Have historians documented claims that the Founders believed Muslims wouldn’t assimilate?
Executive summary
Historians have documented conflicting evidence about the Founders’ views of Muslims: many scholars point to explicit gestures of inclusion—Jefferson’s possession of a Qur’an, congressional language in the Treaty of Tripoli, and republican commitments to religious liberty—while other historians and commentators emphasize the Founders’ Christian preferences, occasional denigrating language, and the practical erasure of enslaved Muslims’ faiths [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. The historical record shows not a single unified belief that “Muslims wouldn’t assimilate,” but rather a set of competing attitudes that historians have both documented and debated [1] [5].
1. The archival case for inclusion: documents and diplomacy that treated Islam as within the civic fold
Scholars point to multiple primary sources to show that the Founders contemplated Muslim inclusion in the new republic: Thomas Jefferson kept a copy of the Qur’an and recorded in his autobiography that Virginia’s religious-freedom bill was designed to cover “the Mahamdan, the Jew and the pagan,” evidence historians use to argue that the legal architecture was meant to admit Muslims into civic life [1] [3] [6]. The 1797 Treaty with Tripoli, ratified by the Senate, explicitly stated that “the Government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion” and denied enmity “against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Musselmen,” a passage that historians cite as demonstrating the early republic’s diplomatic recognition of Islam as a legitimate faith deserving nonhostility [2].
2. The intellectual context: Enlightenment toleration and selective curiosity
Historians emphasize that many Founders were heirs to Enlightenment arguments for toleration—John Locke’s idea that Muslims should be tolerated was influential on Jefferson and others—and that leading figures read widely about Islamic states and texts as part of a broader Atlantic intellectual world, suggesting curiosity rather than blanket rejection [1] [6] [4]. That curiosity, historians argue, did not always translate into social equality for all Muslims on the ground, because the Founders’ ideals sat alongside entrenched hierarchies and slavery that limited practical religious freedom for many [3] [6].
3. The counter-evidence: denunciations, Christian primacy, and scholarly critiques
Other historians and commentators have documented that some prominent early Americans used hostile language about “Mahomet” and viewed Islam as conqueror‑based or morally suspect, and that many Founders favored Christian norms in private and public life, a point used to argue the Founders did not fully accept Islam as an equal social force [1] [5]. Conservative critics such as the writer at Apologetics Press read Hutson’s Library of Congress essay as overstating tolerance and document statements from figures like James Kent who labeled Muhammad an “impostor,” evidence historians cite when reconstructing anti‑Islamic rhetoric in early American elites [5].
4. The historians’ consensus—or lack of one: nuanced plurality, not a monolithic belief
The literature gathered by libraries and public historians reflects a nuanced consensus: historians have documented both inclusive legal and diplomatic language toward Muslims and exclusionary practices and rhetoric, and they caution against reducing the Founders to a single attitude that Muslims “wouldn’t assimilate.” Major institutional treatments—Library of Congress summaries and contemporary historians who study Jefferson and early diplomacy—present a picture of deliberation about Muslim subjects and citizens rather than a fixed conviction of non‑assimilation [1] [7] [4]. At the same time, critics document explicit ethnic and religious prejudices among some founders and immediate successors, so the record is contested [5].
5. What the sources do—and don’t—show about assimilation claims
Primary documents and respected secondary accounts show the Founders debated how to treat non‑Christian faiths and in many formal contexts treated Islam as a religion compatible with republican inclusion, but the evidence does not support a simple, widely held Founders’ belief that Muslims could not assimilate; instead historians document pockets of respect, pragmatic diplomacy, intellectual curiosity, explicit Christian preference, and racialized blindness to the religiosity of enslaved Africans—none of which amount to a single, coherent doctrine about Muslim assimilation [1] [2] [3] [6] [5]. Existing scholarship therefore frames the question as one about competing impulses in early America—toleration and exclusion—rather than an established historical claim that the Founders agreed Muslims wouldn’t assimilate [1] [4].