David Barton Can’t Decide When or Why Thomas Jefferson Got His Quran

David Barton is a confusing fellow. Sometimes he tells one story and other times he contradicts himself. Take the facts surrounding Thomas Jefferson’s Quran.

Jefferson owned a Quran and Barton has told a couple of different stories about it. First, he told Glenn Beck that Jefferson bought the Quran while on a mission to Islamic nations so he could understand his Islamic enemies. He later modified this story to make it somewhat more accurate. Actually, Jefferson bought his copy of the Quran long before that mission.

However, not one to let a good distortion go to waste, Barton has pulled it out again for World Net Daily in this video.

 

Dave Barton addresses the lies of Barack Obama made at the Mosque in Baltimore on February 1, 2016, where he said “Islam has always been part of America.” Barton screwers the LIES Obama told about Islam and Thomas Jefferson in his speech in this MUST WATCH videoThe new edition of “The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson” by David Barton is the must have book that sets the record straight on Jefferson as THE quintessential American founder.Get the book signed here –> http://superstore.wnd.com/Jefferson-Lies-Exposing-the-Myths-Youve-Always-Believed-About-Thomas-Jefferson-Paperback?promocode=FBJeffersonLiesGet the book at Amazon.com here –> http://amzn.to/1Rj7Dxh

Posted by David Barton/WallBuilders on Monday, February 8, 2016

At 1:55 into the video, Barton purports to address Barack Obama’s recent appearance at a Mosque in Baltimore. Obama reminded the audience there that Jefferson owned a Quran. In response, Barton claims to explain why Jefferson owned it. Barton says Jefferson bought the Quran in order to learn more about his Islamic enemies. Barton says that in 1784 we had to deal with Muslim terrorists (Barbary Pirates) by sending John Adams, Ben Franklin and Jefferson to negotiate with five Islamic nations attacking Americans. Barton says that Jefferson and Adams both bought Qurans because they wanted to understand claims made by an Islamic ambassador. According to Barton’s timeline, this happened in 1786.

Barton also implies that Jefferson’s administration had something to do with the printing of the first American edition of the Quran. Not so. The 1806 edition of the Koran was printed by Henry Brewer for Isaiah Thomas. The introduction which Barton reads was actually taken from a version in the 1600s and was not specific to Jefferson’s administration.
In fact, as the Monticello website makes clear, Jefferson purchased his copy of the Quran long before 1786.

Thomas Jefferson owned a copy of the Qur’an, which was the second edition of a 1734 translation by George Sale, a two-volume set published in London in 1764. This set was sold to the Library of Congress in 1815, and rebound by the Library in 1918. The daybook of the Virginia Gazette records the purchase of this edition by Jefferson in Williamsburg in 1765.1 There are no other known records of Jefferson reacquiring this work, suggesting perhaps that it survived the fire at Jefferson’s family home, Shadwell, in 1770.

The bottom line is that Thomas Jefferson purchased his copy of the Quran in 1765. David Barton, alleged Jefferson expert, repeatedly gets this fact wrong by saying Jefferson acquired it while on diplomatic mission in 1786. Later, Barton tap danced around the facts to his buddy Glenn Beck but more recently returned to the false narrative that has Jefferson buying it in 1786.
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