Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders (73 page)

117.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 164–66, refers to him as Mellimelni; Marr,
Cultural Roots
, 66–67; Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 183–84; L. B. Wright and J. H. Macleod, “Mellimelli,”
Virginia Quarterly Review
20 (1944): 556–65; a uniquely detailed account of the incident that sparked the visit—and Jefferson’s involvement—is recounted by Parker,
Uncle Sam
, 151–55.

118.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 161.

119.
Parker,
Uncle Sam
, 152–53.

120.
Wright and Macleod, “Mellimelli,” 556.

121.
“From Hammuda Bey to Jefferson,” April 15, 1801, in
Papers of Thomas Jefferson
, 33:591.

122.
William Plumer,
William Plumer’s Memorandum of Proceedings in the United States Senate, 1803–1807
, ed. Everett Somerville Brown (New York: Macmillan, 1923), 334.

123.
Ibid., 335.

124.
Hampshire Federalist
, May 29, 1806.

125.
Plumer,
Memorandum
, 333–34. Accounts may also be found in James Morton Smith, ed.,
The Republic of Letters: The Correspondence Between Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, 1776–1826
, 3 vols. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 3:1411, where Morton refers to the visit as “an Arabian Nights’ tale”; Dumas Malone,
Jefferson the President: Second Term, 1805–1809
, vol. 5 of
Jefferson and His Time
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1974), 43–44; Brant,
James Madison
, 4:305–10; Annette Gordon-Reed,
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1997), 231–32.

126.
Plumer,
Memorandum
, 334.

127.
Ibid., 359.

128.
Quoted in Brant,
James Madison
, 4:306; Gordon-Reed,
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
, 232.

129.
Gordon-Reed,
Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings
, 232.

130.
Brant,
James Madison
, 4:305.

131.
Plumer,
Memorandum
, 333.

132.
Ibid., 358.

133.
Ibid., 344.

134.
Ibid., 359.

135.
Wright and Macleod, “Mellimelli,” 557.

136.
Plumer,
Memorandum
, 358.

137.
Ibid., 343.

138.
Ibid., 344.

139.
Ibid., 359.

140.
Dr.
Samuel L. Mitchill received an invitation from Jefferson for the December 9 dinner, which he noted as received on December 6, listing the dinnertime as “precisely at sunset.” Although it has not been published, Anna Berkes, research librarian at Monticello, kindly provided me with the transcript of the invitation in a personal communication from the editors of
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
at Princeton University Press on September 1, 2010.

141.
Gaye Wilson, “Dealing with Mellimelli, Colorful Envoy from Tunis,”
Monticello Newsletter
14, no. 2 (Winter 2003): 3. This event was first documented by Richard Schrodermier, “An Invitation to Dinner with Thomas Jefferson,”
Manuscripts
51, no. 4 (1999): 313–16.

142.
John Quincy Adams,
Memoirs
, ed. Charles Francis Adams, 12 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Co., 1874), 1:378.

143.
Ibid.

144.
Plumer,
Memorandum
, 349.

145.
Ibid.

146.
Brant,
James Madison
, 4:307.

147.
Plumer,
Memorandum
, 366.

148.
Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 183–84.

149.
“Jefferson to Madison,” May 19, 1806, in Smith,
Republic of Letters
, 3:1421.

150.
“Madison to Jefferson,” June 14, 1805, ibid., 3:1426 n. 21; Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 164–66.

151.
“Madison to Jefferson,” June 14, 1805, in Smith,
Republic of Letters
, 3:1426–27; Brant,
James Madison
, 4:308.

152.
Parker,
Uncle Sam
, 155.

153.
The letter and a draft in Jefferson’s hand exist in the Library of Congress: “Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis,” June 28, 1806, in
The Thomas Jefferson Papers Series 1. General Correspondence. 1651–1827
, Library of Congress,
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib016251
. Images 302–3 are the final draft, while images 304–5 are the first draft. The final version exists in the National Archives of Tunisia in a scribe’s hand, signed by both Thomas Jefferson and, for the first time, James Madison as secretary of state. The Tunisian version is reproduced in Parker,
Uncle Sam
, appendix 13, 239–41. References to Thomas Jefferson’s original hereafter “Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis” and image number, with additional references to the final version as “Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis,” Tunisian Archives, 1–3. I am deeply grateful to my colleague Anver
Emon, who kindly contacted one of his colleagues, Laryssa Chomiak, in Tunis. She generously sent me a scanned copy of the Jefferson letter from the Tunisian National Archives. Personal e-mail, February 14, 2012.

154.
“Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis,”
Thomas Jefferson Papers
, Library of Congress, 302.

155.
“To the Bey of Tunis from President John Adams,” January 15, 1800, in
Naval Documents
, 1:344.

156.
“From Hammuda Bey to Jefferson,” April 15, 1801, Barbara Oberg, ed.,
Papers of Thomas Jefferson
, 33:591.

157.
“Thomas Jefferson to Hammuda Bey,” September 9, 1801,
Papers of Thomas Jefferson
, 35:241.

158.
“To President Thomas Jefferson from the Bey of Tunis,” September 8, 1802,
Naval Documents
, 2:269.

159.
“Thomas Jefferson to Bashaw of Tripoli,” May 21, 1801, ibid., 1:470.

160.
“Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis, April 14, 1803,” in
The Thomas Jefferson Papers Series 1. General Correspondence. 1651–1827
, Library of Congress,
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib012313
, image 131; “Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis, January 24, 1804,” ibid., Library of Congress,
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib013116
, images 967–68.

161.
“Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis,” June 28, 1806,
Thomas Jefferson Papers
, Library of Congress, 302.

162.
Ibid.

163.
Ibid.

164.
Ibid.; Miller, “Tripoli: 1805,”
Treaties
, 2:532.

165.
“Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis,” June 28, 1806,
Thomas Jefferson Papers
, Library of Congress, 303.

166.
Ibid.

167.
Ibid.

168.
Ibid.

169.
“Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis, June 28, 1806,”
Thomas Jefferson Papers Series 1. General Correspondence, 1651–1827
, Library of Congress,
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib016251
, image 303 (final), image 305 (draft).

170.
Parker,
Uncle Sam
, 239–41.

171.
Quoted in Edwin Gaustad,
Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson
(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), 207.

172.
“Thomas Jefferson to Bey of Tunis,” June 28, 1806,
Thomas Jefferson Papers
, Library of Congress, 302.

173.
Miller, “Tripoli: 1805,”
Treaties
, 2:532.

174.
William Salkeld,
Reports of Cases Adjudg’d in the Court of King’s Bench
(London: E. Nutt and R. Gosling, 1717), 1:46. The precedent dates from the mid-seventeenth century.

175.
Muhammad M. Pickthall, trans.,
The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an: Text and Explanatory Translation
(New York: Muslim World League, 1977), 419. The line is similarly translated by Yusuf Ali, trans.,
The Qur’an Translation
(Elmhurst, NY: Tahrike Tarsile Qur’an, 2005), 262, as “our God (Allah) and your God (Allah) is One.”

176.
Gaustad,
Sworn on the Altar of God
, 112. For a broader discussion of Priestley’s Unitarian beliefs, his anti-Islamic views, and attacks against him as a Muslim, see Garcia,
Islam and the English Enlightenment
, 165–68.

177.
Gaustad,
Sworn on the Altar of God
, 112–13.

178.
Alexander Pirie,
An attempt to expose the weakness, fallacy and absurdity of the Unitarian or Socinian arguments against the divinity of the Son of God
(Perth: R. Morrison Junior, 1792), 32; Garcia,
Islam and the English Enlightenment
, 168.

179.
John Quincy Adams,
Writings
, 1:67–68.

180.
Joseph Priestley,
Letters to the Rev. Edward Burn, of St. Mary’s Chapel Birmingham
(Birmingham: J. Thompson, 1790), v–vi; Garcia,
Islam and the English Enlightenment
, 168.

181.
Priestley,
Letters
, v–vi, where he states that he had met in London with “an eminent popish priest,” while he recalled, “I have since enriched my acquaintance with that of some very intelligent Jews.”

182.
Robert E. Schofield, “Priestley, Joseph (1733–1804),”
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, 58 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 45:351–59.

183.
Gaustad,
Sworn on the Altar of God
, 112.

184.
“Thomas Jefferson to James Smith,” December 8, 1822, in
Life and Selected Writings
, 642.

185.
Gaustad,
Sworn on the Altar of God
, 205–7.

186.
“Thomas Jefferson to Jared Sparks,” November 4, 1820,
Thomas Jefferson Papers
, Library of Congress,
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.mss/mtj.mtjbib023929
, image 346.

187.
Gaustad,
Sworn on the Altar of God
, 51.

188.
“Thomas Jefferson to James Smith,” December 8, 1822, in
Life and Selected Writings
, 642.

189.
J. A. I. Champion,
The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and Its Enemies, 1660–1730
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 101; Gaustad,
Sworn on the Altar of God
, 24–25; Walters,
Revolutionary Deists
, 30–33.

190.
“Thomas Jefferson to Jared Sparks,”
Thomas Jefferson Papers
, Library of Congress.

191.
“Thomas Jefferson to James Smith,” December 8, 1822, in
Life and Selected Writings
, 642–43.

192.
James R. Jacob,
Henry Stubbe: Radical Protestantism and the Early Enlightenment
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), 155; Champion,
Pillars
, 110–11; John Marshall,
John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture: Religious Intolerance and Arguments for Religious Toleration in Early Modern and “Early Enlightenment” Europe
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 391–92.

193.
Quoted in Champion,
Pillars
, 108.

194.
“Thomas Jefferson to James Fishback,” September 27, 1809, in
Jefferson’s Extracts from the Gospels: “The Philosophy of Jesus” and “The Life and Morals of Jesus,”
ed. Dickinson W. Adams (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), 344 n. 1.

195.
The earliest, somewhat different reading of this reference may be found in Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 255–56; Hayes,
Road to Monticello
, 315–16.

196.
“Thomas Jefferson to John Tyler,” May 26, 1810, in
Thomas Jefferson: Writings
, ed. Merrill D. Peterson (New York: Library of America, 1984), 1227.

197.
George Sale, trans.,
The Koran (1734)
(New York: Garland, 1984), 156.

198.
Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 256; Azizah al-Hibri, “Islamic and American Constitutional Law,” 505–6.

199.
“Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr,” August 10, 1787, in
Life and Selected Writ- ings
, 399.

200.
Ibid.; al-Hibri, “Islamic and American Constitutional Law,” 501.

201.
“Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr,” in
Life and Selected Writings
, 400.

202.
Jefferson, “Autobiography,” in
Life and Selected Writings
, 92.