Muslims discovered America before Columbus, says Erdogan

[Southern Arkansas]

Weren't the Mormons the first to discover America though?

If Mormon Theology was true then that would put Lehi's family discovering the new world before any of these people.

[Flardania]

Everyone discovered America before Columbus tho.

[Westerplatte]

Actually, the tree people found America, because we've found lots of trees in America.

The guy'll have to show proper evidence before his claims are to be taken as legitimate.

[Infected Mushroom]

The Turkish president, ever the joker, held a speech in which he claimed that Muslims sailed to the Americas several centuries before Columbus and left their marks in form of Cuban mosques, which Columbus also wrote about apparently.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that the Americas were discovered by Muslims in the 12th century, nearly three centuries before Christopher Columbus set foot there.

"Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus," the president said in a televised speech during an Istanbul summit of Muslim leaders from Latin America.

"Muslim sailors arrived in America from 1178. Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast," Erdogan said.

The president also said that Ankara was prepared to build a mosque at the site mentioned by the Genoese explorer, the AFP news agency reported.

"I would like to talk about it to my Cuban brothers. A mosque would go perfectly on the hill today," he said.

Most history books say that Columbus set foot on the American continent in 1492, while seeking a new maritime route to India.

Some Muslim scholars have recently suggested a prior Muslim presence in the Americas, although no pre-Columbus ruin of an Islamic structure has ever been found.

In a controversial article published in 1996, historian Youssef Mroueh refers to a diary entry from Columbus that mentions a mosque in Cuba.

However, the passage is widely understood to be a metaphorical reference to the shape of the landscape.

http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeas ... 41516.html

What do you think? Personally, I just think it's Erdogan being, well, Erdogan.

Even the claims about Zheng He or other Chinese explorers setting foot on the Americas before Columbus are probably more likely than this theory.

No.

Just no.

[Keventle]

Actually, the tree people found America, because we've found lots of trees in America.

The guy'll have to show proper evidence before his claims are to be taken as legitimate.

Aliens were here first *Insert alien Meme*

[The Scandinvans]

Why does it matter who technically discovered it first? The important thing is that Europeans were the first ones to come settle and found colonies en masse, push out/slaughter the Native Americans, and create the New World that we know today. The Vikings still landed before these "Muslim explorers," and the Natives arrived before that. But the Europeans were the ones that created the modern-day countries. Even if the Muslims landed, they had no impact on history.

I do wish to point that the Spanish did not purposely cause a massive genocide of the native population (they however did wish to make them subservient and suppress innumerable portions of their culture). It twas the horrible plagues that they brought with them which killed over 75% of the indigenous population.

[FutureAmerica]

I'm quite certain that the native american Indians discovered America.
Everyone else has come in a distant second or third.

[Grand Britannia]

He's basing this off Civilization games.

[Conscentia]

Actually, the tree people found America, because we've found lots of trees in America.

The guy'll have to show proper evidence before his claims are to be taken as legitimate.

Aliens were here first

[Keventle]

He's basing this off Civilization games.

shhhh before the Ottoman Empire hears!

[Archeuland and Baughistan]

Bet they invented baseball too.

Actually, that may be true, considering they pioneered the Internet along with Al Gore.

[Keventle]

Aliens were here first

thanks.

[The Scandinvans]

I'm quite certain that the native american Indians discovered America.
Everyone else has come in a distant second or third.

The more interesting question is did people travel through the interior of Canada or down the Pacific coast?

[Timmy City]

Everyone knows that Leif Eriksson discovered the Americas first.

[Conscentia]

thanks.

You owe me a favour now.
I shall claim it when you most expect it.

[Keventle]

thanks.

You owe me a favour now.
I shall claim it when you most expect it.

*Bows before new master*

[Scepez]

Actually the first to arrive to North America were people from Siberia, since Alaska and Siberia used to be connected.

[Keventle]

Actually the first to arrive to North America were people from Siberia, since Alaska and Siberia used to be connected.

aka indians

[Imperializt Russia]

[img]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/31/Webcomic_xkcd_-_Wikipedian_protester.png[/img/]

Just change that flag to a Turkish one.

That kind of ignores the point of the sentiment.
The sentiment is, of course, entirely applicable.

[Scepez]

Actually the first to arrive to North America were people from Siberia, since Alaska and Siberia used to be connected.

aka indians

Could be the Indians.
Could also be the Mole people.
We may never know.

[Kanatistan]

Not to mention Santa was an Islamic prophet.

Which would be would mean Mohammad was wrong because he said he was the last prophet of God... So maybe Mohammad was a Hindu from Brazil.

[Krasny-Volny]

So if Muslims discovered America, are we talking Arabs or Turks? Sunni or Shiite?

[Keventle]

aka indians

Could be the Indians.
Could also be the Mole people.
We may never know.

[Imperial Esplanade]

"Discovered" is a very arbitrary term. Whoever the first humans to step foot anywhere in the Americas were the ones who actually discovered America, which is most likely the Solutreans. That's right Europeans, not Asians, most likely stepped foot in the Americas first.

However, prior to Columbus, it's highly likely that the Phoenicians and the Polynesians made it to the Americas prior to Christopher Columbus. We KNOW the Vikings did, and it's not out of the realm of possibility that the Celtics, the Israelites, the Chinese, the Japanese, various medieval-age European nations, and the Egyptians all made it to the Americas too before Christopher Columbus. The more we discover how wrong our history was when we were children, the more we might have to ask ourselves how many nations DID NOT step foot in the Americas prior to Columbus.

[Papait]

Turkey, I have no idea what your president is smoking but damn it must be good!

Anyway wasn't Lief Ericsson supposed to have been to America?

Actually it was his Father Eric the Red, since Greenland is America too, but the first to discover the mainland is Leif, aside from off course the natives and the polynesians who may have visited south America and taken potatoes with them