Who 'Discovered' America? – Is Malian Sailors, Columbus Or Muslims? Erdogan, Turkey President, Says Muslims 'Discovered America'

Erdogan's Flight of Fancy: Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.(Reuters / Ints Kalnins)

History and archaeology can be fiddled to please some people’s point of view, whether factual or fanciful, it appears. Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan wants to engage in both it appears.

RT.com reports Erdogan says the Muslim faith was “widespread” in America before the arrival of Columbus in the 15th century, and insists that a massive mosque should be erected in Havana, despite the city's refusal to grant a building permit.

"The religion of Islam was widespread before Columbus," the longtime Turkish leader told the audience at the first ever Latin American Muslim leaders summit in Istanbul, as cited by Hurriyet Daily News.

"Muslim sailors had arrived in the shores of America in 1178. In his diaries, Christopher Columbus referred to the presence of a mosque on top of a mountain in Cuba."

The claim comes from a 1996 paper from Youssef Mroueh of the As-Sunnah Foundation of America.
"Columbus admitted in his papers that on Monday, October 21, 1492 CE while his ship was sailing near Gibara on the north-east coast of Cuba, he saw a mosque on top of a beautiful mountain," it alleges.

The veracity of this statement has been comprehensively disproved in the past.
The actual quote comes from a log of Columbus' first journey in 1492, as recorded decades later by colonization historian Bartholome de Casas, but it was made on October 29 – likely near a different part of Cuba than claimed by Mroueh. Most importantly, it explicitly does not imply that Christopher Columbus saw an actual mosque – only a hill that looked like a minaret.

“Remarking on the position of the river and port, to which he gave the name of San Salvador, he describes its mountains as lofty and beautiful, like the Pena de las Enamoradas, and one of them has another little hill on its summit, like a graceful mosque,” reads the entry from the de Casas chronicle.

Even if this claim is easily debunked, it is part of a growing volume of Muslim scholarship that seeks to prove that Islam pre-dated Christianity in the New World, using circumstantial evidence. This idea itself has gained traction in swathes of the Islamic world.
Among the usual pieces of proof that form the backbone of the argument is a 1980 paper by Harvard academic Barry Fell, who claimed that some of the ancient engravings in the Americas resembled Muslim fonts.

Photo: Barry Fell, Saga America

There are also references to various trans-Atlantic journeys by Muslims made as far back as the 11th century, of explorers bringing back hoards of gold, using the relatively sophisticated navigational equipment possessed by the Islamic world at the time.

Alternative theories additionally propose that common Indian proper names were bastardizations of Islamic terms. For example, they claim that 'Seminole' is actually the Turkish 'Sami nal' or 'Semites who ran away,' while 'Shawnee,' another tribe name, is derivative of 'sah ne' which means the 'Great Shah.'

No actual archaeological links – be it buildings or artifacts – suggesting contact between the Muslim world and that of pre-Colombian Indians have been unearthed.