A review by mishahall
Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders by Denise A. Spellberg

4.0

"Now, as in the eighteenth century, American Muslims symbolize the universality of religious inclusion and equality promised at the nation’s founding by Jefferson, Washington, Madison, Leland, and others, an ideal still in the course of being fully realized more than two centuries later. Any attack upon the rights of Muslim citizens should be recognized for what it remains: an assault upon the universal ideal of civil rights promised all believers at the country’s founding. No group, based on religion, should be excluded from these rights. To do so now would betray both our hard-won national legacy and the genius of those who conceived it."

All in all, a lively and engaging portrayal of the debates over religion and citizenship in the founding period of US history, if the courageous few who argued that the rights and liberties in the Constitution pertain to those who practice any -- or no -- faith, and of the echoes of these debates in post-9/11 America. Meanders a bit at times, but still well worth the read.