Download Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders AudioBook Free
On this original and illuminating publication, Denise A. Spellberg shows a little-known but critical dimension of the story of American spiritual independence - a drama in which Islam enjoyed a surprising role. In 1765, 11 years before composing the Declaration of Freedom, Thomas Jefferson bought a Qur'an. This proclaimed only the start of his lifelong affinity for Islam, and he would go on to obtain numerous literature on Midsection Eastern languages, history, and travel, taking comprehensive notes on Islam as it pertains to English common rules. Jefferson sought to understand Islam notwithstanding his personal disdain for the beliefs, a sentiment common among his Protestant contemporaries in England and America. But unlike almost all of them, by 1776 Jefferson could envision Muslims as future people of his new country. Predicated on groundbreaking research, Spellberg compellingly recounts what sort of handful of the Founders, Jefferson most important among them, drew after Enlightenment ideas about the toleration of Muslims (then deemed the ultimate outsiders in Traditional western culture) to fashion out of what had been a purely speculative controversy a practical groundwork for governance in America.
