Jefferson's vision of American Islam

[guillaumeb]

From the article:

Islam, an American religion
Muslims arrived in North America as early as the 17th century, eventually composing 15 to 30 percent of the enslaved West African population of British America. Muslims from the Middle East did not begin to immigrate to the United States as free citizens until the late 19th century. Key American Founding Fathers demonstrated a marked interest in the faith and its practitioners, most notably Thomas Jefferson.

To read more:

https://religionnews.com/2018/06/07/why-jeffersons-vision-of-american-islam-matters-today/

[Eko]

1. More.

Although Jefferson did not leave any notes on his immediate reaction to the Qur’an, he did criticize Islam as “stifling free enquiry” in his early political debates in Virginia, a charge he also leveled against Catholicism. He thought both religions fused religion and the state at a time he wished to separate them in his commonwealth.

[guillaumeb]

2. I felt that you would read the article.

As to stifling free inquiry, the Islamic world was the birthplace of much scientific inquiry.

[Eko]

3. I did read the article,

that's where I got the quote from. I thought we were talking about Jefferson's views. Not yours or mine.

[Voltaire2]

4. Please define what you mean by scientific inquiry.

W

[guillaumeb]

7. Are you unaware of scientific advances that were made in Islamic countries? eom

[Voltaire2]

10. So you will not define what you mean by scientific inquiry.

Too bad. We might actually have had a discussion.

Yes I am aware of scientific contributions from Islamic society. But you made a specific claim about something you called “scientific inquiry” and I’d like to know what you meant by that term

[guillaumeb]

12. Allow me:

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2016/11-12/muslim-medicine-scientific-discovery-islam/

[Voltaire2]

13. Yes sure. As I said, I agree that there were scientific discoveries.

Once again, what precisely did you mean by the phrase "scientific inquiry"? If all you meant was "there were people in Islamic society who made scientific discoveries", then sure, that is true.

[guillaumeb]

14. We agree on this.

And Islam was not a hindrance to these discoveries.

[Voltaire2]

15. Er well no, that certainly was not always true.

Just as theocratic religious institutions in Christian society frequently repressed the advancement of knowledge, so too did the theocrats in Islamic society. And, as they never really lost control, as the theocrats did in Europe, Islamic society has been pretty much stagnant with respect to the advancement of knowledge for the last 500 years or so.

[guillaumeb]

16. A qualification:

I said:

and Islam was not a hindrance to these discoveries.

Islam refers to a belief. The theocrats are believers and representatives of a governing system, but the belief system itself does not prevent science.

[Voltaire2]

17. Yes without human believers, belief systems are

pretty much incapable of anything.

[Igel]

5. Yes and no.

Remember, Galileo, da Vinci, many "scientists" were in Catholic countries. Kopernik was Polish. Lots of monks made great contributions--universities were clerical institutions. Occam's razor is named for a monk (from Ockeghem, I think it is now spelled).

Similarly, in Muslim countries there were periods of fairly free inquiry in the royal court, where the ruler promoted things like chemistry or math or astro---y. But there were periods where if you preached the wrong thing you'd be beheaded the next day. Maimonides had to write Arabic in Hebrew letters because of a law forbidding non-Muslims from using the usual Arabic script.

We remember asymmetrically: The good scholarly times in Muslim countries, the bad scholarly times in Catholic countries. Flipping it so that we only remembered times of oppression in Muslim countries and times of intellectual inquiry in Catholic countries would be every bit as accurate and fair.

[Major Nikon]

6. Interest only in the sense of understanding

There's quite a bit of history left out of the OP, like the First Barbary War. The first White House celebration of Ramadan was more about trying to convince Muslim theocracies to stop raiding American trading vessels and less about welcoming religious superstitions.

[guillaumeb]

8. The article did not claim to be a complete history of everything. eom

[Major Nikon]

9. Obviously

[MineralMan]

11. Of course it didn't. You were merely trying to reinforce some point that

you have so far failed to state. It works better if you state your point and then offer evidence.