Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders (63 page)

263.
John Dunn, “The Claim to Freedom of Conscience: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Thought, Freedom of Worship?” in
From Persecution to Toleration: The Glorious Revolution and Religion in England
, ed. Ole Peter Grell, Jonathan I. Israel, and Nicholas Tyacke (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 180.

264.
Locke,
Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)
, 54. Locke,
Epistola
, 144–45.

265.
The key phrase is “ne ethicus quidem vel Mahumedanus vel Judaeus religionis causa a repulica arcendus”: see Locke,
Epistola
, 144 (Latin), 145 (English). I would like to thank Elizabeth Dickenson for confirming for me that the verb
arcendus
means “to exclude,” but that words equivalent to
ius civile
, or “civil rights,” are nowhere mentioned in Locke’s original Latin.

266.
Locke,
Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)
, 54. Locke,
Epistola
, 144-45. Locke approved Popple’s English translation, which “is not a literal translation”; see J. W. Gough, “William Popple’s Translation,” in Locke,
Epistola
, 43–50.

267.
Quoted in Matar, “Turbanned Nations,” 77.

268.
Locke,
Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)
, 54.

269.
Jack Turner, “John Locke, Christian Mission, and Colonial America,”
Modern Intellectual History
8 (2011): 291–92.

270.
Matar,
Islam in Britain
, 21–49.

271.
Locke,
Letter Concerning Toleration (1689)
, 56. If checked against the Latin original, Gough’s English translation from the Latin is faithful to the original word
Maumetanus
, or “Mahometan,” rather than the English translation’s “Turk,” and, more important, Locke’s key use of
Islamismum
, or “Islam,” rather than the English translation’s “Mahumetanism”; see Locke,
Epistola
, 148–49. Locke also uses
Alcoranum
for Qur’an in signifying the holy scripture in which Muslims believe; see Locke,
Epistola.

272.
Matar, “Turbanned Nations,” 74; Marshall,
John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture
, 614–15.

273.
Marshall,
John Locke
, 370–76.

274.
J. W. Gough, introduction to Locke,
Epistola
, 32.

275.
John Locke,
A Second Letter Concerning Toleration: To the Author of the Argument of the Letter concerning Toleration, briefly considered and answered
, in
Four Letters on Toleration by John Locke
(London: Ward, Lock and Tyler, 1876), 40.

276.
Ibid.

277.
Locke,
A Third Letter Concerning Toleration
, in
Four Letters on Toleration by John Locke
, 154.

278.
Ibid., 157.

279.
Ibid., 198.

280.
Ibid., 203. Locke’s “sociological relativism” is referred to by Matar, “Turbanned Nations,” 73.

281.
Matar, “Turbanned Nations,” 74; Marshall,
John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture
, 615.

282.
Locke,
A Third Letter Concerning Toleration
, 203.

283.
Marshall,
John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture
, 595, 617.

284.
Locke,
A Third Letter Concerning Toleration
, 204.

285.
Locke,
A Fourth Letter Concerning Toleration
, in
Four Letters on Toleration by John Locke
, 387.

286.
Ibid., 389.

287.
Garcia,
Islam and the English Enlightenment
, 58–59.

288.
Matar, “Turbanned Nations,” 74.

289.
Champion,
Pillars
, 111. Richard H. Popkin, “The Deist Challenge,” in
From Persecution to Toleration
, ed. Grell, Israel, and Tyacke, 209.

290.
Marshall,
John Locke
, 320, 415, 419.

291.
Ibid., 413–15.

292.
Ibid., 460.

293.
For accounts of this controversy, see ibid., 441–51; Marshall,
John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture
, 391–95.

294.
Quoted in Champion,
Pillars
, 111; Marshall,
John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture
, 391.

295.
Quoted in Champion,
Pillars
, 112; Marshall,
John Locke, Toleration and Early Enlightenment Culture
, 391.

296.
Matar, “Turbanned Nations,” 69; Ziad Elmarsafy,
The Enlightenment Qur’an: The Politics of Translation and the Construction of Islam
(Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2009), 8–9.

1.
Paul P. Hoffman, ed.,
Virginia Gazette Daybooks, 1750–1752 and 1764–1766
, (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Library Microfilm Publications, 1967), Segment 2, folio 202. The text is described as “Sali’s [
sic
]
Koran
” that was “interspersed among his purchases of law books in 1764 and 1765” by Frank L. Dewey,
Thomas Jefferson, Lawyer
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986), 14. See also James Gilreath and Douglas L. Wilson, eds.,
Thomas Jefferson’s Library: A Catalog with the Entries in His Own Order
(Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1989), 58; Kevin J. Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,”
Early American Literature
39, no. 2 (2004): 247; Kevin J. Hayes,
The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 9, 130, 201, 258–59, 316; E. Millicent Sowerby, ed.,
Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson
, 5 vols. (Washington, DC: Library of Congress, 1952–53) 2:90, catalog #1457.

2.
The original
Gazette
entry has after his name the word “Note,” which appears but indicates no further information.

3.
George Sale, trans.,
The Koran, commonly called the Alcoran of Mohammed, Translated into English from the Original Arabic; with Explanatory Notes, taken from the Most Approved Commentators, to which is prefixed a Preliminary Discourse
, 2 vols. (London: L. Hawes, W. Clarke, R. Collins, and T. Wilcox, 1764), Rare Books and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress. I will refer to Jefferson’s first volume of the Qur’an through xvi as Sale, “To the Reader,” or “Preliminary Discourse,” or “To the Right Honourable John Lord Carteret (Dedication),”
Koran (1764).
All other references to “To the Reader” or “Preliminary Discourse” refer to the 1734 first-edition facsimile of a Harvard manuscript in one volume, George Sale, trans.,
The Koran
(New York: Garland, 1984), cited hereafter as Sale, “To the Reader,” or “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734).
There are no substantial differences between the two editions, except that Jefferson’s version is in two volumes rather than the initial one.

4.
Arnoud Vrolijk, “Sale, George (b. in or after 1696–d. 1736),” in
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
, 58 vols. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 48:685–87. Vrolijk asserts that 1746 was the second edition in opposition to 1764, as stated by Sebastian R. Prange, “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an,”
Saudi Aramco World
62, no. 4 (July/August 2011): 5. Four editions are mentioned, without dates, by Hartmut Bobzin, “Translations of the Qur’an,” in
Encyclopaedia of the Qur’an
, ed. Jane D. McAuliffe, 6 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2006), 5:348.

5.
My thanks for this important reference belong to two University of Texas at Austin graduate students: Sharon Silzell, whose own research interest in the Qur’an alerted me to the importance of this reference, which she heard about from her graduate colleague Ben Breen. He located the citation while researching for Professors James Sidbury of Rice University and Cassandra Pybus of the University of Sydney. I am grateful to the latter two historians for allowing me to cite this document, headed “Property Taken from Dr. James Bryden by the British Troops, ’81,” Library of Virginia, among a box of uncataloged documents referred to as “the British Depredations” of Goochland County, Virginia, 1782, call number BC 114 7038.

6.
Thomas Jefferson, “Letter to John Page,” February 21, 1770, in
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
, ed. Julian P. Boyd et al., 40 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950–), 1:548. Hereafter cited as
Papers of Thomas Jefferson.

7.
Dewey,
Thomas Jefferson
, 154 n. 25.

8.
Papers of Thomas Jefferson
, 1:35.

9.
Dewey,
Thomas Jefferson
, 154 n. 2;
Papers of Thomas Jefferson
, 1:35.

10.
Although Jefferson may have lost between three hundred and five hundred volumes, this letter to Page may have been “an exaggeration,” according to Hayes,
Road to Monticello
, 2–3, 8; quote on 2–3.

11.
Hoffman,
Virginia Gazette Daybooks
, Segment 2, folios 7, 11, 12, 13, 28, 159, 175.

12.
Prange, “Thomas Jefferson’s Qur’an,” 4. Jefferson’s study of religion and law are paramount in the explanation for his interest in the Qur’an; see Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 247, 252; Hayes,
Road to Monticello
, 9.

13.
An emphasis on Jefferson’s interest in Islamic law is offered by Azizah Y. al-Hibri, “Islamic and American Constitutional Law: Borrowing Possibilities or a History of Borrowing?”
University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law
1, no. 3 (1999): 499–500.

14.
Jefferson initialed volume 1, page 113, of the Qur’an, Rare Books and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress, with a “T” and “I” rather than a “T” and “J.” On the commonality of Jefferson’s use of his initials in his books, see Hayes,
Road to Monticello
, 6–8.

15.
The first person to assert that “most likely Jefferson owned two copies of the Qur’an” because of the Shadwell fire was al-Hibri, “Islamic and American Constitutional Law,” 498 n. 30.

16.
Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 251, 257–58.

17.
Edwin S. Gaustad,
Sworn on the Altar of God: A Religious Biography of Thomas Jefferson
(Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), 18–19. I would like to commend the generosity of the late Shearer Davis (Dave) Bowman, a historian and colleague who recommended this work when he kindly shared his brief overview of Jefferson’s views of Christianity with me.

18.
Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:A; Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 247–48, 251–52; Hayes,
Road to Monticello
, 9.

19.
Ziad Elmarsafy,
The Enlightenment Qur’an: The Politics of Translation and the Construction of Islam
(Oxford: Oneworld Press, 2009), 1–2. For a more in-depth assessment of medieval translations of the Qur’an, see Thomas E. Burman,
Reading the Qur’an in Latin Christendom, 1140–1560
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007).

20.
For the best account of translation as a “political act,” see Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, ix–xii, 1–80; Bobzin, “Translations of the Qur’an,” 5:340, 344–49.

21.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 1–2; Bobzin, “Translations of the Qur’an,” 5:344–45; Norman Daniel,
Islam and the West: The Making of an Image
(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1966), 19, 22, 24–25, 37, 75. Sale’s translation is described “as best expressing in English the meaning traditionally understood in Islam” by Daniel,
Islam and the West
, 14.

22.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 1.

23.
Ibid., 22 (quote).

24.
Ibid.

25.
Thomas S. Kidd, “ ‘Is It Worse to Follow Mahomet Than the Devil?’ Early American Uses of Islam,”
Church History
72, no. 4 (December 2003): 767.

26.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:vii.

27.
Ibid.

28.
Bobzin, “Translations of the Qur’an,” 5:345; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 10–14, 37–63.

29.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 74–75; Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:vii.

30.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 8–9; Bobzin, “Translations of the Qur’an,” 5:346–47.

31.
Nabil Matar,
Islam in Britain, 1558–1685
(New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 8, 76–82; Bobzin “Translations of the Qur’an,” 5:347; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 8.