Bilali Document

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The Bilali Muhammad Document or Ben Ali Diary or Journal is a 19th century handwritten Arabic text of 13 pages on West African Islamic Law by Bilali Mohammet of Sapelo Island, Georgia. It is currently housed in the library at the University of Georgia. The first partial translation was done in 1939 in the Journal of Negro History by Dr. Joseph Greenberg. In recent years it has been analyzed by Dr. Ronald Judy, Dr. Joseph Progler, Dr. Allan Austin, and Muhammed al-Ahari. The last writer's text Bilali Muhammad: a Muslim Jurisprudist in Antebellum Georgia is available from the Chicagoland area's SoundVision bookstore.

The text proves on close analysis to be a brief statement of Islamic beliefs and the rules for ablution, morning prayer, and the calls to prayer. It could, justifiably, be called the "Mother Text" of American Islamic Literature. A comprehensive commentary with citations from traditional Islamic texts and American Islamic texts with related subject areas is under preparation by Muhammed al-Ahari, national secretary of the Noble Order of Moorish Sufis and long-time researcher on American Islamic History and Literature. The concept of a matn (source text) with several extended commentaries is a traditional genre in Islamic literature. The commentaries may be linguistic, spiritual, and even have the function of relating the text to similar works.

Only Arab racism (which portrays this text as the scribblings of an old man copying from memory lessons of childhood) keeps this text from its rightful place as an urtext of American Islamic Literature. We need to name a Muslim American library, school, or research center after this father of American Literature. Keep your eyes on this page. Proof that Bilali Muhammad (aka Ben Ali, BuAllah, Bilali Smith, and Mahomet Bilali) are not the same person as Yusuf Benenehaly, the Wahab brothers of Ocracoke Island, and Old York whose son traveled with Lewis and Clark will come soon to this article and destroy any false claims that Reverand Dwight York aka Imam Isa have on this father of American Islamic Literature.

 

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