U.S.: The text of a lie

This is from the Arab World Studies Notebook. To paraphrase Herodotus, the Arabs are always liars.

Evidence of Muslims in the New World Before Columbus

• AI-Masudi in his Muruj adh-Dhahab (938), tells of Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad, who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and returned in the year 889: "He was a young man of Cordoba who gathered a group of young men and went on a voyage on this ocean. After a long time he returned with fabulous booty. Every Spaniard (Andalusian Muslim) knows his story."

• Abu Bakr Ibn Umar Al-Qutiyya relates the story of Ibn Farrukh, who landed in February 999 in Gando (Canary Islands), visited King Guanariga, continuing his journey westward until he found islands he called Capraria and Pluitana and returning to Al-Andalus in May.

• Al-Idrisi in his extensive The Geography of Al-Idrisi, in the 12th century, reported the journey of North African seamen who reached the Americas. Al-Idrisi wrote: "A group of seafarers sailed into the sea of Darkness and Fog [the Atlantic Ocean] from Lisbon in or≠der to discover what was in it and the extent of its limit. They were a party of eight and they took a boat which was loaded with supplies to last them for months.. . They finally reached an island that had people and cultivation but they were captured and chained for three days. On the fourth day a translator came speaking the Arabic language! He translated for the King and asked them about their mission. They informed him about themselves, then they were returned to their confinement. When the westerly wind began to blow, they were put in a canoe, blindfolded and bourght to land after three days' sailing. They were left on the shore with their hands tied behind their backs. The next day, another tribe appeared, freeing them and informing them that between their lands was a journey of two months." This astonishing historical report not only clearly describes contact between Muslim seamen and the indigenous people of the Caribbean islands, but it confirms the fact that the contact between the two worlds had been so involved that the native people had Arabic speakers among them.

• Al-Umari in his Masalik al Absarfi Mama lik al Amsar reports of Mansa Musa describing to scholars in Cairo, on his famous pilgrimage to Makkah in 1324, how his predecessor in the West African Islamic Empire of Mali "would not believe that it was impossible to dis≠cover the limits of the neighboring sea [Atlantic Ocean]. He wanted to find out and persisted in his plan. He had two hundred ships equipped and filled them with men, and others in the same number filled with gold, water and supplies in sufficient quantity to last for years. He told those who commanded them: "Return only when you have reached the extremity of the ocean, or when you have exhausted your food and water.' They went away; their absence was long before any of them returned... We asked the captain about their adventures.' "Prince,' he replied, "we sailed for a long time, up to the moment when we encountered in mid-ocean something like a river with a violent current. My ship was last, the others sailed on, and gradually as each one entered this place, they disappeared and did not come back. We did not know what had happened to them. As for me, I returned to where I was and did not enter the current.' But the emperor did not want to believe him. He equipped two thousand vessels, a thousand for himself and the men who accompanied him and a thousand for water and supplies. He conferred power on me [Mansa Musa] and left with his companions on the ocean. This was the last time that I saw him and the others, and I remain absolute master of the empire."

This report reveals that the Manding monarch made great preparation for the journey and had confidence in its success. The captain who reported the violent "river" must have encountered a mid-ocean current. While we do not know for certain the outcome of the expedition of these two thousand ships, we do have evidence from this side of the Atlantic establishing Manding con≠tact in the Americas in this period.

The Manding made contact with the closest land mass to the West African coast, Brazil. They appear to have used it as a base for exploration of the Americas, traveling along rivers in the dense jungles of South America and overland till they reached North America. The African Muslims of Honduras called themsleves "Almamys" prior to the coming of the Spaniards. They may have been related to the Africans of northern Honduras seen by Ferdinand Columbus, the son of Christopher Columbus. In the Manding language "Almamy" was used for Al-Imamu, Arabic for "prayer leader."

In 1920, American historian and linguist Leo Weiner of Harvard University wrote a controversial but well documented work entitled Africa and the Discovery of America, in which he provided evidence that Columbus was well aware of the Manding presence and that the West African Muslims had not only spread throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America, but that they had reached Canada and were trading and intermarrying with the eastern woodland Iroquois and Algonquin nations. Much later, early English explorers were to meet Iroquois and Algonquin chiefs with names like Abdul-Rahim and Abdallah Ibn Malik.

Clearly, knowledge of the presence of Islam in the Americas was known by early Spanish and Portuguese explorers. A case can be made for thinking of the whole colonization of the Americas by the Spanish as an extension of the "Re-conquest." Informed by explorers and soliders of the influence of Islam, Ferdinand issued a series of edicts in order to stop the flow of Muslims and Morisocos -- free or enslaved -- to the Americas, to prevent those already here from teaching Islam, and to "win back" the Muslim native Indian populations.

It is because of this type of Islamic fiction, interwoven with some facts someplace, that Abu Bakr in T&T considers the imposition of Islam on that country to be a return to its Muslim roots.

It is worth noting that T&Tians from the Companies, in the south-east area between Princes Town and Moruga, have no Islamic traditions that are perpetuated today. Yet, many from these areas are the historical descendants of Mandingo Africans.

This bit of Muslim revision of history is but one piece in the larger effort to impose Islam on the rest of the world. Whatever it takes, and by any means necessary.