Posted on 11/08/2014 10:50:08 PM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at dispatch.com ...
The Americas stayed ‘discovered’ at least as long ago as the 11th century. Columbus took a trip to Iceland as part of his research, and of course made his famous gaffe regarding the circumference of the Earth.
The reason the colonization happened after 1492 is, prior to that time, that nice edge given by firearms didn’t exist. Moving into an area already occupied, against a population with analogously advanced weaponry, didn’t work so well.
And the natural climate change cycles produced conditions that either encouraged or hindered travel, and led to increases and decreases in population.
:’)
Good point about the Ottomans.
The Piri Reis map is from 1513, which is 21 years after Columbus’ first voyage set out, hence there’s no basis for the claim of priority one sometimes sees. Also I think Robert Schoch’s analysis of the supposed accuracy and terrain on the map is correct.
hehehe.
I like your concise, to-the-point post-natural climate changes, and the effect they would have on travel and trade with distant places are ignored by a lot of those in the field of archaeology.
If a relatively small volcanic eruption in Iceland shuts down air travel in today’s world, it isn’t really that difficult to imagine what havoc a tsunami, lava flow, rain of ash-or just a Siberian express weather event-would cause, possibly shutting down ocean and land travel and trade in some areas for awhile, never mind something major. We know that Greenland was green about 1000 years ago, and there were grapes grown and wine made in Britain...
Thanks for the kind remarks.
In the ancient world there was a sort of pulse of migration down the steppes; each time the result was a movement of large groups of people into Europe, India, and even into China. The sudden failure of agriculture due to the weather changes even led to starvation, susceptibility to epidemics, and vulnerability to the ingress of other groups.
In Scandinavia the Medieval Warming — an entirely natural event — led to cultivation at higher latitudes and altitudes than are possible to this day. This is attested by ruined farmsteads for example. There was a population boom that went on generations and changed Europe.
These cycles had an impact on minor organizations (/s) like the Roman Empire, which ultimately had a population loss and economic downturn right at the time large groups started into Europe again. The previous big ingress led to the arrival of the Scythians.
Huh?
Columbus kept a written record, an objective fact.
That record caused other people to act on his knowledge, an objective fact.
The Americas have now been explored by many nations and various people, of a wide variety of cultures, an objective fact that continues to be expanded to this day.
There is zero empirical evidence anyone elze made it.
The people who may have made it are under historical speculation, as in “it’s possible” but.....
Leif might have made it.
Some wayard Kon Tiki might have made it.
They never made the return trip and thus Chris gets a gold star next to his name.
As far as how the people who already lived here fared, Chris didn’t get em all.
Later people made that happen and well, lifes tough.
The Lakota had no mercy on their Canadian cousins, the Souix, and kicked them out of what would later become Canaduh.
That happened about 300 years ago and the claim by the Sioux about “Ancestral land is a bunch of bunk.
Now the Phoenicians maybe made it over.
And of course, some of the slaves brought here were (in some sense) Muslim.
Moreover, if there have only been Muslims since the 7th century or so, how do they qualify as “ancient”?
Exactly. Plus they were a pretty small group for quite a while, and land-based.
Another goofy thing in one of Lepper’s articles referred to Barry Fell — but Fell’s proposed Libyans actually were from the centuries BC, long before Mad Mo, and I’m pretty sure they weren’t Arab.
The Vikings are known to have built a settlement, it’s in Canada, an objective fact. Their explorations of this continent was preserved in their literature, again, an objective fact. The Vatican even recorded a Bishop of Vinland. It would be surprising if there were not more to be found, time will tell.
Beyond that, there is plenty of evidence that plenty of other people made it. There’s a Roman-era wreck loaded with amphorae near the coast of Brazil. Naturally, the various claims on these land are solid, but some people believe any prior visit somehow undermines their claims, so the wreck is unexcavated and the matter is closed in Brazil.
The Aztecs didn’t invent the zero?
Remember, a few years ago, when one of the House members interrupted the President’s speech by yelling, “you lie”!?...Joe Wilson, the only man in DC to state the truth for the last six years.
If I find the best fishing hole in America and tell no one, is it considered discovered?
The Americas stayed ‘discovered’ at least as long ago as the 11th century...
You miss the point about “Discovered”.
As far as I know the first written accounts come from Chris.
No other kingdoms went in search of the place until then.
Nor did any Puritans...
Apparently you have an odd definition of “discovered”. The Vikings are and were known to have settlements in Iceland, Greenland, and the Americas. Like Clovis-First-and-Only, Columbus-first-and-only started to get enforced around a century ago. Prior to that time it was accepted and even taught that the Vikings made the trip and returned. Anecdotally, I’ve got one of those local history books (basically, people paid to have their family story published alongside bios of presidents and other well-known people) from about 1900, and the Leif Erickson story is right in the first chapter.
Columbus’ records have actually vanished, copies have survived which are generally in agreement with each other. The original of his first voyage log vanished into the archives, the oldest known copy vanished before 1600, and a summary was extracted from it before it did.
But Christopher Columbus went to Iceland to do research, because it was generally known that land lay across the ocean, and that the Vikings had been there. He purportedly figured that it must be China, and that the estimated circumference of the Earth passed down from the Greeks was in error. Had he been a scholar, he might have noticed a reference to the Americas in Plato’s dialogues.
Thank you.
The only Libyans capable of pulling that off at the time would have been the Greek cities planted in Cyrenaica.
I've lived in the West most of my life but sure don't see the "evidence" he sees.
There are some Moorish themes in the old architecture of Santa Fe? The city was settled by the Spanish. Does he know where the Moors lived?
At one time Hollywood romanticized the Arabs - see Valentino, R., but that didn't come from any Western tradition of orientalism. People were romanticizing them at a time when they were taking somewhat of a forced vacation from their quaint hobby of killing non-Muslims.
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