“The Extraordinary Story of the Lesser Known Muhammad Ali”

“The Extraordinary Story of the Lesser Known Muhammad Ali”

She watched her eldest son, Muhammad Ali, sharpen his knife. The woman knew Ali would avenge his father’s murder. Ali and his brother received news of their rival’s location. Ali sheathed his knife in the sash of his robe. 

As her sons were leaving their home, the woman said, “Keep an eye out and a knife sharp.”

“Of course, yamma,” Ali said.

The woman tore papyrus leaves, like limbs from a body, from the old books next to her oven. 

The day before, Ali had found the books in a six-foot jar while digging for fertilizer. Ali hesitated to break the jar because he feared an evil spirit might be inside. When he considered there could be gold inside, he smashed the jar to pieces with his mallet. Instead, the jar contained 13 papyrus-bound books. He took them home and placed them next to his mother’s oven.

The woman continued to tear, crinkle, and burn the leaves as kindling. The leaves smoldered. The edges curled inward as they turned from brown to gray to white. She added more leaves until a flame ignited. The words, written in Coptic, an ancient Egyptian language using the Greek alphabet, became smoke, disappearing for the final time. Neither the woman nor her sons knew the monetary, historical, or spiritual value of the words being burned.

The sons returned. Their robes and beards were stained. Ali was excited to tell his mother the good news. “Yamma,” Ali said, “I chopped his limbs off and dug out his heart. We all ate it.”

She was proud of her sons. She said, “My sons, have some bread while it is fresh. I will heat water for you to wash.”

The woman tore more leaves to start another fire.

Ali said, “We have to get rid of these old books. The authorities will search the house.”

The next day, the books were taken to a local Coptic priest. Ali was arrested. The priest's brother, a schoolteacher, saw one of the books and recognized its value. The teacher took the book to Cairo and showed it to a physician interested in Coptic. The doctor alerted the Department of Antiquities (DoA). The DoA seized the book from the teacher. 

The rest of the books were taken to Cairo and sold to antiquity dealers. The sales and rumors of the books increased investigations from authorities. The DoA bought one of the books and confiscated another ten. The DoA gave the books they obtained to the Coptic Museum in Cairo. The thirteenth book escaped Egypt through a Belgian antiques dealer. The Belgian tried to sell the remaining book in New York, eventually selling the remaining book to the Jung Institute of Zurich. Today, all the surviving books and fragments are at the Coptic Museum in Cairo.

What were these ancient Coptic books discovered by the heart-eating murdering Muhammad Ali? They were mostly Gnostic texts with a few other philosophical works, including an excerpt from Plato’s Republic. The majority of the texts had been lost for close to 1,500 years. Today, anyone can read all of these texts online for the price of their internet connection.