Muslims discovered the Americas more than three centuries before Christopher Columbus.
Muslims discovered the Americas more than three centuries before Christopher Columbus, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said. He made the claim during a conference of Latin American Muslim leaders in Istanbul, pointing to a diary entry in which Columbus mentioned a mosque on a hill in Cuba. Mr Erdogan also said "Muslim sailors arrived in America in 1178". He said he was willing to build a mosque at the site Columbus identified. The Turkish president - whose AK Party is rooted in political Islam - gave no further evidence to back up his theory, instead stating: "Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th Century." Controversial article Columbus is widely believed to have discovered the Americas in 1492, while trying to find a new route to India. But in a disputed article published in 1996, historian Youssef Mroueh said Columbus' entry was proof that Muslims had reac...