American Imam Kamal Al-Khatib, Thomas Jefferson, and the Constitution of the United States

Kamal Al-Khatib is an American imam with a congregation and school in northern Los Angeles County, and in an interview conducted at his mosque late last year (now up in its entirety on YouTube), I asked him about Thomas Jefferson. The question clearly energized and animated him, and his answer actually surprised me. Frankly, I expected that he might respond to such a question with at least some ambivalence, but instead I got some pretty unequivocal (and obviously sincere) praise from him for both Jefferson and the Constitution of the United States. It’s an interesting perspective, and very different (obviously) from the sentiment of a group of British Muslims who, in September of 2010, burned a copy of the U.S. Constitution (more on that incident is here).