Chronology of Islam in America

[Scorpio27]

Muslims explored North America at least 300 years before the discovery of the New World by Christopher Columbus, according to many researchers. Dr. Barry Fell, a noted New Zealand archaeologist and linguist of Harvard University showed detailed existing evidence in his work, "Saga America" that Muslims were not only in the Americas before Columbus arrived, but very active there as well. Ivan Van Sertima, in his renowned work, "They Came Before Columbus" confirms that there was definitely contact between the ancient and early African people with the Native Americans. Columbus logged on October 21st, 1492, that he was sailing past Gibara on the coast of Cuba he saw a mosque. He also logged that remnants of other masjids have been found in Cuba, Mexico, Texas and Nevada. Most of this chronology is based on “the glimpses of Muslim life in American history” by Fareed H. Nu'man that was released in December 1992. [Editor]

1178: A Chinese document known as the Sung Document records the voyage of Muslim sailors to a land known as Mu-Lan-Pi (America). Mention of this document is contained in the publication, The Khotan Amirs, 1933.

1310: Abu Bakri (Abu Bakar), a Muslim king of the Malian Empire, spearheads a series of sea voyages to the New World.

1312: African Muslims (Mandinga) arrive in the Gulf of Mexico for exploration of the American interior using the Mississippi River as their access route. These Muslim explorers were from Mali and other parts of West Africa.

1513: Piri Reis completes his first world map, including the Americas, after researching maps from all over the world. The practicality and artistry of his map surpassed any from his time or before.

1527: A Muslim from Morocco by the name of Estevanico of Azamor lands in Florida with the expedition of Panfilo de Narveaz and remains in America to become the first of three Americans to cross the continent in 1539.

1530: More than 30% of the estimated 10 million African slaves, uprooted from the areas of Fulas, Fula Jallon, Fula Toro, and Massina as well as other areas of West Africa governed from their capital Timbuktu, that arrived in America during the slave trade of that time and sent to Mexico, Cuba, and South America were Muslims, they and became part of the backbone of the American economy of that period.

1539 Estevanico of Azamor, a Muslim from Morocco, lands in Florida with the ill-fated expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez in 1527. Estevanico remained in America to become the first of three Americans to cross this continent. At least two states owe their beginnings to this Muslim, Arizona and New Mexico.

1732: A Muslim slave by the name of Ayyub Bin Sulaiman Jallon from Boonda, Galumbo is set free by James Oglethrope, the founder of Georgia, and provided transportation to England. In 1735, three years later, he arrived home. He arrived home (Boonda, Galumbo) from England in 1735.

1790: Moors from Spain are reported to be living in South Carolina and Florida.

Courtesy:
http://www.amperspective.com/html/chronology_of_islam____in__us.html

[jack]

From the same site .....

AMPCC endorses Bush for presidency
Oct 23: four Muslim organizations joined forces to found the American Muslim Political Coordination Council (AMPCC), to rally an Islamic vote behind one of the presidential candidates. AMPCC endorsed George W. Bush, who had met with American Muslim representatives early in the campaign and had also spoken out against so-called "secret evidence" provisions of recent immigration laws that allow for the detention of non-citizens without full disclosure of the evidence against them. AMPCC consists of American Muslim Alliance, American Muslim Council, Council on American-Islamic Relations, and Muslim Public Affairs Council.

Muslim Americans vote en bloc for Bush
Nov 5: For the first time in US history Muslims voted en bloc in the general elections that helped George Bush to secure victory. A study, released by the American Muslim Alliance on the 2000 election, showed that 72 percent of Muslims voted for Bush, 8 percent for Democrat Al Gore and 19 percent for Ralph Nader, a Lebanese-American. According to former Congressman Paul Findley about 3.2 million Muslims voted in November 2000 election since 70 percent Muslims were eligible to vote and 65 percent of those eligible actually voted.

[amo_l_oman]

which year, no just cuz oct 23 is my birthday

[Scorpio27]

Sorry, I did not get the point dear Mr. Jack. Will you please explain in brief?:lost:

[Wanderer]

My first reaction was to laugh, but then I became concerned that this might be taken as entirely factual.

First: I have no reason to think that Chinese or Muslim explorers could NOT have made the journey over an ocean and explored the Americas. Both cultures had a desire for knowledge and discovery AND they had the necessary technology and experience to make the crossings. The Vikings were certainly in N. America long before Columbus, and they had more primative nautical technology.

So how should we examine all of this? Well, as a start:

Are Dr. Barry Fell, Ivan Van Sertima, and Fareed H. Nu'man credible ?

Ancient (pre-Columbian) Mosques in Cuba, Mexico, Texas, and Nevada ? That seems testable.

[MoonChild]

Originally posted by Wanderer
Are Dr. Barry Fell, Ivan Van Sertima, and Fareed H. Nu'man credible ?
.

INteresting question :)

ABout Dr. Fell: ""Fell's work [contains] major academic sins, the three worst being distortion of data, inadequate acknowledgment of predecessors, and lack of presentation of alternative views."

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2000/01/001stengel2.htm

Translation - he may have found something interesting, but his technique is so sloppy that you can't trust his conclusions.

[Wanderer]

It would appear that Ivan Van Sertima's proposals suffer a bit when subjected to qualified peer review.


Gabriel Haslip-Viera, Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, and Warren Barbour, "Robbing Native American Cultures: Van Sertima's Afrocentricity and the Olemcs," Current Anthropology Volume 38 #3, June 1997.

Abstract: In 1976, Ivan Van Sertima proposed that New World civilizations were strongly influenced by diffusion from Africa. The first and most important contact, he argued, was between Nubians and Olmecs in 700 B.C., and it was followed by other contacts from Mali in A.D. 1300. This theory has spread widely in the African American community, both lay and scholarly, but it has never been evaluated at length by Mesoamericanists. This article shows the proposal to be devoid of any foundation. First, no genuine African artifact has ever been found in a controlled archaeological excavation in the New World. The presence of African or African-origin plants such as the bottle gourd (Lagenaria siceraria) or of African genes in New World cotton (Gossypium hirsutum) shows that there was contact between the Old World and the New, but this contact occurred too long ago to have involved any human agency and is irrelevant to Eygptian-Olmec contact. The colossal Olmec heads, which resemble a stereotypical "Negroid," were carved hundreds of years before the arrival of the presumed models. Additionally, Nubians, who come from a desert environment and have long, high noses, do not resemble their supposed "portraits." Claims for the diffusion of pyramid building and mummification are also fallacious.

"In his 1976 book, They Came Before Columbus, Ivan Van Sertima argued that 'Negroid' Africans had come to the Americas at various times before the European discovery and had either inspired or influenced the development of the first civilizations to emerge on these continents. Like other pseudoscientific writings that had been published up until that time, the book was either completely ignored or generally dismissed by anthropologists, historians, and other academic professionals." (p. 419).

The second article is:

Bernard Ortiz de Montellano, Gabriel Haslip-Viera, and Warren Barbour, "They were NOT Here before Columbus: Afrocentric Hyperdiffusionism in the 1990s," Ethnohistory 44:2 (Spring 1997).

Abstract: This essay responds to a theory that has been aggressively promoted as fact by an influential group of Afrocentrists in recent years -- that New World civilizations were created or were influenced by African visitors at key points in the centuries that preceded the European discovery of the Americas. As discussed in this essay, the theory is shown to have no support in the evidence that has been analyzed by specialists in various fields. The essay focuses on the methodological approaches employed by the Afrocentrists in their study of linguistics, terracotta figurines, technological development, and monumental sculpture. A concluding section briefly discusses the repercussions of this theory on ethnic relations in schools, on college campuses, and in North American society as a whole.

From the conclusion: "It is quite clear from the foregoing that claims of an African presence in pre-Columbian America are purely speculative, rigidly diffusionist, and have no foundation in the artifactual, physical, and historical evidence. Nevertheless, the Afrocentric position is routinely articulated in a very forceful manner with few if any caveats. Van Sertima makes reference to the "ample," "overwhelming," "remarkable" and "indisputable" evidence, or he uses phrases such as "there is no doubt" or "there is no question whatever" to support claims (1976:23; 1992a: 24;1992b: 34,43; 1991c [1983]:61)."

http://www.ferris.edu/isar/arcade/AFAM/VSertima.htm


There has been a push to accentuate African and African-American history in the US in the past decade. I applaud this endeavor, as many contributions made by people of African descent were "overlooked" or marginalized in history books. However, some proponents obviously became a bit ... overzealous, and [i]without the requisite research and substantiation[i], began reassigning a whole host of people and developments as being of African origin. Ivan Van Sertima appears to be one of those people.

Erich von Daniken saw all things as being of alien origin (Egyptians couldn't possibly have built the pyramids themselves, eh) , and Ivan Van Sertima sees all as being of African origin.

Heck, it sells books.

[Wanderer]

By the way, let me state that I'm all for African and Muslim explorations of the Americas. I don't see why they couldn't have happened. But that's not the same as proving they happened.

In any case, Columbus gets credit for starting continuous, permanent contact with the Americas from the Old World.

[MoonChild]

I've been thinking about this... when Europeans showed up in numbers, the native populations were absolutely devastated by smallpox and other diseases to which they had no immunity.

If there were earlier explorations by African and Arabic groups, wouldn't there have been a similar problem with disease introduction? If they had, indeed, introduced these diseases and there was an epidemic, it wouldnt' necessarily have left signs for us to see today, but the survivors WOULD HAVE HAD IMMUNITY against the Europeans.

Therefore, I see 3 possibilities:
1. earlier explorers had ALSO not been exposed to or carry the diseases and thus did not introduce them to the New World. (could probably test this by looking at incidence of smallpox etc. in their country of origin in the appropriate time frame)
2. the explorers had limited contact with the natives, so any diseases were contained and didn't spread throughout the region.
3. there weren't really any explorers.

I doubt there is any data out there, as epidemiological archaeology is a pretty new concept, but I'll see if I can find anything :)

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by MoonChild
Therefore, I see 3 possibilities:
1. earlier explorers had ALSO not been exposed to or carry the diseases and thus did not introduce them to the New World. (could probably test this by looking at incidence of smallpox etc. in their country of origin in the appropriate time frame)
2. the explorers had limited contact with the natives, so any diseases were contained and didn't spread throughout the region.
3. there weren't really any explorers.




Keeping in mind that your possibilities #2 and #3 would not be conductive to archaeological evidence in the New World of any contact.

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by MoonChild
If there were earlier explorations by African and Arabic groups, wouldn't there have been a similar problem with disease introduction?

Don't overlook that the transmission of disease between groups can go in both directions.

Visiting Muslim explorers may well have brought Syphilis and other veneral diseases back with them to the Old World. It then moves back through the Islamic empire and via Muslim trade routes to Asia. Then the Moors give it to the Spanish and it moves into Europe.

I smell a PhD out of this thesis.

... or perhaps just another interesting theory with no factual substantiation.

At least it's filed in the right thread.

[MoonChild]

Originally posted by Wanderer
Keeping in mind that your possibilities #2 and #3 would not be conductive to archaeological evidence in the New World of any contact.

Not all theories can reasonably be tested. That doesn't mean they can't be true :)

Lack of physical evidence cripples any hypothesis. One can use epidemiology to narrow the field a bit, though...

[Wanderer]

Originally posted by Hasnain
"...Muslims were not only in the Americas before Columbus arrived, but very active there as well. "


Active enough for there to be genetic evidence ?