Wasn’t that “Thomas Jefferson’s Koran” story debunked years ago?
Jefferson did study the Koran, so he would know how to deal with the enemy.
I thought so...
It may have been Jefferson’s copy, but as I understand it, Jefferson had the copy so that he could “know thy enemy”, as it were. IIRC, this was during the time of the Barbary Pirate attacks.
I myself have a copy of the Koran that I inherited from my late grandfather on my dad’s side (R.I.P.), but he certainly did not follow its commands, and I sure as hell won’t. Neither did Jefferson, no doubt.
Full disclosure: my grandfather was a Methodist, and I’m agnostic.
I don't know what was debunked, but this Washington Post story seems pretty authoritative:
WASHINGTON -- Keith Ellison made history Thursday, becoming the first Muslim member of Congress and punctuating the occasion by taking a ceremonial oath with a Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson."Look at that. That's something else," Ellison, D-Minn., said as officials from the Library of Congress showed him the two-volume Quran, which was published in London in 1764.
A few minutes later, Ellison took the ceremonial oath with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., at his side. So many of Ellison's family members attended the ceremony that it was done in two takes.
Ellison had already planned to be sworn in using a Quran, rather than a Bible. He learned last month about Jefferson's Quran, with its multicolored cover and brown leather binding, and arranged to borrow it.
Although the Library of Congress is right across the street from the Capitol, library officials took extra precautions in delivering the Quran for the ceremony. To protect it from the elements, they placed the Quran in a rectangular box and handled it with a green felt wrapper once inside the Capitol.
Instead of using surface streets, they walked it over via a series of winding, underground tunnels - a trip that took more than 15 minutes. Guards then ran the book through security machines at the Capitol.
The Quran was acquired in 1815 as part of a more than 6,400-volume collection that Jefferson sold for $24,000 to replace the congressional library that had been burned by British troops the year before, in the War of 1812. Jefferson, the nation's third president, was a collector of books in all topics and languages.
-PJ