Turkey’s President, Recep Erdogan, Claims Muslims Discovered America, Not Columbus
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that America was discovered by Muslims in the 12th century, almost three centuries before Christopher Columbus’ arrival to the western hemisphere.
The Turkish President made a speech at the closing ceremony of the first Latin American Muslim leaders summit in Istanbul.
“Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus. Muslim sailors arrived in America from 1178. Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast.”
Erdogan’s claim that Muslim sailors made contact with America before Christopher Columbus is backed up by scholars and historians alike.
A series of historians found that Muslim explorers discovered and began spreading Islam on the continent more than half a millennium before Columbus.
Historically, Muslims have contributed to the science, art, and humanity in the Americas.
“No doubt, Muslims have historically been influential in the evolution of American society a few centuries before Christopher Columbus found it,” said Fareed H. Numan in American Muslim History: A Chronological Observation.
History records the Muslims of Africa have established relationships with the Native American continent long before Columbus arrived.
If you visit Washington D.C., come to the Library of Congress. Then, ask to see the the United States government archives agreement with the Cherokee tribe from 1787. There you will find two signatures from members of the Cherokee tribe, AbdeKhak and Muhammad Ibn Abdullah.
Dr. Youssef Mroueh of the As-Sunnah Foundation of America publicized the claim about a pre-Columbian mosque in Cuba.
In 1996, he wrote, “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.”
Despite the claims of the Turkish President that Muslims discovered America, it is a scientifically proven fact that the Paleo-Indians were the first to enter and settle in America. The traditional theory has been that these early migrants moved into the Beringia land bridge between eastern Siberia and present-day Alaska between 40,000 and 17,000 years ago, when sea levels were significantly lowered due to the Quaternary glaciation.
Regardless, many still do believe that the Italian explorer discovered America, although there have been efforts to acknowledge the Native Americans that had settled throughout the different regions of the Americas, before the Muslims or any European explorers.
