(August 10, 2012 at 10:28 pm)Sami_23 Wrote: Like I promised, I was going to create a thread that has never been discussed here (I haven't searched but it probably hasn't since most threads here are about God/truth or lies or morals of the Quran). This thread is more about History. That's right, I'm talking about America. Did you know Muslims actually discovered America or influenced Columbus and Amerigo (the other explorer)?
Did you also know that America was most likely named after Richard ap Meryk (Amerike or Ameryk), the 15th-century English merchant who sponsored John Cabot's expedition to Newfoundland and whose surname appeared on early maps? Granted, it's not widely accepted, being regarded as revisionism, but new lands were generally given the surname of their discoverer or the patron of the expedition; e.g. the Cook Islands, Tasmania (named after Dutch explorer Abel Tasman - prior to that it was called Van Diemen's Land, named in honour of Anthony van Diemen, the Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies and Tasman's sponsor) and others. Given this tradition, there seems much more credence in America being named in honour of Ameryk than the more famous Amerigo Vespucci, which ought to have resulted in the name Vespuccia or similar for the new continent.
But you're talking history. Please, carry on.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
