Second, the perception of Muslims and Islam as a threat pervaded so broadly that even the most ardent secularists and Christians (these groups were not mutually exclusive) could utilize them as foils serving quite divergent agendas. Prideaux saw Islam as the anti-Christian product of a power hungry imposter. Voltaire viewed Muhammad's excesses as a warning to governments that espoused religion. As we shall see, secularists like Thomas Jefferson often included Muslims as an extreme example marking the lengths to which toleration should be practiced. Simultaneously, Christians often viewed Islam as – if not the greatest threat to Christianity – the largest obstacle to its universal expansion.

Peter Gottschalk and Gabriel Greenberg, Common Heritage, Uncommon F…, loc. 30