(Washington Post) This week, like other new members of Congress, incoming Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D) will take her first oath of office. Unlike most other incoming members of Congress, however, Tlaib will be sworn in on the Koran, Islam’s holiest book. And not just any Koran, but the 1734 English translation of the work that belonged to Thomas Jefferson and now resides in the Library of Congress.
One of the country’s first two Muslim congresswomen elected, both elected in November, Tlaib said she hoped to make a critical point with the choice of tome. “It’s important to me because a lot of Americans have this kind of feeling that Islam is somehow foreign to American history,” she told the Detroit Free Press. “Muslims were there at the beginning.”
