Muslims Discovered America

I found this article linked at a wonderful wacky weird news site, but since this is a BBC story it has to be true.....well it is actually because I blogged about this before. The contention was that the Chinese had discovered North America.
A book making that claim was published back in 2003.

Jan. 7, 2003 | On March 15, 2002, Gavin Menzies, a retired Royal Navy submarine commanding officer, made a speech at the Royal Geographical Society in London that tipped a number of sacred cows. Menzies declared that the Chinese -- traveling on a fleet of ships under the auspices of Emperor Zhu Di -- had reached America 70 years before Columbus. They had also, he posited, seen Australia 350 years before Captain Cook and explored the Magellan Straits 60 years before Magellan was born. In fact, our long-mythologized European explorers, Menzies said, relied on maps provided by the Chinese. In other words, the heroes of the West were slowpokes and copycats.

And back last summer this controversy got added fuel from a Canadian angle.

Of course there are several other claims about who discovered North America, the Vikings, St. Brendan, and of course the Knights Templars.

Three years later and no less an establishment publication than the Economist revives the Chinese discovered America claim. But wait it gets better because the actual discovery was supposedly made by a Chinese Muslim, Zung He.

It seems more likely that the world and all its continents were discovered by a Chinese admiral named Zheng He, whose fleets roamed the oceans between 1405 and 1435. His exploits, which are well documented in Chinese historical records, were written about in a book which appeared in China around 1418 called “The Marvellous Visions of the Star Raft”.

Now we know why the Bush regime is whipping up Anti-Muslim Hysteria they don't want folks to know that Muslims discovered America before the Mormons ancestors.

I mean the U.S. is already in debt to both China and the Suadi's imagine if they also claimed property rights to the U.S.A. Then they would have to change their motto to In Allah We Trust.

China map lays claim to Americas

BBC News January 15, 2006

The map clearly shows the Americas and Africa Photo:The Economist/PA Enlarge Image

A map due to be unveiled in Beijing and London next week may lend weight to a theory a Chinese admiral discovered America before Christopher Columbus.

The map, which shows North and South America, apparently states that it is a 1763 copy of another map made in 1418.

If true, it could imply Chinese mariners discovered and mapped America decades before Columbus' 1492 arrival.

The map, which is being dated to check it was made in 1763, faces a lot of scepticism from experts.

Chinese characters written beside the map say it was drawn by Mo Yi Tong and copied from a map made in the 16th year of the Emperor Yongle, or 1418.

It clearly shows Africa and Australia.

The British Isles, however, are not marked.

Controversial claim

The map was bought for about $500 from a Shanghai dealer in 2001 by a Chinese lawyer and collector, Liu Gang.

According to the Economist magazine, Mr Liu only became aware of the map's potential significance after he read a book by British author Gavin Menzies.

The book, 1421: The Year China discovered the World, made the controversial claim that a Chinese admiral and eunuch, Zheng He, sailed around the world and discovered America on the way.

Zheng He, a Muslim mariner and explorer, is widely thought to have sailed around South East Asia and India, but the claim he visited America is hotly disputed.

The map is now being tested to check the age of its paper and ink, with the results due to be known in February.

Even if it does prove to have been drawn in 1763, sceptics will point out that we still only have the mapmaker's word that he copied if from a 1418 map, rather than from a more recent one.

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