Sunday, November 16, 2014

Muslims Discovered America

According to Turkey's Islamist president Recap Erdogan anyway.

Muslims discovered the Americas more than three centuries before Christopher Columbus, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

He made the claim during a conference of Latin American Muslim leaders in Istanbul, pointing to a diary entry in which Columbus mentioned a mosque on a hill in Cuba.

Mr Erdogan also said "Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178".

He said he was willing to build a mosque at the site Columbus identified.

The Turkish president - whose AK Party is rooted in political Islam - gave no further evidence to back up his theory, instead stating: "Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th Century."
There's actually quite a long list of supposed examples of pre-Columbian contact between the Old and New World, the Vikings are the only ones who've been confirmed but the Welsh, Irish, Basques, Romans, English, Egyptians, Africans, Chinese, Polynesians and Japanese have all had claims. Some of them are vaguely plausible- though probably still wrong- but most are not.

The Muslim discovery of America is not one of the more convincing theories but like a lot of psuedo-history appeals to the pride of a culture whose actual accomplishments have been rather modest since the Mongols sacked Baghdad. The former Chinese President Hu Jintao did something similar when he informed the Australian parliament that the Chinese discovered Australia back in 1421- a claim based on the ridiculous book by Gavin Menzies. Again it appealed to the pride of a culture that while once great, has lagged the West for centuries.

My favourite example of Islamists hijacking Western accomplishments is the widely believed story in the Middle East about Neil Armstrong hearing the Islamic call to prayer when he first set foot on the moon. In comparison reaching the Americas is lacking ambition.

6 comments:

L fairfax said...

"Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th Century."
That is impossible it wasn't Latin America until the Spanish and Portuguese arrived (the name means something).

Umbongo said...

On a tangential note, those of us who, through our council tax, finance Black History Month in the London Borough of Haringey, wish the political class would decide who invented/discovered everything: the blacks or the Moslems. The BBC, in its role of mouthpiece of the political class, claims it's the Moslems. However, Haringey Council leans (provisionally) towards the blacks. The only thing they agree on is that it isn't whitey who, in both narratives, is the cause of all the evil in the world.

James Higham said...

Think a couple of bombs on Mecca might ease the situation.

Ian Hills said...

Followed by a parachute drop of giant pigs.

Ross said...

Umbongo- If you'd watched Robin Hood- Prince of Thieves you'd know it was black Muslims who invented everything.

L Fairfax- true, it's anachronistic as well as being nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Penseivat said...
"My favourite example of Islamists hijacking Western accomplishments is the widely believed story in the Middle East about Neil
Armstrong hearing the Islamic call to prayer when he first set foot on the moon."

Considering that sound does not travel through a vacuum, I would suggest that science was not that particular Muslim's strong point. On the other hand, just how tall was that particular mosque and how long could the Muezzin hold his breath?