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The Founding Fathers Weren't Anti-Islam
The Founding Fathers were not nearly as anti-Muslim as many current American Christians.
As Ted Widmer writes at Boston.com:
The
Founders were way ahead of us. They thought hard about how to build a
country of many different faiths. And to advance that vision to the
fullest, they read the Koran, and studied Islam with a calm intelligence
that today’s over-hyped Americans can only begin to imagine. They
knew something that we do not. To a remarkable degree, the Koran is
not alien to American history — but inside it.No book states
the case more plainly than a single volume, tucked away deep within the
citadel of Copley Square — the Boston Public Library. The book known
as Adams 281.1 is a copy of the Koran, from the personal collection of
John Adams. There is nothing particularly ornate about this humble
book, one of a collection of 2,400 that belonged to the second
president. But it tells an important story, and reminds us how worldly
the Founders were, and how impervious to the fanaticisms that spring up
like dandelions whenever religion and politics are mixed. They, like
we, lived in a complicated and often hostile global environment,
dominated by religious strife, terror, and the bloodsport of competing
empires. Yet better than we, they saw the world as it is, and refused
the temptation to enlarge our enemies into Satanic monsters, or simply
pretend they didn’t exist.Reports of Korans in American
libraries go back at least to 1683, when an early settler of
Germantown, Pa., brought a German version to these shores. Despite its
foreign air, Adams’s Koran had a strong New England pedigree. The first
Koran published in the United States, it was printed in Springfield in
1806.Why would John Adams and a cluster of farmers in the
Connecticut valley have bought copies of the Koran in 1806?
Surprisingly, there was a long tradition of New Englanders reading in
the Islamic scripture. The legendary bluenose Cotton Mather had his
faults, but a lack of curiosity about the world was not one of them.
Mather paid scrupulous attention to the Ottoman Empire in his voracious
reading, and cited the Koran often in passing. True, much of it was in
his pinched voice — as far back as the 17th century, New England
sailors were being kidnapped by North African pirates, a source of
never ending vexation, and Mather denounced the pirates as “Mahometan
Turks, and Moors and Devils.” But he admired Arab and Ottoman learning,
and when Turks in Constantinople and Smyrna succeeded in inoculating
patients against smallpox, he led a public campaign to do the same in
Boston (a campaign for which he was much vilified by those who called
inoculation the “work of the Devil,” merely because of its Islamic
origin). It was one of his finer moments.This theory was
eloquently expressed around the time the Constitution was written. One
of its models was the 1780 Massachusetts Constitution, which John Adams
had helped to create, and which, in the words of one of its drafters,
Theophilus Parsons, was designed to ensure “the most ample of liberty
of conscience” for “Deists, Mahometans, Jews and Christians.”As
the Founders deliberated over what types of people would ultimately
populate the strange new country they were creating, they cited Muslims
as an extreme of foreign-ness whom it would be important to protect in
the future. Perhaps, they daydreamed, a Muslim or a Catholic might
even be president someday? Like everything, they debated it. Some
disapproved, but Richard Henry Lee insisted that “true freedom embraces
the Mahometan and Gentoo [Hindu] as well as the Christian religion.”
George Washington went out of his way to praise Muslims on several
occasions, and suggested that he would welcome them at Mount Vernon if
they were willing to work. Benjamin Franklin argued that Muslims should
be able to preach to Christians if we insisted on the right to preach
to them. Near the end of his life, he impersonated a Muslim essayist,
to mock American hypocrisy over slavery.Thomas Jefferson,
especially, had a familiarity with Islam that borders on the
astonishing. Like Adams, he owned a Koran, a 1764 English edition that
he bought while studying law as a young man in Williamsburg, Va. Only
two years ago, that Koran became the center of a controversy, when the
first Muslim ever elected to Congress, Keith Ellison, a Democrat from
Minnesota, asked if he could place his hand on it while taking his oath
of office — a request that elicited tremendous screeches from the talk
radio extremists. Jefferson even tried to learn Arabic, and wrote his
Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom to protect “the Jew and the
Gentile, the Christian and the Mahometan, the Hindoo and infidel of
every denomination.”Jefferson and Adams led many of our early
negotiations with the Islamic powers as the United States lurched into
existence. A favorable treaty was signed with Morocco, simply because
the Moroccans considered the Americans ahl-al-kitab, or “people of the
book,” similar to Muslims, who likewise eschewed the idolatry of
Europe’s ornate state religions.
What are Muslims Like?
Some Muslims really are terrorists.
Some Christians are as well.
In
truth, the percentage of Muslim and Christian terrorists is very small
compared to the huge numbers of adherents of those faiths.
Just
like Christians range from abortion doctor killers to mystics, Muslims
range from jihadis to poets like Rumi (Sufism - the mystical branch of
Islam - is peaceful and contemplative).
As prominent Christian writer, psychiatrist and former army doctor M. Scott Peck wrote, all humans - no matter what religion might be dominant in their culture - go through 4 stages of development:
1st: Chaos (a heroin addict, for example, who robs to support his habit)
2nd:
Fundamentalism (clinging to dogma in order to fight off chaos;
believing the book - whether Bible, Koran or Bhagavad Gita - is THE
truth, and anyone who disagrees is evil)
3rd: Skepticism and questioning (feeling stable enough to question the dogma of the dominant religion and other institutions)
4th:
Maturity (keeping the skepticism and questioning, but also being open
to life's beauty, love and mystery; using both one's head and heart;
being passionate and dedicated to making the world a better place)
(These
4 steps are not necessarily the full and complete truth, but they
present one possible description which is useful for starting a
discussion on religion).
Ignore the clothes, the skin color and the accent, and what do we see?
A drug addict in Saudi Arabia, America or Israel will look fairly similar. Fundamentalist
Christians, Muslims and Jews all think the other guy is evil, and that
God wants them to wipe the other guy out. Skeptics look the same
everywhere. And people who integrate their head and their heart all are
operating out of the same basic dynamic.
We Helped Radicalize Islam
Moreover - in order to know our history and perhaps become a tad more humble in the process - it is important to recognize that we helped to create "radical Islam".
President Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski has openly admitted that he created the Mujahadeen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. And it continued under President Reagan (here's a picture of President Reagan meeting with some of these folks).
As the Council on Foreign Relations writes:
The 9/11 Commission report (PDF)
released in 2004 said some of Pakistan's religious schools or
madrassas served as "incubators for violent extremism." Since then,
there has been much debate over madrassas and their connection to
militancy.
***
It was Pakistan's leading
role in the anti-Soviet campaign in neighboring Afghanistan during
this time that radicalized some of these madrassas. New madrassas
sprouted, funded and supported by Saudi Arabia and U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, where students were encouraged to join the Afghan resistance.
And see this.
And veteran journalist Robert Dreyfuss writes:
For
half a century the United States and many of its allies saw what I
call the “Islamic right” as convenient partners in the Cold War.
***
Today
it’s convenient to speak about a Clash of Civilizations. But ... in
the decades before 9/11, hard-core activists and organizations among
Muslim fundamentalists on the far right were often viewed as allies for
two reasons, because they were seen a fierce anti-communists and
because the opposed secular nationalists such as Egypt’s Gamal Abdel
Nasser, Iran’s Mohammed Mossadegh.In the 1950s, the United
States had an opportunity to side with the nationalists, and indeed
many U.S. policymakers did suggest exactly that, as my book explains.
But in the end, nationalists in the Third World were seen as wild cards
who couldn’t be counted on to join the global alliance against the
USSR. Instead, by the end of the 1950s,
rather than allying itself with the secular forces of progress in the
Middle East and the Arab world, the United States found itself in
league with Saudi Arabia’s Islamist legions. Choosing Saudi
Arabia over Nasser’s Egypt was probably the single biggest mistake the
United States has ever made in the Middle East.A second big
mistake ... occurred in the 1970s, when, at the height of the Cold War
and the struggle for control of the Middle East, the United States
either supported or acquiesced in the rapid growth of Islamic right in
countries from Egypt to Afghanistan. In Egypt, Anwar Sadat brought the
Muslim Brotherhood back to Egypt. In Syria, the United States, Israel,
and Jordan supported the Muslim Brotherhood in a civil war against
Syria. And ... Israel quietly backed Ahmed Yassin and the Muslim
Brotherhood in the West Bank and Gaza, leading to the establishment of
Hamas.Still another major mistake was the fantasy that Islam
would penetrate the USSR and unravel the Soviet Union in Asia. It led to
America’s support for the jihadists in Afghanistan. But ... America’s
alliance with the Afghan Islamists long predated the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan in 1979 and had its roots in CIA activity in Afghanistan
in the 1960s and in the early and mid-1970s. The Afghan jihad spawned
civil war in Afghanistan in the late 1980s, gave rise to the Taliban,
and got Osama bin Laden started on building Al Qaeda.Would the
Islamic right have existed without U.S. support? Of course. This is not
a book for the conspiracy-minded. But there is no question that the
virulence of the movement that we now confront—and which confronts many
of the countries in the region, too, from Algeria to India and
beyond—would have been significantly less had the United States made
other choices during the Cold War.
And the chief of the visa section at the U.S.
consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia (J. Michael Springmann, who is now
an attorney in private practice) says
that the CIA insisted that visas be issued to Afghanis so they could
travel to the U.S. to be trained in terrorism in the United States, and
then sent back to Afghanistan to fight the Soviets.
In other words,
if the U.S. and our allies hadn't backed the radical violent Muslims
instead of more stable, peaceful groups in the Middle East, radical
Islam wouldn't have grown so large.
Stopping the Bad Guys
That's
not to say that we don't need to stop the handful of Muslim terrorists
that are threatening the U.S. (to give you an idea of numbers, there
may be less than 50 Al Qaeda in Afghanistan according to the CIA itself).
But war is not the way to protect America, and defeating Islam is the way to safety. And see this.
Specifically, according to top security analysts, the global war on terror is weakening, rather than strengthening, our national security, and making us more vulnerable to terrorist attacks:
For
those who still think that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are
necessary to fight terrorism, remember that a leading advisor to the
U.S. military - the very hawkish and pro-war Rand Corporation -
released a study in 2008 called "How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering al Qa'ida".
The report confirms that the war on terror is actually weakening national security.
As a press release about the study states:
"Terrorists should be perceived and described as criminals, not holy warriors, and our analysis suggests that there is no battlefield solution to terrorism."
Former U.S. National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski told the Senate that the war on terror is "a mythical historical narrative". And Newsweek has now admitted that the war on terror is wholly unnecessary.
(And no ... 9/11 did not "change everything".)
Beware of False Prophets
The neoconservatives who launched the wars in the Middle East may not even be people of faith themselves.
As I noted last year:
The godfather of the Neoconservative movement - Leo Strauss - taught
that religion should be used as a way to manipulate people to achieve
the aims of the leaders. But that the leaders themselves need not
believe in religion.As I have previously written:
Leo
Strauss is the father of the Neo-Conservative movement, including
many leaders of the current administration. Indeed, some of the main
neocon players were students of Strauss at the University of Chicago,
where he taught for many years. Strauss, born in Germany, was an admirer of Nazi philosophers and of Machiavelli.Strauss believed that "A
political order can be stable only if it is united by an external
threat . . . . Following Machiavelli, he maintained that if no external
threat exists then one has to be manufactured" (quote is by one of Strauss' main biographers).Therefore, it is unknown whether the [Neocons] who [launched the wars in the Middle East] actually believed that the brown-skinned people they wished to [destroy] were Satan-worshippers who needed either to be converted or destroyed.
More
likely, they just followed the old Straussian playbook in creating a
threat which didn't exist - Satanic Muslims who wanted to take over
the world - and using religion to rally the mid- and lower-level
participants in the ... program to carry out their orders.
Atheists Versus People of Faith
I want to address one more divisive issue related to religion, which I think disempowers those of us working for a better world.
Many
atheists believe that all religious people are pedophiles, idiots,
crackpots or charlatans, and many people of faith think that all
atheists are selfish, rootless, valueless and crude.
But let's look at the facts.
Initially, about two-thirds of American scientists believe in God if you count the social sciences. About 40%
of physical scientists believe in God, and that number has stayed
constant for almost 100 years. So atheists shouldn't assume that all
people of faith are idiots.
And the Bible says that you shall know them by their fruits, not by what they say. So believers shouldn't assume that all people who say they are Christians are good guys.
Some Christians are pedophiles, murderers and con men. But others are fighting hard for justice, truth and social justice.
Some
atheists are selfless, valueless hedonists. But others are tireless in
their struggle for liberty, have a passion for freedom which they are
willing to sacrifice their lives for, are selfless in their service and
their love for the smallest of us.
Making the other side the "bad guys" only adds to the ability of the powers-that-be to divide and conquer us.
The
left-right split is false, and hundreds of millions of Americans are
waking up to the fact that the whole Republicans-Versus-Democrats
things is a dog-and-pony show. They are waking up to the fact that
both parties serve the big banks, big pharma, military-industrial
complex, and the whole oligarchy.
These
Americans realize that it doesn't matter whether a politician wears a
red tie or a blue one: he or she either serves the big money boys or
the American people, and that the "team" he's on doesn't matter.
We also have to wake up to the false dichotomy about faith.
Just
as it is urgent that we recognize the left-versus-right split for the
game it is, we atheists have to tolerate religious folks ... and we
people of faith have to tolerate non-believers.I am lucky to call
some incredible atheists and some amazing believers my friends and
colleagues in the struggle for a better world. We may not see
everything exactly the same ... but it is a big tent.
Postscript: Granted,
there have always been some radical factions in Islam, just as there
have always been radical factions in Christianity and Judaism. But -
contrary to what fundamentalists would tell you - Muslims claim that
the Quran does not promote going out and killing non-Muslims.
While
there might be some stage 2 (using M. Scott Peck's system) Muslims
who believe the Quran commands them to kill the "other guys", just
as some stage 2 Christians or stage 2 Jews think that the Bible
commands them to kill Muslims (the Crusades, for example) or atheists or abortion doctors or others. And remember, governments often use tactics to make the other guy seem more violent.
But again, the problem isn't any
particular religion, it is the immaturity of a small handful of its
followers, and the misuse of religion by the powers-that-be to divide
and conquer us.
- advertisements -
@Widowmaker
+10000000000
Ditto.
Strange that such a fundamentally important topic has never been addressed at ZH, of all places.
Now that would be some radical--and perhaps even productive--stuff.
duplicate removed
First douches then school girls. Misogynist bastard.
Cute.
Someone must have left the door open and a couple Huffagton post comments blew in...
Please don't retort unless on-topic.
Are you saying we should not be passionate about sharia law? their abhorrent treatment of women? jihad? Why don't you take your simple mind and go live in Saudi Arabia.
It's misogyny is obvious. All intended insults are some how female degrading. It would be at home in such a misogynist culture.
Why don't you show even less integrity and keep proving that religious extremism and intolerance in the non-muslim context is alive and well.
I will not be tolerant of evil and that does not make me an extremist.
If you are not at ease with or intolerant to 'evil' as you say, you must be always on board with actions by a country like the US.
No. I am not.
Nice honest answer.
Evil is only evil when others do it.
Running with gangs is the most educating experiment somebody could go through. People who understand gangs understand the common US citizen.
My "no" was in response to the statement that I am in support of everything the U.S. gov. does.
So you are on board all the time. Must be a rough life...
Quite the contrary once you open your eyes and realize that evil is fallible.
Evil is capable of making mistakes? Good. I hope it starts making as many as possible so good can prevail.
What is amazing is how pervasive evil is without even basic restraint in a public forum. If I were Muslim I would be distraught with the comments, judgement and lack of respect by those programmed to "attack" -- some/most? not even reading -- sad sad.
Nowhere has anyone suggested that differences be settled by facts and reason not assumptions, anger, and pre-disposition. I'm not supportive of much of what Islam proclaims but that doesn't make me any better as a practicing Wiccan (which I'm not but is also considered evil).
Funny, your rebuttals and most posts affirm not the complexity of the issue, but the ignorance of those plundering democracy but yet refusing to support where it's vulnerable.
What an embarassment most of the posts on this topic would be to the founding fathers --they fought for EVERYBODY, even the crooks and killers. Sad indeed.
Edit.. even the crooks, killers, and kooks.
I am aghast that people in the US defend Islam without realizing it stands against every liberty that you take for granted... It is not an attack to point out the obvious:
Islam has more to do with the imposition of will than any kind of spiritual relationship with God.
Of course, PC tells you you must call this fear mongering & instead cover your ears whilst singing kum-bah-yah as you apologize for totalitarian Islamic statists.
This isn't really about Christianity vs Islam. In reality, this is about an intellectually dishonest construct of the Islamic ideal vs the agenda of a handful of corporate fascists currently in power in the west, and whom Muslims dishonestly refer to as Christianity...
Islam very much blurs the line between religion & an ultra-rigid form of totalitarianism. Beside Turkey, are there any countries with large Muslim populations that are not de facto dictatorships?
This fact makes me wonder more & more if this is the dirty little secret explaining why MSM has embraced PC with such bravado in regard to the Muslim world...
Wouldn't TPTB would have a much easier time stripping away individual liberties from the west in their perpetual efforts to fully dismantle the Constitution & usher in their one world goverment. Sharia would tend to facilitate by muting any resistance by kiliing any who would resist. A quite elegant if brutal & devious solution to the problems that individual liberty presents the elite PTB.
The motivations on either side (Islam vs corporate fascism) who seem to be at odds actually align. Think about it.
+1000
Goddamn - GW, you needed to save that for the dead of winter. I could heat my house with all this hate.
Some is authentic hate.
But alot is just an effort to Herd the Sheep ...
Megaphone in full effect. The level of opposition is a clear indicator of the establishment nerves you pinch.
Excellent work. Merci.
You can be free from the herd mentality and still dislike islam.
I find it interesting that you think the level of opposition is due to the herd mentality, rather than being a poorly defended thesis.
Elucidate how to discern the latter is the case here rather than the former.
5 x 5, George.
The founding fathers were familiar with the prescription for competing religions and infidels provided by the old testament. Radical? Not for their time. Ever count how many occurrances of "smite" and "smote" in the Torah and Old testament? New age pluralism was radical in the 1700's. It sure did catch on. Now killing in the name of religion is radical.
Thank you for this important post, GW!
Like many at ZH, I, too, was confused as to "what Muslims are like". While lost in this labyrinth, I also realized I was confused as to "what Christians are like."
And like a beacon of hope, knowledge and connectedness, you have shown me the way. Thank you for taking the time to educate all of us on these important matters!
Economics, Geothermal Global Warming, Particle Physics and now...
Spiritual Advisor.
Is there no end to your knowledge and expertise GW?!
Like I wrote back in August:
"GW is a Sage for this Age. A repository of learned wisdom."
You can read more by clicking HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE too.
A lot of people might think you're a clueless bafoon, GW. But do not listen to them, for they know not what they think! Keep your Faith...[In a non-denominational, pantheistic, politically correct manner with proper attribution to all your atheist friends.]
[PS. This comment is related to economics because it is written to an economic expert. Plus, it was written on the internet. And the internet is a big business. Ergo, the connection to economics. Thank you.]
werd
ROFLOL
Next 9/11 there will be a nation-wide Koran barbecue.
Thomas Jefferson didn't know anything about Islam, until he became President and had to deal with the Muslim pirates and had to discard his naive, idealized beliefs about Islam; and send the Navy and Marines to kick ass "to the shores of Tripoli."
And as far as the Constitution, that's been dead since the Civil War, or since the Federal Reserve, take your pick.
The banksters were controlling the nation almost as soon as it was born. In fact, old hickory was much-hated by them, because he overturned the "second bank of the US". Our history is filled with central banks, and they've always played nasty games for control.
Central banks were responsible for Jefferson writing how freedom as an unalienable rights and owning slaves?
Stop with the troll bait, troll.
He's been dead for ~200 years.
Jefferson, the guy considered as the main author of the Declaration of Independence and who owned slaves?
Lets consider facts for facts. Who had idealized and naive viewpoints? Why not the guy who thinks that the Constitution has been dead since the Civil War?
You neglect the simple truth that BOTH muslims and politicians can be and probably are evil. And in your analysis, try not to make this about religion. People are evil, sans religion, and with religion. Even early Christians wrote about their struggles with evil - doing things they didn't want to do, knowing the whole time how they were wrong. The telling difference between Islam and Christianity is that to be a terrorist in either religion violates the principles of only one of them. Care to guess which one that is?
Who cares that founding father X owned a koran? The barbary pirates were payed off, at least until someone had the courage to search and destroy. That doesn't equate to being a BFF to the founders. I have lots of books on my shelves that I never read, and don't even know from where they came. Owning a book, or even buying a book is not an endorsement of the theme of that book. That makes a poorly-argued article. The mere existence of the koran on a founder's bookshelf isn't evidence of love toward that belief system.
America aside, don't ignore the historical facts about islamic aggression. Bloody borders and all. You might start with the significance of the date of sept 11.
None of this detracts from the point that religious and political leaders can and do use religion for control. But, the truth value of any proposition is not made false by the misuse of it.
Back in those days, people actually read the books that they owned. They were not distracted by TV (pick your poison from 1000s of channels), movies, video games, ipod/ipad/iphone, facebook, daily hassles in dealing with customer service idiots, taxes, taxes, taxes, etc...
Perhaps, perhaps not. They weren't men of leisure, fomenting a revolution and all. But that doesn't detract from my point that owning a book implies support of the perspective endorsed by it. As it pertains to the theme of GW's poorly-argued point, there is much more evidence that the founders disliked than liked islam. And I would bet there are plenty of founders who didn't own a koran who didn't like muslims, due to reports of their aggressions.
True, but you will be amazed at how much you can accomplish if you're time wasn't consumed by all those distractions. Look at Ben Franklin as a good example.
I think my only response is, I agree. We spend a lot of foolish and useless time entertaining ourselves to death. I'm no match for Franklin's wit and wisdom.
Islam was not radicalized in the 1980s, it has been radical from the beginning, and yes it was spread by the sword. Where are the non-muslim populations of the middle east?
Troll
Dude. I don't know the history, but you look like the one doing the trolling.
How about making a contribution?
Could you explain how Christianity spread to the new world?
The same way the various Native Americans tribes spread around the Americas for 15-20,000 years - through brute force as they killed each other for turf, resources and women, and sport.
They were Christians too?
yes, as the missionaries explained, they just didn't know it yet
Well if they wanted to remain viscious pagans living off the land then you round them up stick them in camps and take their land.
Ever heard about EVOLUTION?! I guess not you moron!
Christianity spread also very violent indeed. THAT WAS 200 YEARS AGO!
I don't see us using EVERYTHING WE'VE GOT to force them to any religion THESE DAYS! Otherwise, none of you would be anything more then lawn fertilizer!
Any fool that calls me a crusader and sees that as a reason to attack me or spit on me, I'D SHOOT HIM POINT BLANK BETWEEN THE EYES AND PUT A CANDLE IN THE HOLE FOR SOME AMBIENT LIGHT!
And that counts for EVERY religulous fanatic from EVERY religion!
A job done is no longer to be done. Ah, the time excuse. My fathers did this or that, I want to enjoy the sweet fruits of it because they are all mine by heritage but the bitter fruits shouldnt.
Usually to be found in the mouth of people hyping responsibility.