When incoming lawmaker Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, took the oath of office Jan. 4, he placed his hand on a Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson.
The Minnesota Democrat has drawn fire from conservatives, including a fellow congressman from Virginia, since he said in November that he would use the Islamic holy book during the swearing-in ceremony. Officially, new members of Congress are sworn in without any holy book but they often re-enact the moment individually.
Rick Jauert, an Ellison spokesman, said prior to the ceremony that the congressman's decision to use Jefferson's Quran “has nothing to do whatsoever” with conservatives' criticism.
Thomas Jefferson's personal copy of George Sale's 1734 translation of the Quran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, was used by Rep. Keith Ellison in taking the oath of office.
“This is a historical moment in his life and he's determined that he would like to use a historical document, one that also demonstrates the fact that we have had religious tolerance in this country dating back to the forefathers,” Jauert said.
The Library of Congress has older Muslim holy books, but the Jefferson Quran has a special history, having once been part of a president's personal library, said the curator who cares for the book.
“It's a very savvy choice,” said Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, who also grew up in the Minnesota district Ellison represents.
Last month, Rep. Virgil Goode, R-Va., criticized Ellison for planning to use the Quran during the swearing-in ceremony. Goode said that unless immigration rules are tightened “there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Quran.”
Jefferson's Quran bears the distinctive “T” and “J,” which marked many of his books, Dimunation said. Jefferson acquired the Quran around 1765, and sold it to Congress, along with 5,000 others in his collection, after the British burned the Capitol's congressional library in 1814.
The two-volume edition of George Sale's 1734 translation of Alcoran of Mohammed was the first English translation from the original Arabic of the Islamic holy book, Dimunation said.
“This translation was the most sought after, it was the translation that established for Western Europe their understanding of the Quran,” he said.
Jefferson, a famously iconoclastic reader of religious texts, made amendments to his version of the Bible's New Testament, cutting out portions that referred to the divinity of Jesus. He did not make alterations to his Quran, Dimunation said.