Jefferson’s Quran, a 1734 translation by George Sale was intended to “to help Protestants understand the Quran so that they could argue against it. http://www.history.com/news/thomas-jefferson-quran-rashida-tlaib-keith-ellison

“Jefferson’s Quran  was a 1734 translation by a British lawyer named George Sale. It was the first direct translation of the Quran from Arabic to English (the only other English version was a translation of a French translation published in 1649), and would remain the definitive English translation of the Quran into the late 1800’s.  In his introduction, Sale wrote that the purpose of the book was to help Protestants understand the Quran so that they could argue against it.

“Whatever use an impartial version of the Koran may be of in other respects” he wrote, “it is absolutely necessary to undeceive those who, from the ignorant or unfair translations which have appeared, have entertained too favorable an opinion of the original, and also to enable us effectually to expose the imposture.”

Yet although Sale’s translation was theoretically a tool for missionary conversion, that wasn’t what English-speakers in Britain and North America used it for in Jefferson’s d

Drawn From:                                                                                                                           Why the Quran was a Bestseller Among Christians in 18th Century America           Becky Little                                                                                                                                https://history.com/news/thomas-jefferson-quran-rashida-tlaib-keith-ellison