Thomas Jefferson wrote, “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”

Excerpts from:

 The fascinating history of how Jefferson and other Founding Fathers defended Muslim rights

 The Washington Post December 11, 2015

 “What he [Jefferson] wanted to do was get the state of Virginia out of the business of deciding which was the best religion, and who had to pay taxes to support it,” said Spellberg, a professor of history and Islamic studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Opponents of Jefferson’s proposal wrote letters to the Virginia Gazette, arguing that it would allow atheists, Muslims and Jews to hold office — to which evangelicals responded, “that’s right,” Ragosta said.

Campaigning for religious freedom in Virginia, Jefferson followed Locke, his idol, in demanding recognition of the religious rights of the “Mahamdan,” the Jew and the “pagan.”

At the time, Muslims were often grouped together with others who were viewed negatively or were outside of the religious mainstream, such as Catholics and Jews, said Spellberg, the “Islam and the Founders” author. While a Muslim citizen was theoretical, a Catholic one was not. And worries that a Catholic president would hold an allegiance to a foreign pope persisted well into the 20th century, during the campaign of John F. Kennedy.

“It is to be objected that the people of America may, perhaps, choose representatives who have no religion at all, and that pagans and Mahometans may be admitted into offices,” Iredell said. “But how is it possible to exclude any set of men, without taking away that principle of religious freedom which we ourselves so warmly contend for?”

Eliminating religious tests was a major source of contention in New England. Madison wrote to Jefferson in 1788 that “one of the objections in New England was that the Constitution by prohibiting religious tests opened a door for Jews, Turks and infidels.”

Jefferson on religion

Such defense of religious liberty didn’t leave Jefferson immune to criticism. He was eventually accused of being an atheist and “infidel.” Raised in the Anglican church, Jefferson came to be associated with tenets of Unitarianism while remaining reluctant to publicly speak about his personal beliefs.

He clearly favored Christianity as one of the greatest blueprints for a moral code. At one point, he asked a scientist friend to complete a comparative study of the world’s major religions “to extract the essence they had in common,” said O’Shaughnessy, the Monticello scholar.

“He saw Jesus as a great social philosopher in setting out the greatest system of morals, but no doubt he thought, if you integrated other faiths as well, you could even improve the system,” O’Shaughnessy said.

Jefferson rejected miracles, and reason reigned supreme for him. In one letter, he urged his nephew to “question with boldness even the existence of god.”

In 1765, while he was studying law, Jefferson purchased an English translation of the Koran. He later went on to criticize the religion as anti-science and anti-reason.

Despite his personal opinions, however, Jefferson staunchly defended the right of Americans to hold any religious belief, no matter how absurd or wrong they seemed to him.

“The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others,” Jefferson wrote in “Notes on the State of Virginia,” his only book. “But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.”