Let me also mention that the mathematical advances ongoing in the Muslim world during the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries by people like Alkhawrizmi, the Al-Zarqali, known in the West as Arzachel, who was an astronomer per excellence and who invented a flat astrolabe which is known as Safihah. This is then is the stage that would fuel further learning and sharing of information throughout the Muslim world.
Islam spreads to Spain
At about 711 C.E. – Muslims entered the Iberian peninsula and entered into modern Portugal and Spain. Evidence – is the name Portugal and Gibraltar. Tariq landed on a Jabbal – “Jabbal Tariq” – that is known to us as Gibraltar. Muslim Spain had a civilization unparalleled in Europe.
African Muslims journey to America
One of the places that Muslim went into was the Pacific and contrary to a little bit of knowledge that we know about Muslim our own presence in this part of the world……yet Muslims went into the Pacific Ocean during the Ummayad period.
Just within 100 yrs after the death of the prophet (SAW) – they went into a set of region and they found a set of Islands and it was windy area and so they called them “Juzuu-el-hawa” – Hawa – air wind and so Juzu-l-hawa becomes Hawai. They traveled to parts of the world that you may not be aware of and one could ask how could a man coming from the Arabs who at that time treasured their language but did not treasure technology – how could they have done this? But we recognize that the dark ages of Europe when the lights of civilization went off after the fall of the Roman Empire – this was the Golden age of Islam and Muslims between the 8th – 14th century.
It is during this Golden age of Islam that Muslims excelled in all the discipline and became master seamen, astronomers, navigators, geographers, historians, scientists, physicians, chemists, etc. In almost every discipline – we found that the Muslims were the ones who laid the foundation for this civilization.
Knowledge of Maps and Astronomy:
Africans unlike commonly thought were smart and intelligent people. During the great age of exploration - navigators were severely handicapped because they had no instrument by which they could find longitude at sea. The chronometer was not developed until 250 years later. Latitude could be determined by astronomical observations, but without proper training and equipment, many errors were made. It is these astronomical knowledge that Muslims were generally masters of and one, which was shared freely within the Muslim world and cultures including African Muslim Cultures such that mistakes in navigation and oceanography were minimal
The author of the map, Piri Muhyid Din Re’ wrote a handbook on navigation in the Aegean and the Mediterranean Seas, which was known as Pir Re’ is Bahriye.
The Hadji Ahmed world map of 1559 was amazingly accurate and the Americas (North and South) are presented surprisingly in a very modern look and were drawn on a highly sophisticated spherical projection.
Hadji Ahmed and Piri Re’I were both Muslim Turks and the Moors and other Muslims of Andalusia played a major role in the preservation of ancient maps. It was the writing of the 12th century Muslim Scholar Al-Idrisi that provided Europeans of their first glimpses of what Muslim travelers knew.
Language:
Al-Sharif al Idrisi (1097-1155) the famous Muslim (Arab) geographer reported in his extensive work The Geography of Al Idrisis in the 12th century, on the journey of a group of North African seamen who reached the Americas. Al Idrisis tells that a group of seafarers sailed into the sea of Darkness and Fog (the Atlantic Ocean) from Lisbon in order to discover what was in it and to what extent were its limits. They were a party of eight and they finally reached an island that had people and cultivation but they were captured a translator came speaking the Arabic language! He translated for the King and asked them about their mission. They were told that 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 could speak Arabic!
And so Ancient America was not isolated from the old world, as many historians would have us believe. Knowledge, agricultural products, livestock and other commercial items were exchanged between the two worlds, and Muslims were probably one of the most important contact people before Columbus’ voyage.
Evidence leading to the presence of Muslims in the ancient Americas comes from a number of sculptures, oral traditions, eyewitness reports, artifacts, and inscriptions. In Meso-American art we see Africans and Semites in positions of power and prestige, especially in trading communities of Mexico.
We see reports about certain economic icons and realities and a report in Before Columbus by Cyrus Gordon describes coins found in the southern Caribbean region of African origin dating back to around the 700 to 800’s.
It is also reported that a Moorish ship, perhaps from North Africa and possibly Spain seems to have crossed the Atlantic around 800 AD.
These coins are solid confirmation of the historical reports recorded by Muslim historians and geographers concerning the journeys of Muslim adventures and navigators across the Atlantic Ocean. In Muruj adhDhabab Al Mas’udi the famous geographer in the year 956 CE wrote about a young man of Cordoba named Khashkhash ibn saeed ibn Aswad who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and returned in the year 889 CE
Despite the numerous voyages undertaken by the Muslims of Spain and North Africa, their contact remained limited and fairly secretive.
In my opinion and that of Dr. Quick is that the most significant wave of Muslim explorers and traders came from the West African Islamic Empire of Mali. When Mansa Musa, the world renowned ruler of Mali, was enroot to Makkah during his famous pilgrimage in 1324, he informed the scholars of Cairo that his predecessor had undertaken two expeditions into the Atlantic Ocean in order to discover its limits. Al ‘Umari in his Masalik al Absar fi Mamalik al Amsar reported from his informant the following:
“I asked the Sultan Musa, says Ibn Amir Hajib, how it was that
power came into his hands. ‘We are’, he told me, ‘from a house
that transmits power by heritage. The ruler who preceded me
would not believe that it was impossible to discover the limits of the
neighboring sea. 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.
Finally a sole ship reappeared. We asked the captain about their
adventures.’ ‘Prince’, he replied, ‘we sailed far 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 other 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 and left with his companions on the ocean.
This was the last time that I saw him and the others, and I remained
Absolute master of the empire.”
This report reveals that the Mandika monarch made great preparation for the journey and had confidence in its success. His captain, who reported the violent river in mid-ocean, must have encountered a mid-ocean current. This current was either the North Equatorial or the Antilles current, either of whose distances from the West African coast at the latitude would place the fleet at the doorstep of the Americas.
Then came the argument by many scholars who have tried to prove the impossibility of African people crossing the Atlantic Ocean successfully before Columbus.
Two voyages across the Atlantic by Thor Heyerdahl in papyrus vessels, inscriptions found in Brazil, Peru and the United States, proven linguistic transfer into the native Amerindian languages, and numerous cultural evidences of Mandinka presence have established the contrary. Thor Heyerdahl in the 60s took a boat and went across by himself in a boat made of papyrus and he showed that you can get across the Atlantic with a Boat made of indigenous African Material and you don’t have to be on the Nina, Pinto and Santa Maria of Christopher Columbus.
The Mandinka made contact with the closest land mass to the West African coast, Brazil using water currents that exist between West Africa and the Coast of Brazil. They appear to have used it as a base for exploration of the Americas and traveled along rivers in the dense jungles of South America and overland till they reached North America. The following is part of a study done by Clyde Ahmad Winters on “the influence of the Mande languages on America”.
Many of the Mandinka (or Manding) cities of stone and mortar have been reclaimed by the jungle but a large number of these cities were seen by the early Spanish explorers and banderiristas (land pirates).
It also seems that Manding explores under the Mansa’s instructions explored many parts of North America. This is evident from the appearance of mounds throughout the United States, especially in the vicinity of the Mississippi river, which they used for exploring America.
In Arizona, they left inscriptions, which show that the Manding explorers also brought a number of elephants of America with them. Writings and pictographs found in a cave at Four Corners, Arizona discuss the characteristics of the desert. Inscriptions reading:
[The desert is hot. Birds are numerous white…(ka)…and called go].
[The elephants are sick and angry. At present sick elephants are considerable].
Some of the Muslim Africans of Honduras called themselves “Almamys” prior to the coming of the Spaniards. In the Mandinka language ‘Almamy’ was used for Al Imamu – prayer leader or chieftain.
Another part of the pre-Colombian African hereditary legacy is what was left with the Carib people from whose name we derive the word ‘Caribbean’. One of their scholars wrote in The Daily Clarion of Belize on November 5, 1946, “When Christopher Columbus discovered the west Indies about the year 1493, he found there a race of white peiole (i.e. half breeds) with wooly hair whom he called Caribs. They were seafaring hunters and tillers of the soil, peaceful and united. They hated aggression. Their religion was Mohammedanism and their language presumably Arabic.”
These people were thought to be the descendents pf the early Mandinka Muslims who came across from Africa – they call themselves “Garifuna people” Many of these people are Muslims.
The Black Caribs, also had a number of clearly Islamic practices like the complete prohibition of the eating of the flesh of swine.
Islamic words having a West-African, Mandinka root have been found in native languages not only in the Caribbean region but also in North America.
The renowned American historian and linguist, Leo Weiner of Harvard
University in 1920 wrote a controversial but well documented work entitled “Africa and the Discovery of America”. He proved in it that Columbus was well aware of the Mandinka presence and that the West African Muslims had not only spread throughout the Caribbean, Central and South America, but they reached Canada and were trading and intermarrying with the Iroquosis and Algonquin Indian nations!
Not only was the knowledge of the presence of Muslims in the Americas known by early Spanish and Portuguese explorers, but Muslim geographical and navigational information actually was the foundation of the European expansion. Vasco de Gama is reported to have consulted with Ahmad ibn Majid on the West coast of Africa. Ibn Majid is regarded as the author of a handbook on navigation on the Indian Ocean, the Red sea, the Persian Gulf, the Sea of Southern China and the waters around the West Indies.
Barry Fell in his Book “Saga America” explains that they found the writings of many different people in America in pictographs, in caves, on rocks in different parts of America a type of scribbling which they thought was the scribbling of a native people. But Barry Fell and his team came to find out that it was a combination of an ancient Libyan script and Kufik Arabic.
He took this proof to Benghazi and Tripoli Libya and he brought Scholars, UNESCO, Arabic language scholars to investigate the information and astonishing truth of Islamic presence in the South West, in California came to light.
They found an engraving in Nevada in a huge Bed rock saying They found another writing saying “Muhammad nabiullah”.
“Ismu Allah” – the name of Allah.
They found 7th century Kufik writing on the border of Nevada and California saying “Shaytan is the fount of lies” They found another writing saying “Muhammad nabiullah”.
They found these writings all over the SW and they realized that the Native people especially Rock dwelling people who made their structure and dwellings and homes into the sides of mountains - that the configuration of their houses was the same as the houses of the Bedus living in Southern Algeria and Libya and Morocco.
They found designs of the clothing and tattoos on the faces – a number of cultural realities and icons were the same as Muslims leaving in North Africa.
And they found a map an 8th century map and that is where they found Juzul-el-Hawa and the map showed the Hudson bay and it showed Panama and it clearly showed that Muslims in general and African Muslims in particular came and were mapping the US, Mexico down into Central America.
Muslims from Spain come to America
During the Spanish inquisition over 500,000 Muslims and Jews were either killed or had to flee going back to the lands of Islam. Other people who could not take the torture hid their identity and the Jews were called Morenos and Muslims were called Morescos – and it is these people who then comprised of the labor force that came with the Spanish and Portuguese.
They came into this part of the world in large numbers – unfortunately the history books don’t tell us about the presence of these Muslims and you think that Muslims just came recently in the last 40 – 60 years.
In 1527 once again working for the Spanish Asen Mori – a Moroccan Barber was a great explorer and it is reported that a group was sent out from Florida of 300 Spaniards which included this African Muslim and they went from Florida to the West Coast and back to Texas. Only 3 people along with Asen Mori survived – the rest were killed by the natives and it is reported that he was the first person to enter into the Pueblo Indian villages. He is the one that lead the Conquistadors into the SW to help them understand what actually existed in the SW.
Conquistadors were here before the British and they established St Elena in South Carolina in 1566 and it was overrun by the British and the records are now showing that there were hundreds of these Muslim Moroscos who were living in St Elena and instead of submitting to the British – they went into the interior and they mixed with the Native people all in the Carolina area and they settled into the interior.
In South America - in 1586 – the English pirate – Sir Frances Drake commanded 30 English ships and they made a daring raid on Brazil and they liberated 400 Portuguese and Spanish prisoners. Among them – it was reported that 300 or more were Muslims – Moriscos. Frances Drake finally came to America and over 200 of these Moriscos were left on the shore and these people went up into the Mountains and they met the other ones - Moriscos who were now called Mullengeons.
And they settled and intermingled with the Natives living in Carolinas and living in Georgia and they would call themselves Portuguese which then evolved to Gicchi. A lot of the African American Families tended to have a Gicchi related to them. And these people were known in America and certainly the SW. But were did they come from?
Medical Evidence:
A startling research just done in the last few years by Brent Kennedy who was one of these Mullengons. He found that they had a disease called Sarcodiasis and genetically it was linked to the people of the North West Africa and Mediterranean and he was funded in a grant – so he also found that in the middle 1600 that they were people living among the powhatans and related tribes of Eastern Virginia and the Carolinas who were dark skin like Indians but they were called Portuguese
The early 17th century Powhatan Indian description of haven is nearly word for word like the description found in the Quran
Right here in our state - in 1784, Tennessee governor John Seevier records an encounter with people in the Western North Carolina with Dark reddish brown complexion and he said that they were supposed to be of Moorish decent.
In Eastern Tennessee in the late 1700, Jonathan Swits an English men married a Mullungeon women and utilized them in his mining operations and these dark skin individuals were known as Mecca Indians and they described them as being god with Silver crafts and this really comes out of Muslim Spain and Muslims were very good in that. He continues to say that they use to fall down in prayer on the ground a number of times during the day facing East.
Turn then thy face in the direction of the Sacred Mosque; wherever ye are turn your faces in that direction
These early Muslims long before Columbus went up the Mississippi and they made contact with the native people that they came in contact with - Algonquian, Iroquois and Cherokee nation and they mixed with the native inhabitants of this part of the world.
About 6 years ago – a man whose name is Mahir Abdal-Razzaaq El – he is a Cherokee Blackfoot American Indian and a Muslim sent an article to the Muslim publication “The Message” and in it he writes:
“…..there other Muslims in our group. For the most part, not many people are aware of the Native American contact with Islam that began over one thousand years ago by some of the early Muslim travelers who visited us. Some of these Muslim travelers ended up living among our people.
For most Muslims and non-Muslims of today, this type of information is unknown and has never been mentioned in any of the history books”.
Mahir Abdal-Razzaq told us of the many documents, treaties, legislation and resolutions that were passed between 1600s and 1800s that show that Muslims were in fact here and were very active in the communities in which they lived. Treaties such as Peace and Friendship that was signed on the Delaware River in the year 1787 bear the signatures of Abdel-Khak and Muhammad Ibn Abdullah.
All of the documents are presently in the National Archives as well as the Library of Congress. If you have access to records in the state of South Carolina, read the Moors Sundry Act of 1790. Almost all of the tribes vocabulary include the word “Allah”.
Even the dress of these people - If you were to look at any of the old books on Cherokee clothing up until the time of 1832, you will see the men wearing turbans and the women wearing long head coverings. The last Cherokee chief who had a Muslim name was Ramadhan Ibn Wati of the Cherokees in 1866.
Even names of cities that are Cherokee names have an Islamic understanding to them – e.g. Tallahassee - - It means that “He Allah will deliver you sometime in the future”.
So the journeys of Muslims continued but because they were not able to establish themselves and because they were not able to keep the link with the rest of the Muslim world – the link with the knowledge – making Islam relevant to the world that they live in. They lost their identity. Then the conquest of the Spanish Conquistadors who came in and destroyed all form of culture that they found – because of this we have no trace of them except of these few writings of the scholars that now is emerging from different parts of America.
Botanical Evidence:
The botanist have provided further corroborative evidence. The Portuguese were in West Africa, since about 1450, in fact before. The Portuguese found cotton growing plentifully in west Africa and they took this cotton and planted it into the cape Verde islands in 1462. Thirty years before Columbus. They assumed it to be indigenously African. When it was studied in the twentieth centry, they found it was not African, yet it was transplanted to Africa and was growing pentifully there before Columbus. Not only that. We’ve also found zea mays ! Professor M.D.W. Jefferys of Witwaterstrand University, a brilliant South African linguist, showed how American maize had traveled African continent and he traced it down meticulously through linguistic footprints.
And the Russians picked it up as it moved from Africa into Asia. Botanist Kuleshov and Vavilov identified it. They showed that American zea mays had entered Asia before the time of the Columbus voyages.
On the Third voyage also, when Columbus’ ships landed on the northeastern cost of South America, his crewmen describe a certain dress of the identical material and design as the almayzar which the Portuguese found Africans wearing in Guinea. In South America the European visitors found plants brought in through earlier contacts. Take the banana! The banana is not African. It is an Asian cultigen. However, we do not find the banana on the Pacific coast, the “Asiatic side” of south America. It is found in east Peru and along the Amazon—the “Atlantic” side.
The Arabs introduced the Asian banana in their trade with Africa since the twelfth century. They took it out of Asia and introduced it to Africa. All the African, as well as the Arab-African, words for the banana run through the South American languages in recognizable form.
And so all these pieces of evidence including genealogical studies that are now coming out more and more where the geneologists are now saying that anybody coming from the Eastern part of the US whether White, black, Gicchi, mixed, etc that if your last name is Adam, Atkins, Bell, Bennet, Bary, Bowling, Chavez, Coleman, Collins, Gibson, Gowens, Hull, Lopez, More, Mullins, Nash, Robinson, Sexton, and Williams – any one of those names then more than likely – you were Mullengeon which means that originally of Morescos decent and therefore Moorish and Muslim in origin.
But these early Muslims and especially African Muslim went into rough times and persecution and identity crises arouse and as generations went by – these people gave themselves new identities .
Slave Trade and arrival of Islam:
Sylviane Diouf in his book tells us that the Salve trade brought African Muslims in the thousands into North America. When the first Africans were shipped to the New world, beginning in 1501, Islam was already well established in West Africa
Scattered across every region of the Americas, the Muslims entered a hostile world – a world that enslaved free Muslim men and women; a white Christian world determined to wipe out any trace of paganism or “Muhammadinism” in the newly arrived Africans.
It was essential that the new land become Christian as quickly as possible, because evangelization was a large part of the justification for the enslavement of the Africans. Also the fight against the possible spread of Islam had been an intense preoccupation in the Spanish colonies since the beginning of the 16th century.
All the conditions were therefore present for a rapid disappearance of Islam in America. Some of these Muslims did survive the onslaught of Christian persecution.
"Given the fact that many people perceive Islam to be a relatively new entity in America, it is very important to let people know that the history extends across 7 centuries. It's exciting knowledge and very revolutionary. So many Muslims have paved the way for this America we know. It is our obligation to make people aware that Muslims helped to build this country and therefore are a part of the mosaic of this country.
Africa and the Discovery of America - By Leo Weiner
African Presence in Early America – By Ian Van Sertima
Saga America – By Barry Fell
Servants of Allah – By Sylvianne Diouf
