Read Online Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders by Denise A. Spellberg - Free Book Online Page A

Gunny,
Images of Islam
, 137–38; Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 43.
    98. Gunny,
Images of Islam
, 134, 136, 141; Ziad Elmarsafy,
The Enlightenment Qur’an: The Politics of Translation and the Construction of Islam
(Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2009), 81, 84.
    99. Badir,
Voltaire
, 96–97.
    100. Fatima Müge Göçek,
East Encounters West: France and the Ottoman Empire in the Eighteenth Century
(New York: Oxford University Press), 80.
    101. “La présence de l’ambassadeur turc risquait de provoquer un incident.” For the quotation, see Jeroom Verycruysse,
Les Voltairiens
(Nendeln: KTO Press, 1978), 1:x; Marvin Carlson,
Voltaire and the Theatre in the Eighteenth Century
(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998), 55.
    102. Where Voltaire describes the pope as “al capo della vera religione,” and the Prophet as “il fondatore d’una falsa e barbara seta,” see François-Marie Arouet de Voltaire,
Le Fanatisme, ou Mahomet le Prophète
(Paris: Garnier Frères, 1938), 222–23.
    103. Harold Lawton Bruce, “Voltaire on the English Stage,”
University of California Publications in Modern Philology
8 (1918): 57.
    104. Quoted in Arthur H. Scouten, ed.,
The London Stage, 1600–1800: A Calendar of Plays, Part 3: 1729–1747
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1961), 1104.
    105. Quoted in Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 234 n. 14.
    106. Quoted in Ronald Hamowy, introduction to Trenchard and Gordon,
Cato’s Letters
, 1:xxiv; Bailyn,
Ideological Origins
, 37; Pauline Maier,
From Resistance to Revolution
(New York: Vintage, 1972), 27, 30.
    107. Hamowy, introduction to Trenchard and Gordon,
Cato’s Letters
, 1:xxiv; Garcia,
Islam and the English Enlightenment
, 56.
    108. John Hoadly, prologue to James Miller,
Mahomet the Impostor
(London, 1744), Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
    109. James Miller,
Mahomet the Impostor
, in
Bell’s British Theatre
(London, 1776); James Miller,
Mahomet the Impostor
(London, 1777), Houghton Library, Harvard University. A very similar “portrait” exists on a fresco in the Supreme Court in Washington, D.C. The image, designed in the 1930s, became the object of American Muslim protest in 1997, when sixteen Islamic organizations requested that the Supreme Court remove it because Sunni Islamic tradition rejects any visual rendering of the Prophet, but also because the message sent to viewers was thatMuhammad spread his faith by violence. Chief Justice William Rehnquist refused to remove the image of the Prophet, adding that to have the image was a sign of honor and the sword “a general symbol of justice”; see Marr,
Cultural Roots
, 1–2.
    110. Bruce, “Voltaire on the English Stage,” 147–48. The play was reprinted in 1776, 1777, 1782, 1786, 1795, and 1796.
    111. Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 45.
    112.
Rivington’s Royal Gazette
, New York City, November 11, 1780.
    113. Ibid.
    114. Without reference to the prologue, the soldiers “may have felt under siege by passionate zealots who were rousing the innocent colonists to kill their symbolic father, George III,” and they doubtless did see in the play “a vindication of their role as protectors of the established order,” from those rebels who might destroy “empire.” For these observations, see Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 45.
    115. The play was performed in the United States later in 1795 and 1796 as a critical response to the violence of the French Revolution; see Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 45.
    116. Quoted in J. Thomas Scharf,
The Chronicles of Baltimore
(Baltimore: Turnbull Brothers, 1874), 203–5. My thanks to Marilyn Baseler for this reference. See also
Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser
, September 3, 1782, which states that “about 500 French troops remain in and near the town under the command of General La Valette.”
    117. Theatrical Playbill Collection, MS 2415, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore;
Maryland Journal and Baltimore Advertiser
, June 28, 1782.
    118. “At the Theatre in