Abu Dhabi, Feb. 9 (BNA): A rare two-volume Quran owned by US President Thomas Jefferson found itself neatly filled in on Wednesday on the journey back to America after being displayed at Expo 2020 in Dubai.
The Qur’an, along with an attached map of the Arabian Peninsula, was on a climate-controlled display at the US pavilion at the exhibition.
The book was under 24-hour guard as part of his first trip outside America since a young Jefferson purchased the book as a law student in 1765.
After a short ceremony and questions from reporters, Yasmin Khan of the Library of Congress graciously picked up the books, placing each one inside her own box.
Khan, the library’s head of paper preservation, said she will be flying the artifacts to America because they have received special care because they are “very rare and very delicate.” , according to the Associated Press.
He got it “the third president of the United States because it was a valuable book with valuable knowledge that he and his comrades would use while crafting what, you know, the rights and liberties of the American people,” she said.
The library said the movers carefully placed the Qur’an and map inside a specialized wooden box that “has four inches of lining and custom trays with more lining, along with a sensor that detects vibrations and changes in temperature.”
The two-volume Qur’an is a second edition translated by George Salle in 1734. Jefferson’s copy was published in London in 1764 and brought to America, where he bought the book in Williamsburg.
Historians believe that Jefferson used the Qur’an, along with other world religious and political texts, when working on the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, the two mainstays of American democracy.