were responsible for this article of the treaty… His ■ This affinity cannot be dismissed as diplomatic jargon or stratagem, and ideas, however, were not unique but already well rep- thus “it must at the same time be allowed that these inclinations are entirely resented in the domestic politics of the United States” compatible with Jefferson’s own religious evolution, as reflected in other private (Denise A. Spellberg, “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: letters of this time; his embrace of Deist and, finally, Unitarian ideas is in full Islam and the Founders,” 2013, p. 208). harmony with the Muslim belief in a single, shared deity” (p. 227).

Jefferson’s 1805 letter to Hammuda Bey, leader of In short, Jefferson and other leading Founding Fathers rejected almost all Tunis, stated that his Muslim ambassador who stayed central Christian doctrines, followed English Deists and Unitarians and were in the U.S. for over a year will “be able to inform you, on called Muslims by their opponents. Islam had a respectable place in their minds. the evidence of his own observation, that the character, Consequently, Islam does not hate this country, and the U.S. is not and never has principles, and institutions of our Government, distin- been a Christian nation. Rather, it is a secular, democratic republic in which all guish us essentially from the Nations of Europe. Their religious groups enjoy equal rights and opportunities [unless you were a member practices can therefore be no rule for us” (“Thomas of the country’s indigenous population]. We cannot let the extremists usurp our Jefferson to Bey of Tunis,” June 28, 1806, “Thomas rights. Let us all join together as people of faith to protect our civil liberties. ih Jefferson Papers,” Library of Congress, 302). Dr. Zulfiqar Ali Shah is executive director/secretary general of the Fiqh Council of North America and director

Spellberg also makes the following points: of religious affairs, the Islamic Society of Milwaukee.