Would you believe it if we said that there are traces of the Qur’an in the American Constitution? Or what if we said that some of the rules in the constitution may have been inspired by the Qur’an?

In actuality, we are not the ones who initially made these statements. Dr. Denise A. Spellberg wrote a book on this subject and defended this thesis in her book. Let’s take a brief look at the details from Spellberg’s book.

It is common knowledge that Thomas Jefferson was one of the co-founders of the United States of America and the American Constitution. Spellberg, a professor at the University of Texas, followed Thomas Jefferson’s life closely and wrote a very interesting book about him titled “Thomas Jefferson’s Quran: Islam and the Founders“. According to this book, approximately eleven years before Jefferson wrote the constitutional rules, he had a Qur’an brought from London which was  translated into English in order to study it. For this reason, Spellberg mentions that some of the rules in the American Constitution may have been taken or been inspired by the Qur’an.

In Spellberg’s book, she also mentions that along with Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington, other co-founders of the United States, believed that Muslims should have equal rights with Christians in this country. They knew that they could not ignore the support and help of Muslims brought from Africa as slaves while this country was being created and developed. In addition, they considered the possibility of white Muslims coming and settling in this country in the future and tried to provide them with comfortable and equal accommodation as well.

Known as a racist, Jefferson’s approach was not that surprising. In fact, it is very clearly revealed that he organized this “equality” for the “white Muslims” who were likely to come to this country, rather than the African Muslims living in America at that time. 

With this, Spellberg argues that the current bias against Muslims in America is due to the fact that Americans do not know their own history that well. According to her, if Americans knew their history better, their relationship with Muslims today could be far better and free from prejudice.

We, too, hope that our Muslim brothers and sisters living in America and in other non-Muslim countries of the world will be comfortable and safe wherever they are.

Researched by Esra Aiello

Translated by Filiz Arslan

January 2022

For more info:

Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an: How Islam Shaped The Founders

The original article can be found here.