Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders (64 page)

32.
Quoted in Matar,
Islam in Britain
, 79.

33.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 9. The translation by Alexander Ross is considered by Nabil Matar, “Alexander Ross and the First English Translation of the Qur’an,”
Muslim World
88 (January 1998): 81–92. See also Matar,
Islam in Britain
, 76, 81.

34.
Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 251; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 22–23.

35.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, vi.

36.
Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, 46. This observation appears in a marginal comment about the inhabitants of Medina.

37.
Anthony Grafton,
The Footnote: A Curious History
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997), 191; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 28.

38.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, vii; Matar,
Islam in Britain
, 82; P. M. Holt, “The Background to Arabic Studies in Seventeenth-Century England,” in
Historians of the Middle East
, ed. Bernard Lewis and P. M. Holt (London: Oxford University Press, 1962), 21–25, 27; G. A. Russell, “The Impact of
The Philosophus Autodidactus:
Pocockes, John Locke, and the Society of Friends,” in
The “Arabick” Interest of the Natural Philosophers in Seventeenth-Century England
, ed. G. A. Russell (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1994), 226–27, 232, 239–46; Samar Attar,
The Vital Roots of European Enlightenment: Ibn Tufayl’s Influence on Modern Western Thought
(New York: Lexington Books, 2007), 1, 7.

39.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 35–36; Bobzin, “Translations of the Qur’an,” 5:348.

40.
Bobzin, “Translations of the Qur’an,” 5:348; Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 257–59.

41.
Voltaire,
Essai sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations et sur les principaux faits de l’histoire depuis Charlemagne jusqu’à Louis XIII
, 2 vols. (Paris: Editions Garnier Frères, 1963), 1:255.

42.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 22–23.

43.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:viii.

44.
Sale,
Koran (1734)
, 31 note a.

45.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:viii.

46.
Ibid., 1:ix.

47.
Ibid. Claims that Sale’s translation was “pro-Unitarian,” are made by J. A. I. Champion,
The Pillars of Priestcraft Shaken: The Church of England and Its Enemies, 1660–1730
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 105 n. 16. This position is also endorsed by Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 18, 21, 25–28, 30. However, Sale would contradict this position in his own words to the reader.

48.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:vii–viii; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 18, 21, 25–28, 30.

49.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:vii.

50.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 24–35.

51.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1734)
, v.

52.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 24–26; Humberto Garcia,
Islam and the English Enlightenment, 1670–1840
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), 106–8, 136, 149–50.

53.
Sale, “To the Right Honourable John Lord Carteret (Dedication),”
Koran (1764)
, 1:A3; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 30–31; Garcia,
Islam and the English Enlightenment
, 106–7.

54.
Champion,
Pillars
, 120–23, 186, 188–90; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 30.
Numa Pompilius (715–673 BCE) had also figured centrally in the works of seventeenth-century English authors, who argued that Muhammad, like Numa, had introduced a religion that promoted civic virtues.

55.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 24–25; Robert J. Allison,
The Crescent Obscured: The United States and the Muslim World, 1776–1815
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), 27–43. Regarding Prideaux’s work, see Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1734)
, iii. For disputes with Prideaux about the birth order of the Prophet’s father and the story of the first mosque in Medina, see Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, 38, 51, respectively.

56.
Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, 64.

57.
Sale, “To the Right Honourable John Lord Carteret (Dedication),”
Koran (1764)
, 1:A3; al-Hibri, “Islamic and American Constitutional Law,” 499–500; Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 255.

58.
The presumption that Sale read Stubbe may be found in Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 25–27. This premise is also supported by Garcia,
Islam and the English Enlightenment
, 106. But neither author can prove this definitively.

59.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:ix.

60.
Ibid., 1:ix–x; Champion,
Pillars
, 101.

61.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:x.

62.
Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, 41.

63.
Garcia,
Islam and the English Enlightenment
, 106.

64.
Sale, “To the Reader,”
Koran (1764)
, 1:vii.

65.
Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, 142.

66.
Ibid.

67.
Ibid., 143.

68.
Ibid., 63; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 64–80.

69.
Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 21, 23–24; Champion,
Pillars
, 120–32.

70.
The Qur’an explicitly notes twenty-four prophets who preceded Muhammad, with references that suggest there may have been others who remain unnamed.

71.
Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, 76.

72.
Ibid., 33–34; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 34.

73.
Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, 35.

74.
Ibid., 35, 71.

75.
This Qur’anic verse begins with the injunction to
People of the Book (Jews and Christians) to reject the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity and to embrace the divine unity of God. The pivotal sentence in this verse: “So believe in Allah and His messengers, and say not ‘Three’—Cease! (it is) better for you! Allah is only One God. Far
is it removed from His transcendent majesty that He should have a son. His is all that is in the heavens and all that is in the earth. And Allah is sufficient as Defender.” See Muhammad M. Pickthall, trans.,
The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an: Text and Explanatory Translation
(New York: Muslim World League, 1977), 98. See also Neal Robinson,
Christ in Islam and Christianity
(Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 26–30.

76.
Robinson,
Christ in Islam
, 5–7.

77.
The translator’s erudition regarding the four “perfect” women in Islam may be found in Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, 102, 251, chapter 66, 458 note d.

78.
Ibid., 102.

79.
Sale,
Koran (1734)
, 458. The original is found in Abu Ja’far Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari,
Jami’ al-bayan ‘an ta’wil ay al-Qur’an
, ed. M. Shakir and A. Shakir, 16 vols. (Cairo: Dar al-Ma’arif, 1955–69), 6:397–98. For a discussion of the importance of these women in early Islamic history, see D. A. Spellberg,
Politics, Gender, and the Islamic Past: The Legacy of ‘A’isha bint Abi Bakr
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1994), 167–70.

80.
Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, 71.

81.
Ibid., 114–22.

82.
Ibid., 122–24, 135, 139–40.

83.
Matar,
Islam in Britain
, 110–15. See also Ralph S. Hattox,
Coffee and Coffee Houses: The Origins of a Social Beverage in the Medieval Near East
(Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1985).

84.
Sale, “Preliminary Discourse,”
Koran (1734)
, A2.

85.
Ibid., 152–54.

86.
Ibid., 156.

87.
Ibid., 132–38.

88.
Ibid., 178; Elmarsafy,
Enlightenment Qur’an
, 31.

89.
Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 248; al-Hibri, “Islamic and Constitutional Law,” 498, 501.

90.
Sale, “To the Right Honourable John Lord Carteret (Dedication),”
Koran (1764)
, 1:A4.

91.
Thomas Jefferson,
Notes on Virginia
, in
The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson
, ed. Adrienne Koch and William Peden (New York: Modern Library, 1998), 246.

92.
Jefferson actually compiled two separate collections of extracts from the New Testament, the first in 1804, the second in 1819–20. See Thomas Jefferson,
The Jefferson Bible: The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth
(Boston: Beacon, 1989).

93.
Peter K. Conkin, “The Religious Pilgrimage of Thomas Jefferson,” in
Jeffersonian Legacies
, ed. Peter Onuf (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1993), 30.

94.
Vrolijk, “Sale, George,” 48:685–87.

95.
Edward Gibbon,
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
, ed. J. B. Bury (London: Methuen, 1911; rprt. 1974), 5:356 n. 68; Vrolijk, “Sale, George,” 48:685–87.

96.
Quoted in G. Thomas Tanselle,
Royall Tyler
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1967), 268 n. 29.

97.
Thomas Jefferson,
Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book
, ed. Douglas Wilson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989), 214; Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 250.

98.
Thomas Jefferson,
The Commonplace Book of Thomas Jefferson: A Repertory of His Ideas on Government
, ed. Gilbert Chinard (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1926), 76.

99.
William Salkeld,
Reports of Cases Adjudg’d in the Court of King’s Bench
(London: E. Nutt and R. Gosling, 1717), 1:46.

100.
Ibid.

101.
Jefferson,
Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book
, 155–56.

102.
Ibid., 156; Gaustad,
Sworn on the Altar of God
, 22–23.

103.
Quoted in Wilson, introduction to
Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book
, 156 n. 5; H. T. Dickinson,
Bolingbroke
(London: Constable, 1970), 298.

104.
Wilson, introduction to
Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book
, 156.

105.
Ibid., 42–43.

106.
Ibid., 45–46.

107.
Jefferson,
Notes on Virginia
in
Life and Selected Writings
, 255.

108.
Jefferson,
Jefferson’s Literary Commonplace Book
, 25.

109.
Edward Dumbauld,
Thomas Jefferson and the Law
(Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978), 4–5.

110.
Dewey,
Thomas Jefferson
, 59.

111.
Ibid., 63.

112.
Ibid., 65–66; Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 247–48.

113.
Dewey,
Thomas Jefferson
, 57.

114.
Ibid., 70–72.

115.
Ibid., 70; Hayes, “How Thomas Jefferson Read the Qur’an,” 247–48, 252.

116.
Von Pufendorf’s legal reference is borne out for its inaccuracy in
Redhouse Yeni Türkçe-Ingilizce Sözlük/New Redhouse Turkish-English Dictionary
(Istanbul: Redhouse Press, 1974), 573.

117.
I am grateful to Leslie Peirce, an Ottoman expert on gender and the law, for setting me straight on the nuances of the term
kabin
’s application in the Ottoman Empire. E-mail communication, August 11, 2011. Without her intervention, I would have continued to assume that Von Pufendorf was completely rather than only partly wrong in his definition.

118.
W. Heffening, “Mut‘a,”
Encyclopaedia of Islam
, 11 vols. (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1960), 757–59; Noel Coulson,
A History of Islamic Law
(Edinburgh: University Press, 1964), 31–32.