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Early 1800s · Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Georgia

Bilali Muhammad's manuscript

A yellowed manuscript page densely handwritten in Arabic script by Bilali Muhammad.
Public domain image via Wikimedia Commons. Held by Hargrett Rare Book & Manuscript Library, University of Georgia.

Thirteen pages on Islamic law and practice, handwritten in Arabic by Bilali Muhammad, enslaved on Sapelo Island, Georgia, and the leader of its Muslim community. It is among the earliest works of Islamic scholarship written in what is now the United States, composed under bondage from memory of a West African education.

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