Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders (77 page)

41.
Quoted in Schultz,
Tri-Faith America
, 35.

42.
Arthur A. Cohen,
The Myth of the Judeo-Christian Tradition and Other Dissenting Essays
(New York: Schocken, 1971), xiii; Bulliet,
Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization
, 8–9.

43.
Moore,
Al-Mughtaribun
, 2–3.

44.
Bulliet,
Case for Islamo-Christian Civilization
, 8–9.

45.
This idea of a founding “Protestant promise” is Schultz’s premise;
Tri-Faith America
, 3–12.

46.
Carroll,
Routledge Historical Atlas of Religion
, 102.

47.
GhaneaBassiri,
History of Islam in America
, 292–93.

48.
The phrase comprises part of a book title by Diana Eck,
A New Religious America: How a “Christian” Country Became the World’s Most Religiously Diverse Nation
, 2nd ed. (New York: HarperCollins E-book, 2007). Eck carefully surveys these non-Judeo-Christian American religious groups.

49.
“Muslim Americans: Middle Class and Mostly Mainstream,” Pew Research Center, May 22, 2007,
http://pewresearch.org/files/old-assets/pdf/muslim-americans
; GhaneaBassiri,
History of Islam in America
, 2 n. 1, based on the Pew findings estimates around three million; Eck,
New Religious America
, 2–3, suggests six million; John Esposito,
What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam
, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 221, offers the estimate of five to seven million. Oddly, Bret E. Carroll,
Routledge Historical Atlas
, 103, more than a decade ago estimated eight million.

50.
“Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism. Section 1: A Demographic Portrait of Muslim Americans,” Pew Research Center,
August 30, 2011,
http://www.people-press.org/2011/08/30/section-1-a-demographic-portrait-of-muslim-americans/
, 6, puts the total Muslim population at 2.92 million.

51.
Sixty-eight countries of origin are mentioned by Esposito,
What Everyone Needs to Know About Islam
, 221.

52.
“Muslim Americans,” Pew Research Center, August 30, 2011, 2.

53.
Jane I. Smith,
Islam in America
, 2nd ed. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), 78–103. These indigenous African American movements included what most Muslims perceive as heterodox Islamic variants, including the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, and, more recently the Five Percenters.

54.
“Muslim Americans,” Pew Research Center, August 30, 2011, 2.

55.
Smith,
Islam in America
, 2nd ed., 68–70.

56.
Ibid., 70–75.

57.
Lori Peek,
Behind the Backlash: Muslim Americans after 9/11
(Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2011), 10.

58.
“Muslim Americans,” Pew Research Center, August 30, 2011, 2.

59.
Quoted in Peek,
Behind the Backlash
, 24–25.

60.
Quoted ibid., 25.

61.
Quoted in Bakalian and Bozorgmehr,
Backlash 9/11
, 186.

62.
See Riad Z. Abdelkarima and Jason Erb, “How American Muslims Really Responded to the Events of September 11,”
CounterPunch
, September 7, 2002,
www.CounterPunch.org/riad0907.html
.

63.
This “double pain” is recorded in an interview with an American Muslim; see Bakalian and Bozorgmehr,
Backlash 9/11
, 171.

64.
Rick Hampson, “For Families of Muslim 9/11 Victims, a New Pain,”
USA Today
, September 2, 2010.

65.
Quoted ibid.

66.
Quoted in Peek,
Behind the Backlash
, 5.

67.
I have re-created the list offered in Bakalian and Bozorgmehr,
Backlash 9/11
, 40. A similar list of violent events in the twentieth century is included in Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg,
Islamophobia: Making Muslims the Enemy
(Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), 111. Earlier, twentieth-century precedents are also found in GhaneaBassiri,
History of Islam in America
, 329–44.

68.
Bakalian and Bozorgmehr,
Backlash 9/11
, 40.

69.
Quoted in Jack G. Shaheen,
Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People
(New York: Olive Branch Press, 2001), 4.

70.
GhaneaBassiri,
History of Islam in America
, 329; Peek,
Behind the Backlash
, 23.

71.
Moore,
Al-Mughtaribun
, xi.

72.
Quoted in Peek,
Behind the Backlash
, 24.

73.
Quoted in Bakalian and Bozorgmehr,
Backlash 9/11
, 40.

74.
Ibid., 2–4.

75.
“ ‘Islam Is Peace’ Says President: Remarks by the President at the Islamic Center of Washington, D.C., September 17, 2001,”
georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov
.

76.
Bakalian and Bozorgmehr,
Backlash 9/11
, 3.

77.
Ibid., 130.

78.
Ibid., 131.

79.
This description is based on Peek,
Behind the Backlash
, 34.

80.
Sec. 102, “Sense of Congress Condemning Discrimination against Arab and Muslim Americans,” U.S. Congress, “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA
PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001, H.R. 3162 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2001), 1, 8–10. The best analysis of this contradictory governmental policy is provided by
Wendy Brown,
Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire
(
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 84. Brown offers this pertinent observation of the U.S. government: “Yet at the same time that the state represents itself as securing social equality and rhetorically enjoins the citizenry from prejudice and persecution, the state engages in extralegal persecutorial actions toward the very group that it calls upon the citizenry to be tolerant toward.”

81.
Herbert N. Foerstel,
The Patriot Act: A Documentary and Reference Guide
(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2008), 58–60; Smith,
Islam in America
, 2nd ed., 186–89.

82.
Quoted in Foerstel,
Patriot Act
, 60.

83.
Ibid., 61–63.

84.
Ibid., 66.

85.
Quoted in Peek,
Behind the Backlash
, 32; GhaneaBassiri,
History of Islam in America
, 328.

86.
Quoted in Bakalian and Bozorgmehr,
Backlash 9/11
, 197.

87.
Ibid., 139; Peek,
Behind the Backlash
, 31; “NYPD Monitored Muslim Students All over Northeast,”
Huffington Post
, February 18, 2012,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/18/nypd-monitored-muslim-stu__O_n_1286647.htm
.

88.
This is not a new observation; precedents for it may be found in GhaneaBassiri,
History of Islam in America
, 327, and Bakalian and Bozorgmehr,
Backlash 9/11
, 141.

89.
GhaneaBassiri,
History of Islam in America
, 362–63.

90.
Bakalian and Bozorgmehr,
Backlash 9/11
, 197; GhaneaBassiri,
History of Islam in America
, 365–77. Comedic pioneers include
The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour
, starring Maz Jobrani, Aron Kader, Ahmed Ahmed, and Dean Obeidallah, which aired April 3, 2007 (Chatsworth, CA: Levity Productions, 2007), DVD, and, more recently, Negin Farsad and Dean Obeidallah’s hilarious film critique of American Islamophobia,
The Muslims Are Coming!
, which premiered in Austin, Texas, in October 2012.

91.
Quoted in Peek,
Behind the Backlash
, 39. For a thoughtful analysis of youthful American Muslim responses to citizenship options, see Sunaina Maira, “Islamophobia and the War on Terror: Youth, Citizenship, and Dissent,” in
Islamophobia
, ed. Esposito and Kalin, 113–22.

92.
These are the partial findings of a study funded by the U.S. Department of Justice and authored by David Schanzer, Charles Kurzman, and Ebrahim Moosa, “Anti-Terror Lessons of Muslim-Americans,” January 6, 2010,
http://www.sanford.duke.edu/news/Schanzer_Kurzman_Moosa_Anti-Terror_Lessons.pdf
.

93.
Quoted in Abdulkader H. Sinno, “Muslim Underrepresentation in American Politics,” in
Muslims in Western Politics
, ed. Abdulkader H. Sinno (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009), 80–90.

94.
I have borrowed this phrase from Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg,
Islamophobia
, 111.

95.
Ibid.; GhaneaBassiri,
History of Islam in America
, 347; Sinno, “Muslim Underrepresentation in American Politics,” 80–90.

96.
Quoted in Rachel L. Swarns, “Congressman Criticizes Election of Muslim,”
New York Times
, December 21, 2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/12/21/us/21koran.html
.

97.
For the most detailed reading of Ellison’s election, with a different conclusion about the issue of Jefferson’s Qur’an and religious tests, see Kathleeen M. Moore,
The Unfamiliar Abode: Islamic Law in the United States and Britain
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 82–101.

98.
Julian P. Boyd et al., eds.,
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
, 40 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950–), 1:548. Hereafter cited as
Papers of Thomas Jefferson.

99.
Jonathan Elliot,
The Debates in the Several State Conventions on the Adoption of the Federal Constitution, as Recommended by the General Convention at Philadelphia, in 1787
, 5 vols. (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1888), 4:198–99. For one editorial that referenced the eighteenth-century North Carolina debate, see Sam
Fleischacker, “Muslim in Congress? Framers of Constitution Would Approve,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, January 1, 2007,
http://articles.philly.com/2007-01-01/news/25221193_1_constitution-strict-immigration-policies-muslims
.

100.
Quoted in Swarns, “Congressman Criticizes Election of Muslim.”

101.
Quoted in Jacqueline Trescott, “Ed Koch Calls for Ouster of ‘Bigot’ on Holocaust Board,”
Washington Post
, December 14, 2006,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/13/AR2006121302260.html
.

102.
Quoted in Omar Sacirbey, “Conservatives Attack Use of Koran for Oath,”
Washington Post
, December 9, 2006,
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/08/AR2006120801482.html
.

103.
Quoted in Swarns, “Congressman Criticizes Election of Muslim.”

104.
Quoted in “CNN’s Beck to First-Ever Muslim Congressman: ‘[W]hat I Feel Like Saying Is, “Sir, Prove to Me That You Are Not Working with Our Enemies,” ’ ”
Media Matters for America
, November 15, 2006,
http://www.mediamatters.org/video/2006/11/15/cnns-beck-to-first-ever-congressman-what-137311
; Gottschalk and Greenberg,
Islamophobia
, 144.

105.
Quoted in “CNN’s Beck.”

106.
Quoted ibid.

107.
Quoted in Keith Ellison, “Choose Generosity, Not Exclusion,”
Newsweek, Washington Post
, January 4, 2007,
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/guestvoices/2007/01/04/
.

108.
Quoted in Neil MacFarquhar, “Muslim’s Election Is Celebrated Here and in Mideast,”
New York Times
, November 10, 2006,
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/10/us/politics/10muslims.html
.

109.
Christopher Hayes, “The New Right-Wing Smear Machine,”
Nation
, November 12, 2007,
http://www.thenation.com/article/new-right-wing-smear-machine
.

110.
Quoted ibid. Hayes first noted the importance of this supposed typo.

111.
Ibid.

112.
Charles Babington and Darlene Superville, “Obama ‘Christian by Choice’: President Responds to Questioner,”
Huffington Post
, September 29, 2010,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/28/obama-christian-by-choice_n_742124.html
.

113.
Quoted ibid.

114.
David Weigel, “Birtherism Is Dead. Long Live Birtherism: The History of a National Embarrassment, and Why It’s Not Over Yet,”
Slate
, April 27, 2011,
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/2011/04/birtherism_is_dead_long_live_birtherism.html
.