Why Muslims are under rated.

[cratehorus]

I made no claims, simply pointed out the claims,which according to the evidence may or may not be true.I think it's unlikely, but who knows?

If somebody shows up with evidence that any other culture or nation discovered America, before the Vikings, it would be documented. There are plenty of archeologists and anthropologists who would love to discover evidence of that, but nobody has. If you're going to beleive unproven consipracy theories you might as well beleive the earliest one, which is the Egyptians and leave it at that.

[Minimalist]

There are constant reports of Roman amphorae being found along the Brazilian coast from shipwrecks. Amphorae were the cargo containers of the day and were ubiquitous at sea. They could be sealed to prevent the contents from being fouled by sea water. Both the Romans and the Carthaginians for centuries before them traveled to the Atlantic coast both to Britain and down the Moroccan coasts for commerce.

It is is simply not impossible that an occasional ship would be disabled by equipment failure or driven by a storm out into the Atlantic. It must be understood that these ships were not designed for open ocean sailing. The hugged the coast and put into shore for the night, to a port if one was available or a bay if not. The crews would forage for food and water. Because of the trade winds a ship could easily end up on the rocks in the Americas. Whether or not anyone would be left alive is problematic. The ships were generally small and had crews of only a few men. Once the water ran out their survival would have been doubtful.

The one thing that is certain is that the trade winds would have prevented them from returning.

This model is fairly representative of the class of vessel we are talking about.

[Anomalocaris]

I think there were evidence roman commercial vessels were able to undertake multi-day trips across the mediterranean, say from the Aegean to Alexandrea, almost entirely out of sight of land.

It would be with roman technical capability to sail on a beam reach down Mauritanian coast of Africa to Guinea and there sail large and cross on the trade wind over to Recife in brazil. The crossing would be less than twice the distance from Aegean to Alexandrea.

As for the return journey, it takes a greater stretch of imagination, but they can sail south on a beam reach until they hit the westerlies, and there cross back to east to south Africa or nimibian coast, and there follow the easterly trade around to gulf of guinea, and then sail up on a beam reach to canaries, and there tack slightly to Portugal.

[jonb]

Why Muslims are under rated. Is it because of a tendency to underestimate how central that civilisation was to human development, an go off on fanciful speculations that even if true would have no outstanding effect on how we see history?

[orogenicman]

Addendum; To be fair, I did some Googling. I got bored after the first two. Make up your own minds. Sounds a lot like crackpottery of the first degree to me. Can't wait for Min's opinion (assuming he can be bothered)

Barry fell a bad Archaologist? I can't comment on that because I don't really know about his work (except for muslim discovering america stuff). That same link seems to suggest he is an influential character.

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@Minimalist, fair enough. I don't know how to argue against that because I don't really know that much about Mr. Fell. What do you think of Jerald Dirks and Dr. Robert Dickson Crane?

According to Wikipedia"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Fell

Barry Fell (born Howard Barraclough Fell) (June 6, 1917 – April 21, 1994) was a professor of invertebrate zoology at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. His primary research was on starfish and sea urchins.

He was not an archaeologist, bad or otherwise.

[Minimalist]

I think there were evidence roman commercial vessels were able to undertake multi-day trips across the mediterranean, say from the Aegean to Alexandrea, almost entirely out of sight of land.

It would be with roman technical capability to sail on a beam reach down Mauritanian coast of Africa to Guinea and there sail large and cross on the trade wind over to Recife in brazil. The crossing would be less than twice the distance from Aegean to Alexandrea.

As for the return journey, it takes a greater stretch of imagination, but they can sail south on a beam reach until they hit the westerlies, and there cross back to east to south Africa or nimibian coast, and there follow the easterly trade around to gulf of guinea, and then sail up on a beam reach to canaries, and there tack slightly to Portugal.

There was this little dust up a few years ago when a Roman wreck was discovered in deep water...

http://www.uticaod.com/news/x358806665/G...-mile-deep

Two Roman-era shipwrecks have been found in deep water off a western Greek island, challenging the conventional theory that ancient shipmasters stuck to coastal routes rather than risking the open sea, an official said Tuesday.

The next paragraph points out that the wrecks were found between Corfu and Italy. Well....



That's a pretty easy hop across the Strait of Otronto and it would have been stupid to sail all the way up and around the Adriatic coast to get to south Italy. Of course, as those captains probably learned, if a storm comes up on you while you are out there you are pretty well screwed. To a degree the seamanship of the captain would have been paramount. An experienced sea captain may have well risked sailing in a full moon period. As long as you can see water breaking over any potential shoals it should have been safe enough.

Now, granted there were huge grain carriers operating between Carthage and Rome in the Imperial period but the Romans would have had no cause to expose those ships to the Atlantic. They were far too necessary to maintaining the food supply in the capital. While military vessels may have had the capability to remain at sea for longer periods of time it is also true that when Pompey the Great campaigned against the Cilician pirates he did it by conquering the land they were based in - not by sinking every individual pirate ship.

As for getting back...we know NOW where the westerlies are. They would have had no such information.

Finally, there is nothing in the record which indicates that anyone ever claimed to have made such a trip.

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Sorry - I don't know how to make that picture smaller.

[C.W. Sims]

Also did you know that Native Americans/Cherokees were originally Muslims?

GOOD GOD! Has anyone told the Mormons about this? Someone run out and find one, please, they have to know they got it all wrong. It wasn't Jesus that visited America, it was Muhammad on a flying horse! It wasn't Jews that settled here, it was Muslims. For fuck's sake!

[Minimalist]

GOOD GOD! Has anyone told the Mormons about this? Someone run out and find one

Here's one.

[Oldandeasilyconfused]

Tradition would, if not actually dictate, then strongly suggest the new land should take the surname of either the discoverer or the bloke paying for the privilege. As for evidence, I can only fight Wiki with Wiki:

The key word is 'suggest, [imply] and I agree. However,an implication is not proof. Consequently I'll stick with conventional history until I have seen some proof to the contrary.

[Sami_23]

GOOD GOD! Has anyone told the Mormons about this? Someone run out and find one, please, they have to know they got it all wrong. It wasn't Jesus that visited America, it was Muhammad on a flying horse! It wasn't Jews that settled here, it was Muslims. For fuck's sake!

Read this:

The last Cherokee's chief (1866) with a Muslim name was --- Ramadhan Ibn Wati. Ramadhan Ibn Wati(popularly known as Stand Watie [1806-71]), who served as a Confederate brigadier general, surrendered his command to the United States on June 23, 1865.

His son Saladin Watie served on Southern Cherokee delegation to Washington, D.C. to sign a new treaty with the United States at the end of Civil War. He died mysteriously at the age of twenty-one. (Saladin is an anglicized name for Salahuddin, the famous Muslim Sultan who liberated Jerusalem from the crusaders in 1187).

Cities across the United States and Canada bear names that are of Indian and Islamic derivation. The name Tallahassee is alleged to have Islamic roots with the word Allah being used. In Cherokee, we refer to ourselves as Ani Getowagi or 'I am a township person " Which is 90% Arabic.

A native American Muslim told us there is a city in Arizona called "Allah".

Perhaps the greatest evidence of Islam amongst the native Americans is in the usage of the personal Holy name of the Lord of Abraham - Allah.

There is no way they could have used the word "ALLAH" unless they had direct contact with Islam since the Holy name of God has been lifted from everyone else.

Not all Indian tribes were following the faith of Islam as we can see from the customs and beliefs which are a part of native history.

GOOD GOD! Has anyone told the Mormons about this? Someone run out and find one, please, they have to know they got it all wrong. It wasn't Jesus that visited America, it was Muhammad on a flying horse! It wasn't Jews that settled here, it was Muslims. For fuck's sake!

Also read this

Familial Mediterranean Fever, thallasemia and Machado Joseph Disease (also know as Azorean Disease) are all strong indicators that Melungeons are indeed of mixed Middle Eastern, North African Arab and African descent.

Even if historians never took seriously the Melungeon claim to be Portuguese or Moorish(Spanish Muslim), the medical and genetic work cannot be so easily dismissed.

The descendants of the Melungeon people are everywhere, especially those who have ancestors from the SE US, of any race with the following surnames: Adams, Adkins, Bell, Bennett, Berry, Bowling, Chavis, Coleman, Collins, Gibson, Goins, Hall, Jackson, Lopes, Moore, Mullins, Nash, Robinson, Sexton and Williams. As a result of continuing research, several American celebrities have recently discovered their Melungeon roots.

Many Melungeons are excited to learn that, though they themselves are Christians, their ancestors were Muslims, and what they accomplished.

This realization put into better focus the prejudices that their people have suffered, not only the older members of their families, but still living ones.

A Melungeon lady suffering because of the dark color of her skin, or a Melungeon male being attacked by two men in Blacksburg VA in 1980 because they thought he was Iranian, or another being detained as a suspected Palestinian at an Israeli border crossing while visiting the Holy Land with his family. All these things have impact, and point out the insanity of prejudice based on one's physical characteristics.

The Melungeons were Americans and Christians.

But it did not matter, because the rest of World was caught up in its preset prejudices.

The Melungeons experience shows that even if kinship may not be seen on the surface, its there.

The Melungeons - victims of an early form of ethnic cleansing- are the ancestors of a significant number of present day Americans.