And here is somebody who would benefit greatly from taking my course on Hispanic Civilization:
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is venturing into alternative history. Speaking to a summit of Latin American Islamic leaders in Istanbul, he said that: “Contacts between Latin America and Islam date back to the 12th century. Muslims discovered America in 1178, not Christopher Columbus,” Erdogan said. “Muslim sailors arrived in America from 1178. Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast.”
Spanish conquerors struggled with describing the lands they found to people back home. They constantly compared what they saw with things that readers back home would recognize. Imagine, for instance, that you get to travel to a different galaxy and discover a civilization that is very different from yours. Wouldn’t you be likely to describe it to your readers in terms of your shared frame of reference? Wouldn’t you be likely to say, “It’s as high as the Empire State Building” or “It is shaped like the Eiffel Tower”? Well, that’s precisely what Columbus and the rest of the conquerors did.
Here is what Columbus is said to have written in his diary (the diary itself hasn’t been preserved. We only have a retelling of the diary):
Señala la disposición del río y del puerto que arriba dijo y nombró San Salvador, que tiene sus montañas hermosas y altas como la Peña de los Enamorados, y una de ellas tiene encima otro montecillo a manera de una hermosa mezquita. (Translation: Remarking on the position of the river and port, to which he gave the name of San Salvador, he describes its mountains as lofty and beautiful, like the Peña de los Enamorados, and one of them has another little hill on its summit, like a graceful mosque.)
Obviously, there was no mosque in the “New World.” But there were mosques aplenty back in Spain, which was the country that sponsored Columbus’s journey and was awaiting his report on the findings of the expedition.
Clarissa's Blog 
Isn’t he kind of forgetting that people were already living there before 1178 and therefore Muslims could no more “discover” America than I could “discover” my neighbour’s living room?
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The choice of words shows a lot of things about societies and power dynamics. Thank you ladyleahjane for the warning, I feel ashamed but I’ve never thought about the “discovery” of America from that point of view. What expression would you suggest instead?
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Oh, you’re welcome!
I always use “encounter” to describe Columbus coming to America. I got the idea after reading Isabel Altamirano’s book, Indigenous Encounters with Neoliberalism.
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“Encounter” sounds really cool :)! However it would be pretty strange if I used it (as a person who never entered the American continent in her life). So I’m thinking about the “European conquer of the American continent”. Or maybe the word “conquer” sounds bad… I don’t know I have to think about it more.
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“I always use “encounter” to describe Columbus coming to America”
I say ‘discovered’ in everyday usage, despite the problematic nature. In more formal settings I’m liable to say “opened for European colonization” (since that was the practical effect).
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““Encounter” sounds really cool :)! However it would be pretty strange if I used it (as a person who never entered the American continent in her life). So I’m thinking about the “European conquer of the American continent”. Or maybe the word “conquer” sounds bad… I don’t know I have to think about it more.”
Well, if you want an idea of some books to read on the topic, I put together a list for you. I’ve been meaning to post a review of The Inconvenient Indian on my blog for some time, but I’ve been swamped with grad school.
Here’s the list:
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Erdogan also “said he was willing to build a mosque at the site Columbus identified.”
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I bet he is. Building mosques is one of the big priorities of his government though most of them (in the places I’ve been) remain pretty empty, even on Fridays.
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