Muslim Fears and Muslim Rights

The idea of the Muslim as potential citizen and perceived threat, then, has a history that is deeply rooted in the foundation and architecture of the republic. But that history did not involve actual Muslims. Muslims may have provided the litmus test, but none of the founders knew a Muslim. The irony, of course, is that there were Muslims in America. But they were slaves from West Africa so they did not have any possibility of achieving the promise of equal rights. In fact, the first acknowledged Muslims were nineteenth-century Arab immigrants.