Archeology: Evidence scant for ancient Muslims in America

Columbus Post-Dispatch ^ | Saturday November 1, 2014 | Bradley Lepper

[SunkenCiv]

Francaviglia does not dispute that Muslims could have beaten Columbus to the New World. They certainly possessed the technological expertise to have done so; but, so far, there is no reliable evidence that they did. There are, however, very good reasons for thinking that they didn't.

Arab maps were the best in the world, but none of the existing early maps demonstrates any knowledge of the Americas. Arabs also were prolific writers. Francaviglia thinks it’s virtually impossible that Arab explorers discovered the Americas and made no mention of the fact.

Why then is the supposed pre-Columbian Muslim discovery of America being promoted in many recent books and on websites? Francaviglia argues that the authors “are employing a geographically expansionist and historically revisionist premise to ‘prove’ that Islam is a truly global, rather than simply a regional, religion.” Francaviglia suggests that such an agenda could even be used to support Islamic State’s goal of establishing or, if these claims of Muslims in ancient America are true, re-establishing a worldwide caliphate.

It would not be the first time that history was fabricated in the service of a political or religious agenda. Valor and confidence to face the future can be found in the grandeur of the past — even an imagined past.

[SunkenCiv]

I think Francavilgia takes the opposite view.

[piasa]

Well, there IS a figurine, made by ancient people who lived at a huge mound city in Illinois, that was carved in red stone ... it depicts a Mississippian warrior hacking off a prisoner's head.

;-)

[piasa]

I think it was the Mayans who invented zero independently from the old world invention. Their number system was based on 20, though, so doing the math must have been interesting.

[SunkenCiv]

LOL

[abclily]

Yes, base 20 would be interesting.