Did Jefferson specifically reference Muslims or Islam in his public or private writings?
Executive summary
Thomas Jefferson did explicitly mention "Mahometan" (an 18th‑century term for Muslim) when recounting the passage of Virginia’s Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, and his papers and library show sustained engagement with Islam as a legal and political category — he owned a Qur’an and invoked Locke’s language about toleration that included “Mahamadans” [1] [2] [3]. Scholars disagree about what that engagement meant: some present Jefferson as imagining Muslims as future American citizens and defending their civil rights [4] [5], while others caution that Jefferson’s personal view combined legal inclusion with private criticism of Islam and little evidence of deep theological sympathy [6] [7].
1. Jefferson’s most direct textual reference: “Mahometan” in the autobiography
Jefferson’s clearest, most frequently cited textual acknowledgement appears in his autobiography where he records the Virginia legislature’s decision to protect “the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mahometan” under the Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom — a contemporaneous, public claim that he uses to demonstrate the bill’s breadth [1]. That passage is the concrete textual basis for the claim that Jefferson specifically referenced Muslims in the public record; it is quoted and discussed in multiple institutional treatments of the period, including the Library of Congress summary of Founders’ attitudes toward Islam [1].
2. Ownership of a Qur’an and intellectual curiosity
Jefferson’s library included a Qur’an he purchased as a young law student, and historians have used that fact to show he read about Islam and its legal structures, not merely collected curiosities [2] [8]. Institutions and scholars (Smithsonian, University of Virginia programs) interpret the book’s presence as evidence that Jefferson engaged with Islamic texts as a source for understanding foreign legal systems and for testing the limits of American religious tolerance [2] [8].
3. Jefferson’s sources and the Locke lineage
Jefferson’s explicit inclusion of Muslims in the circle of toleration appears to follow John Locke’s Letter on Toleration and English legal precedents; Jefferson drew on Locke’s language and on the diplomatic practice of treating Muslim polities as potential partners rather than eternal enemies, which scholars argue informed his political reasoning about who could be a citizen [1] [9]. Several modern historians note Jefferson was following established Enlightenment models of toleration rather than inventing a new doctrine specifically about Islam [1] [10].
4. Scholarly debate: inclusion versus affinity
Recent scholarship (notably Denise Spellberg’s work) reads Jefferson’s references, Qur’an ownership, and policy actions as evidence that he envisioned Muslims as future equal citizens of the republic and that he deliberately used the “imagined Muslim” as a test case for broad religious rights [4] [5]. Counterpoints appear in legal and conservative commentary which argue that Jefferson’s intellectual curiosity did not translate into religious sympathy — some analysts conclude there is “no there there” for a sustained affinity between Jefferson and Islam, and note his private remarks often criticise Islam as a religion [6] [7].
5. What the sources do and do not show
Primary and institutional sources establish two firm facts: Jefferson used the term “Mahometan” in a public account of religious freedom, and he owned a Qur’an that he read for legal and comparative purposes [1] [2]. Beyond that, interpretation depends on weighing evidence: scholars who emphasize inclusion point to his legal formulations and purchases [8] [5], while skeptics emphasize the relative paucity of theological praise and occasional polemical treatments in his correspondence and the broader Enlightenment context that framed Islam as a comparison point rather than an embraced faith [6] [7]. The reporting does not supply a definitive private confession of conversion or deep personal endorsement of Islamic doctrine, and it would be inaccurate to claim Jefferson ever embraced Islam theologically based on the cited sources [6] [7].
Conclusion: a clear reference, contested meaning
The archival and scholarly record confirms Jefferson specifically referenced Muslims (as “Mahometans”) in his public writings about religious freedom and that he actively studied the Qur’an and related materials, but historians reasonably disagree about whether that amounted to theological sympathy, strategic legal reasoning, or civic imagination about inclusion; both interpretive frames are represented in the academic and popular literature [1] [2] [4] [6] [5].