土耳其總統稱穆斯林先於哥倫布發現美洲大陸
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Saturday that the Americas were discovered by Muslims in the 12th century, nearly three centuries before Christopher Columbus set foot there.
"Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus," the conservative president said in a televised speech during an Istanbul summit of Muslim leaders from Latin America.
"Muslim sailors arrived in America from 1178. Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast," Erdogan said.
Erdogan said that Ankara was even prepared to build a mosque at the site mentioned by the Genoese explorer.
"I would like to talk about it to my Cuban brothers. A mosque would go perfectly on the hill today," the Turkish leader said.
History books say that Columbus set foot on the American continent in 1492 as he was seeking a new maritime route to India.
A tiny minority of Muslim scholars have recently suggested a prior Muslim presence in the Americas, although no pre-Columbian ruin of an Islamic structure has ever been found.
In a controversial article published in 1996, historian Youssef Mroueh refers to a diary entry from Columbus that mentions a mosque in Cuba. But the passage is widely understood to be a metaphorical reference to the shape of the landscape.土耳其總統埃爾多安近日稱，穆斯林在12世紀發現了美洲大陸，比哥倫布踏足該地早了近三個世紀。
“拉丁美洲和伊斯蘭世界的聯繫可追溯到12世紀。1178年，穆斯林發現了美洲大陸，先於哥倫布。”這位保守黨總統在伊斯坦布爾召開的拉丁美洲穆斯林領導人峯會上發表了以上的電視講話。
“穆斯林船員在1178年發現了美洲大陸，哥倫布曾提到古巴海岸的一座山上有清真寺。”埃爾多安說道。
埃爾多安說，首都安卡拉甚至準備根據這位熱那亞探險者的位置描述，在原地修建一座清真寺。
埃爾多安說：“我想對古巴‘兄弟們’說，如今那座山上也將建起一座清真寺。”
史書記載，哥倫布在尋找前往印度的新航線途中，於1492年登陸美洲大陸。
但有少數穆斯林學者近來提出美洲很早就出現穆斯林的觀點，然而到目前還未發現先於哥倫布時代的伊斯蘭建築。
1996年，歷史學家尤瑟夫·莫拉赫（Youssef Mroueh ）發表了一篇有爭議的文章，當中引述哥倫布的日記裏一則稱在古巴看到清真寺的內容，但是人們普遍認爲這是一種地形比喻。
