Keith Ellison to use Thomas Jefferson's Koran for swearing in ceremony

According to an article in today's Washington Post, Representative-elect Keith Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, will be holding a personal copy of the Koran once owned by Thomas Jefferson while taking a ceremonial oath with new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The article describes the Koran as "an English translation by George Sale published in the 1750s," having "survived the 1851 fire that destroyed most of Jefferson's collection and has his customary initialing on the pages." Mark Dimunation, chief of the rare book and special collections division at the Library of Congress, and a native of Minnesota's 5th District, stated Ellison contacted him in early December requesting a Koran that was "special." Read the entire article here.