At a campaign rally in Rochester, New Hampshire on Thursday night, a fan stated something to Donald Trump that has brought much heated discussion in the past weekend. The Trump fan said, "We have a problem in this country. It’s called Muslims [...] We know our current President is one. You know he's not even an American." He went on to ask, "That's my question; when can we get rid of 'em?" The unfazed Trump turned many heads when he cruelly responded with, "We are going to be looking at a lot of different things. A lot of people are saying that."

On Sunday, GOP candidate Dr. Ben Carson was asked to respond to what Donald Trump had declared just a few days before. When asked what he thought of Muslims running for president, Carson stated that Muslims are fundamentally "incompatible" with American principles as the Founding Fathers envisioned them. From the governing body of law of this country (Article VI of The Constitution): "no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States." The qualifications for becoming a U.S. president are whether or not you can better our country and the lives of the American people. Dr. Carson's disqualification of potential candidates based on identity of faith is a cheap way to limit elected office to select groups.

Time for a history lesson. The three main religions of this world are Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. These three religions are known as the Abrahamic faiths because they all follow the teachings of Abraham and the line of Prophets who followed. It follows that Islam also was built on the Judeo-Christian values, and this is supported by the parallels between the Quran and the Torah/Bible, with regard to both biblical stories and morality. In denying a Muslim's right to hold elected office based on religious ideas, Carson tacitly rejects beliefs he and other Christians supposedly hold. Although many people may deny it, Islam is more similar to Judaism and Christianity than we portray it to be.

In constructing the framework of America, Founding Fathers such as Thomas Jefferson took their cue partly from The Quran and other Islamic ideas, demonstrating that from the beginning of our country, Islam had a place. People like Jefferson were religiously tolerant and believed that wisdom and knowledge could be extracted from a number of sources, including The Quran. According to Denise A. Spellberg, author of Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders, "we know that Jefferson thought about Muslims as potential citizens because in 1776, a few months after writing the Declaration of Independence, he makes a note in his personal papers. He records that Locke said, 'Neither pagan nor Mohammedan,' meaning Muslim, 'nor Jew ought to be excluded from the rights of the commonwealth because of his religion.' So even that early he was thinking about it."

In The Quran there’s an account of a major battle in the infancy of Islam, The Battle of Uhud, where the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH), the de facto leader of the Muslims at the time, urged the Muslim army to remain in the safe confines of the fortified walls of Medina, where the Muslims had safe harbor, but the majority of his followers believed that the Muslim army should ride out to confront the pagan army of Mecca in head on battle. Despite his belief that the army would be safer in Medina and his role as the undisputed leader of the people, he accepted the decision of the majority to confront the Meccan army in the desert, which ultimately led to disastrous consequences. This account is related in The Quran with the divine order of God to “take counsel with them [the people] in all matters of public concern” (3:159).

This, and other verses in The Quran, which Muslims believe is the direct word of God, commands Muslims to establish a democratic society, where the majority voice prevails. Commentary by the notable scholar Muhammad Asad proclaims, “This injunction, implying government by consent and council, must be regarded as one of the fundamental clauses of all Quranic legislation relating to state craft” (footnote 122 on pg. 108 in The Message of The Quran, a Quran with provided commentary).

Dr. Ben Carson and his Republican colleagues remain woefully unaware of the basic principles of Islam, despite the significant attention the Muslim faith has received in the last decade or so. A cursory look at The Quran, the source of Muslim jurisprudence, shows even the most casual reader that government by the people has been the rule since the formation of Islam.

The legacy of America has unfortunately included the prevailing idea that a certain group inherently will never be fit to lead--from the populace declaring JFK incompatible with the American dream because of his Catholicism to President Obama being unfit due to the color of his skin to women like Hilary Clinton being inadequate just because of their gender. The newest group having this label is the Muslims.This idea of a group as the “Other”, the alien inherently unfit to lead, is a tired rhetoric used to marginalize those who do not fit in the tidy white, male and Protestant majority.