A Tale Before Columbus: Part 2

Over a year ago, I compiled some facts and wrote an article entitled A Tale Before Columbus. You can read it here. Since, the article has been read countless times and has become references to a few websites including answers.com and wikipedia. Here, I'd like to compile a few more articles from various websites and blogs to further proof the existence of Muslims in America, centuries before Christopher Columbus.

Firstly, I'd like to point out that there are 526 towns in America that have Muslim names. These include Alhambra, Medina, Mecca, Tallahassee, and Palestine. Whether or not this means that Arabs were once residents of those places respectively or not is yet to be confirmed. But heck, why would Americans want to name their cities with Muslim names?

Now for the archaeological evidence. Findings of coins. Take a look at this one for instance:


The coins bearing the shahada, were found by construction workers working on a road in Massachusetts in 1787 and were dated way back to the 8-10th century Samarkand. This founding further proved people of that time and place had been to those areas before.

Berry Fell, a distinguished Harvard professor of marine biology and writer of Saga America has done countless researches and discoveries that proves this theory. He bases his conclusion that there were Muslim schools in the seventh and eighth centuries in Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, and Indiana on findings unearthed in archeological excavations. These findings are writings and drawings on rocks and tablets that bear the name of Allah and Muhammad. Among them are as shown below:


In the first picture above, you can obviously see the name Muhammad scripted on it (third line) and the second picture says Syaitan Maha Mayan, or the devil is the source of all lies.

Other than that there were also similarities between Berber buildings from Northern Africa with that of buildings in New Mexico. One such building is the Castle of Montezuma built by the Sinagua people. Here is a building from northern Africa.


This may sound a bit surprising to you, but check this out:


It says Malaca haji mi Malaya. Whatever that means. I don't want to jump to any conclusions on this one.

The Muslims that traveled to the new world during that time not only came here to trade, but they also set up communities and stayed here. Some even ended up marrying the natives here. They preached the natives about Islam and their high moral values would no doubt attract those peace lovings natives towards Islam (as in the case of Melaka). Many native tribes converted to Islam as their chiefs converted. Sequoyah, the inventor of the Cherokee alphabet wore a turban. Is this just coincidence? You tell me.Further proof that there were Native American Muslim tribes around is a revelation of a letter from Mahir Abdal-Razzaaq, an American Cherokee Muslim. Read it here. The last Muslim Cherokee Chief was Ramadhan Ibn Wati in 1866.

Adding to all this, I found some native American teachings that resembles to Islamic teaching. You can read them here. Among them, 'The Indian was a religious man from his mother's womb', which is as close to what Prophet Muhammad said, "No baby is born but upon fitrah (Muslim). It is his parents who make him a Jew or Christian or a Ployeist." Sahih Muslim. Other similar teachings include those regarding the treatment of orphans and women.

Here is an article of which I don't know the author but based on the context it is very unlikely by a Muslim, rather, probably by an African American. Read it here. You might want to copy paste the article in a Word document for easier reading. The article confirms the role played by Africans in discovering America. It mentioned the name of Sultan Abubakari of the Mandiga Mali Empire who lead voyages across the Atlantic towards America (I mentioned this in the first version). However, as the author was presumably not Muslim, it failed to account that the Sultan was indeed a Muslim.

With such a large Muslim community in America, it is hence possible that some tribes, presumably those of natives American, were actually North African Muslims tribes. Many tribes have names that sound similar to Arabic, take the Algonquin or the Anasazi for example. So it's not impossible for this confusion to happen.

Other than that, even Columbus recorded on 21 October 1492 that he had noticed a mosque on top of a mountain while sailing around Cibara on the northeast coast of Cuba. Relics of mosques carrying Qur’anic inscriptions on their minarets have been found in Cuba, Mexico, Texas, and Nevada since these times. Columbus also described some natives as Muhammadians, i.e very Arab-like. Not to mention, at least two crew members of Columbus's were Muslim. They were captains of Nina and Pinta respectively, brothers Vicente Yanez Pinzon and Martin Alonso Pinzon, descendants from Sultan Abu Zayan Muhammad III (1362-66) of Morocco.

Here's something I came up with, and I have no further proof to back it up yet. It came to me, 'Why were the Europeans so ruthless and violent in killing innocent natives and stripping off their lands? Had the natives attacked these settlers? No. Text books say that the Europeans were greedy. But I think theres more to just plain old greed.


Similar to the incident in Melaka 1511, when the Europeans landed in America, they were well received by the locals (same as in Melaka) as Islam teaches it's followers to honor to it's visitors. But these Europeans, having lost the Crusade, had always been carrying their vengeance towards the Muslim World. Hence, if so the Native Americans were Muslim, these Europeans would carry that same vengeance towards them as well. I mean, look at what they did to Melaka. That should explain some of the slaughter of the natives.

If the theory that Muslims from Africa were the original explorers of America doesn't convince you, what about Muslims from China? And who am I talking about here? I'm talking about Zheng He, or his Muslim name, Hajji Mahmud Shams. Just take a look at his armada!


His ship is the gigantic one. And whose tiny ship is the other one? That inferior ship my friend, is the Santa Maria of Christopher Columbus. It is said that the ship was capable of carrying thousands of crew, as narrated by Ibnu Battuta and Marco Polo. With such knowledge of the sea, you would have to reckon that China has the capability, the knowledge, expertise and man power to lead themselves to unknown territory. And some historians do say that. This includes Gavin Menzies in his book; 1421, The Year China Discovered the World. This may answer the scribblings of Malaca Haji Mi Malaya above. We all know that China and Melaka had very close relationships and the trade routes that existed between the two East Asian powerhouse. So it is no surprise if, among the thousands of crew members aboard Zheng He's ship was a person from the Sultanate of Malacca. And to their credit, the Malays were once great seafarers, colonizing as far as New Zealand and Hawaii!

Most of history as we know it today are Eurocentric because of the power and influnce the West had and still have over the world. Most of the rich Islamic history were abandoned and forgotten all together. Heck, some don't even know that Islam once had it's golden ages for centuries sometime during the Medieval Years. So it's up to us to uncover that past.

For more information, you can go to here, here and here.