By Kashif Hoda

When Keith Ellison takes his individual ceremonial oath of office today (4th of Jan), it is to be with one hand upon Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Quran.

Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, requested to take the oath upon Jefferson’s personal copy of George Sale’s 1734 translation of the Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed is published in London in 1764.

The two-volume work, which resides in the Library of Congress’ Rare Book and Special Collections Division, is one of nearly 6,500 titles sold to Congress by Jefferson in 1815 to replace the Congressional Library that had been destroyed when the British burned the Capitol during the War of 1812.

Library of Congress located in Washington DC is one of the largest library in the world. According to its Librarian James H. Billington it acquires books and periodicals on all subjects and in more than 470 languages.

The Library has periodically provided historic bibles and other works from its collections for use in ceremonial occasions.

Sale’s English translation is credited with introducing the West to the Koran. It is the first to have been translated directly from the Arabic to English. Jefferson’s copy was rebound by the Library in 1918.

There have been other Quran translations in English dated earlier than Sale’s translation but they are translation of other original translations. Library of Congress has one translation dated 1649 from French.

The text of the Sale’s translation is available in electronic format by Project Gutenberg.

Links :

Project Gutenberg’s etext version
scanned version available on Carnegie Mellon university’s site.