What's this about Columbus having several Muslim
sailors aboard! I've read several accounts of Columbus and nary a mention of Muslim/Moorish sailors. Christian Priests,yes.We know Muslim terrorists want to hijack our planes but our history also...

Posted by: Morgane at August 23, 2004 7:50 AM

Why is Islam even being mentioned in our public schools? This is a no no.

The Department of Education should be written to. This should also be covered on every news sourse that will cover it. If Christian kids get suspended for putting up Nativity Scenes, then the lying, false religion of Islam should be barred.

Church and State are seperate, and that means for Muslims too. Again, the Dept. of Education needs to be contacted, because some of these teachers and administrators are out of control.

Posted by: DCWatson at August 23, 2004 7:59 AM

"Dunn hoped to find an Islamic nation he could use as an example of where women have rights more like those in the United States, to dispel some misconceptions".

Is this fu*king liberal moron kidding,Islam considers women to be on the same level as domestic animals.

These politically correct a$$holes make me want to puke.

Posted by: Son of Infidel at August 23, 2004 8:08 AM

Well, it IS in the home state of John F-ing Kerry, the Liberal bastion (strike that, crumbling pylon) of the nation.

Posted by: Gary at August 23, 2004 8:33 AM

What to say about this revisionism and indoctrination? Well, it's happening in more than one location.

Has anybody out there read "The Servants of Allah: African Muslims Enslaved in the Americas" by Sylviane A. Diouf? It is catalogued under African-American Studies, I believe. Twenty copies of this book were placed by CAIR into the Fairfax County [Virginia] Public Library on January 12, 2004. The following are some details on the book:

First paragraph (page 1, in the introduction, entitled "An Understudied Presence and Legacy"): "For three hundred and fifty years, Muslim men, women, children...were sold in the New World. They were among the very first Africans to be shipped, and among the very last....Islam was also the first revealed religion freely followed--as opposed to imposed Christianity--by the Africans who were transported to the New World."

On page 3: "African Muslims arrived in the Americas with a tradition of Arabic literacy that they struggled to preserve. After years of study in Koranic schools and centers of higher learning, they refused to let enslavement turn them into mere beasts of burden. They kept on reading the Koran and writing in Arabic, and they even established schools. Their literacy not only set them apart from most slaves and many slaveholders but became the basis of their disproportionate influence in slave communities and, in some instances, their key to freedom....
"Well organized and a galvanizing force, Islam in America was the catalyst of revolt and insubordination. It played a major part in the most elaborate slave uprisings and was the motivating force that sent freed men and women back to Africa."

Last two paragraphs, page 210: "Turbaned men and veiled women, their prayer beads around their necks, chopped cotton, cut cane, and rolled tobacco from sunup to sundown. Like other slaves, they were beaten, whipped, cursed, raped, maimed, and humiliated. They saw their families torn apart and their loved ones killed. In the midst of abuse and contempt, they continued to pray, fast, be charitable, read, write on the sand, help one another, sing their lonesome tunes, and display pride in themselves, their religion, and their culture.
"The African Muslims may have been, in the Americas, the slaves of Christian masters, but their minds were free. They were the servants of Allah."

I have to question some of the "facts" in this book, though the book appears to be well footnoted. I don't have the page number, but I noticed somewhere in the text the mention of the Angel Gabriel as wearing a turban. Really? I didn't know that angels wore turbans! As a Christian, I have a problem with that statement; angels are supernatural beings who worship only God. They certainly don’t revere any man.

I am a white Southerner, and a long line of my family has been living in the South, since 1750. Never do I recall the mention of Muslim blacks in the many family stories I've heard. Quite the opposite, in fact: blacks were admired, even by those Southerners prejudiced against them, for their devotion to Christianity. Also, nowhere in the black music "anthology" do I detect the influence of Middle Eastern music (variant tones and variant scales), though there is, of course, much African influence, although a section in the book emphatically proclaims there is much Arabic influence in black music. The muscial form known as the blues is cited as a Muslim invention!

The overall tone of the book negates the American Civil Rights Movement. In fact, the book states outright that Islam was the driving force behind that movement. Having lived through that period of history, I KNOW such a statement is false. Yet this book is found in one of the largest public-library systems in the United States under the classification African-American Studies.

In general, the book presents the persecution of American blacks as the persecution of Muslims. The book suggests that black Americans should rise up and claim their Muslim heritage, a concept that is foreign to the many Christian blacks whom I personally know.

My recollection from my study of American history some 30 years ago is that Muslim and Portuguese slave traders rounded up and sold African tribals, including a small percentage of political prisoners, to the various American colonies. Nowhere do I recall reading that the slave movement was the specific and targeted persecution of Muslims.

Misinformation, to say the least, in both Massachusetts and Virginia. How much more of this propagandizing and prevaricating is going on? I just happened upon "The Servants of Allah"; it was on the new-books shelf, adjacent to the check-out line. Had the line not been so long, I'd have completely overlooked the slim volume.

I urge everyone to be on the lookout for such works. But the larger issue is, How do we get these materials removed?

Posted by: WatchfulEye at August 23, 2004 8:39 AM

"Well, it IS in the home state of John F-ing Kerry, the Liberal bastion (strike that, crumbling pylon) of the nation".

Lets not forget Ted Kennedy the alcholic socialist swine.

I am not surprised that this politically correct garbage would go on in a Massachusetts school.

Posted by: Son of Infidel at August 23, 2004 9:03 AM

Typo: the "alcoholic" socialist swine.

Posted by: Son of Infidel at August 23, 2004 9:09 AM

SoI~ maybe these guys can help?

http://www.historytextbooks.org/

Posted by: Gary at August 23, 2004 9:18 AM

My concern is are we at Dhimmi- and Jihad- watch merely preaching to the choir? How do we retrieve otherwise decent people - ones who don't know or ones who've taken the liberal fundamentalists' words too literally - from the evil or ignorance or neutrality?
Only a vast mass movement that understands what it's fighting against will change things in the US. How do we fight the excessive PC that's infected our body politic? The one big (and I mean BIG) source of strength and suipport we have is that we know truly and deeply that if and when Americans wake up to the enormity of this evil, no amount of PC brainwashing can suffice to stem the storm that will follow. At least the US (and maybe even the UK and Australia)won't cave in to appeasement tactics like the Frances and Spains of the world.
When Jihad truly becomes an existential crisi for the west, when it's survival itself at stake, all PC bullsh*t will be washed down the sewer. Like an old adage goes -
"A thousand years of civilization cannot overrule a million years of evolution".
May freedom prevail!

Posted by: voletti at August 23, 2004 9:55 AM

Interesting post, WatchfulEye. I wonder what CAIR is doing to abolish slavery in the Islamic World TODAY? The International Declaration of Islamic Human Rights (1981) goes no further than "abhorring" slavery - a far cry from its abolition. The 1994 Arab Charter on Human Rights (ACHR), which was never ratified by any of the 22 members of the Arab League, evaded the issue altogether. The recent draft "modernizing" the ACHR, finally prohibits slavery, but is completely undermined by the failure to prohibit "abduction", which is the euphemism the government of Sudan has used to define enslavement and to justify their inaction against the practice. As of this date, the draft ACHR remains unratified by any of the Arab League nations.
While I'm on the topic, the draft ACHR also fails to prohibit: genocide, forcible dislocation of populations, abduction, hostage-taking, advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that would constitute incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence (Jihad, anyone?), and restrictions against freedom of opinion, thought, conscience and religion. The draft ACHR also fails to uphold the rights of minorities (dhimmi?) that are codified in international law, and must be respected at all times.
What has CAIR done about this? Put books in libraries to distract from their own injustices?

Posted by: Mike at August 23, 2004 11:08 AM

"The veil is a symbol of high class," Petzen said. "(It shows) the ability of a husband to keep his wife out of the work force, as well as being a sign of sexual honor and purity."

My wife, our three daughters and I lived in Saudi Arabia for five years. They were all required to wear the abaya. My wife, a banking professional, wanted to work but was not allowed. Everybody's wife had to wear the abaya, chamber maids and daughters of the king, so I don't get the "symbol of high class" bullsh*t. I'm not even going to get into the honor and purity nonsense.

These people need to meet some arab women who have attained the apex of "womanhood" under the repression of 8th century tribal culture. They need to take in a few adultress and rape victim "fornicator" stonings while they're at it. I have, and trust me, these PC idiots have no idea how brutal that world really is.

On this issue and many others associated with the jihad, vast numbers of Westerners in the present generation don't get it, and sadly, many will die as a result of their blind ignorance of the facts.

Posted by: Hulegu Khan at August 23, 2004 2:27 PM

Look at these Dhimmi - so eager, so willing, so LAME.
Feed them to the Rottweillers!

Posted by: Rottweiller at August 23, 2004 3:13 PM

This business of "Muslim sailors" accompanying Columbus is absurd, but it is all part of the systematic campaign to Islamize all of Western history. Absurd it may be, but not too absurd not to have some people accept it, including Jacques Chirac, who made the incredible claim that "Europe owes as much to Islam as it does to Christianity." Only someone who either does not know his own history, or is pretending that he does not know it, could make such a statement.

Susan Douglas (one of those "reverters") and others are attempting to push a line where everyone in American history -- Columbus, Algonquin Indians, eveyrone, turns out to have been a Muslim. The fact that there is not a shred of evidence for any of this does not bother these followers of al-Faruqi's method of taqiyya. Say it, keep saying it, and there will always be people stupid enough to think there is a grain of truth in it.

Barbara Petzen's tortuous defense of the veil, and her completely baseless remarks about women in early Islam are the worst kind of apologetics. Does Harvard really want to have its "Outreach Program" to be run by someone engaged in propaganda? Is the chosen mode to be apologetics, or a serious study of Islam, its main tenets, and how the teachings in Qur'an and hadith and sira are most naturally understood by followers.

Ibrahim Kalin, mentioned as an "Assistant Professor at Holy Cross" (the same institution, so solicitous of Islam, and therefore so careless of the fate of the faith, and the Christians, it claims to be furthering, that gave John Esposito his start, and set him on the road to Arab-funded ease), wrote a hysterical letter protesting the sane, sober, thorough review of recent work on the origins of Islam which, written by Toby Lester, appeared a few years ago in The Atlantic, and remains an excellent study. What exercised Kalin was that Lester dared to write about the subject at all. In Kalin's view the only correct approach for non-Muslims was not even to discuss these matters. In his view, no one can call into question the received view of the Faithful that an illiterate man named Muhammad over a 23 year period essentially took dictation from the Angel Gabriel. All Western students of Islam, Wansbrough, Patricia Crone, Michael Cook, Gerd Puin, Andrew Rippin, Yehudah Nevo et al. have NO RIGHT to an opoinion, and Toby Lester had no right to discuss these matters, and the Atlantic Monthly had NO RIGHT to publish his views. That is what the Kalins of this world are all about. Not the truth, not a reasonable discussion, but a systematic effort to take naive middle-school and high-school teachers, fill them full of fatuities about the "three great abrahamic faiths" and "how much they have in common" (actually, the word "abrahamic" here plays the role of the concept "five" in such varied words and phrases as "five-finger exercise, five-card stud, the Pentagon, Five Corners in Tiverton, Rhode Island, and so on), and it is only bad people, nasty people, who want to talk about supposedly bad things in Islam. Good God, how much idiocy are we expected to endure, or our children to endure? Those who participate will NOT learn about dar al-Islam/dar al-Harb, they will not learn about Aisha and why Khomeini lowered the marriageable age of girls to nine, they will not learn about Muhammad's slaughter at Khaybar, they will not, probably, even read more than a handful of hadith (always carefully selected), and of course, Michael Sell's utterly misleading "Approaching the Qu'ran" with all the "lyrical suras" about which Sells loves to prate. In other words, a taxpayer funded exercise in brainwashing those who are ready to be brainwashed. ONe hopes that among the teachers, one will take careful notes, and write up, and publish, all of the nonsense that goes on (anyone willing to volunteer, to go under cover as it were to report back on this brainwashing exercise, or others like it all across the United States and the rest of the Western world?).

As far as the real composition of Columbus' crew (not that it means much today), it is known that several Jews or converted Jews were among the crewmembers, and that Santangel, who helped back the voyage, was of Jewish origin. The mapmaking of the Catalan Jew Abraham Cresques was also essential to the early explorers, and not only Columbus. An argument, made by Salvador de Madriaga among others, is that Cristoforo Colombo of Genoa was himself Jewish, not only some of his crew including Lopez the navigator, as well as Santangel, his financial backer, and Cresques the mapmaker, . The evidence that has been presented has apparently extensive enough to convince the late Indro Montanelli, the celebated Italian journalist and historian who was no fool, and did not come to conclusions quickly, to referin his "La Stanza" page in the Corriere della Sera (where Montanelli, in replying to queries, would offer astounding mini-essays in all sorts of things, from who did what and where during the Fascist Ventennio, to anything that happened to catch Montanelli’s fancy; the “column” – the word hardly does it justice -- ended only when Montanelli, at the age of 91, himself ended), to "Colombo, un ebreo."

Now, why bother mentioning any of this? Who really cares? Well, the idea, that in 1492, Muslims would knowingly serve on a crew in which Christians and Jews would be present and almost certainly ordering them about, would not likely have happened -- not on one side, and not on the other.

If one seeks a great Muslim seaman, for the purposes of Self-Esteem Studies, instead of fabricating stories about those who manned the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria, one can adduce the example of the eunuch commander Ma He, who was renamed by the Ming emperor Zhu Di as Zheng He (called Chong Ho in some texts, such as Joseph Needham’s “Science and Civilisation in China”). Zheng He in the early 1400s commanded vast fleets, with individual ships larger – up to 400 feet in length according to the book by L. Levathes on the subject -- than anything Europe could produce, sailed all over Asia as “treasure fleets,” bringing the best that China had to offer. But a change in emperors – Zhu Di died, replaced by Zhu Gaozhi, a real Coinfucian surrounded by other Confucians, who did not take kindly to the “party of the eunuchs” and wanted an end to those treasure fleets. The new emperor’s very first edict (Sept. 7, 1424) in fact, said that all voyages on the treasure ships were to be stopped.

Other voyages continued to be made, intermittently; by 1433 they had come to a complete stop. Columbus came along some 60 years later. Would, could one of those “treasure fleets” make it across the much longer, and much more treacherous trans-Pacific journey? Fun to think out. But of course the eunuch Zheng Ho stood on the shoulder of many centuries of advances in nautical science made by the Chinese, which can all be found in Needham’s massive work (forget Needham’s Marxism and concentrate on his scholarship).

It is amusing, in the context of today, to consider that Ming Dynasty clash between the Confucians, who thought China need not seek anything from the outside world, and taught Chinese to disdain foreign luxuries, and those who --- well, wanted those foreign luxuries. The latter seemed to be winning the ideological battle – an entry in Chen Chun’s Beixi zi yi, a Confucian glossary of terms, even had something nice to say about profit- Possibly that entry has been thoroughly studied by rapacious Chinese tycoons today, in order to justify their behavior, and to win over their own grandmothers, who may always have detested the Communist rulers and their inattention to what was important, but is horrified to discover that with “freedom” her own grandchildren, instead of learning calligraphy to copy classical Chinese poetry, instead of imbibing the spirit of Kon-fuze, they seem as eager to trade it all in for the capitalist mess of pottage as any American savings-and-loan developer.

Since, according to the Muslim view of things, we are all born Muslims (which is why we "revert" to Islam) and only fall away from it through our bad environment, it seems to me that it this mad desire to satisfy Muslim requirements that practically everybody be claimed for Islam is foolish. Yes, everybody is already a Muslim, so relax, okay? Cheng He, and Columbus, and los reyes catolicos Ferdinand and Isabella, and Leif Eriksson and Eric the Red and Vasco da Gama and the Cabot(o)s, and Sir Walter Raleigh and Frobisher and Henry Hudson were, every man and woman jack of them, Muslims. And so was Shakespeare, and Jimmy Durante, and Mandrake the Magician.

Meanwhile, the non-Muslims among us can pretend otherwise, that we really do have an independent existence, and continue to amass evidence, and weigh and sift it, even as the Muslims either ignore it, or refuse to accept it, and keep making preposterous claims for which there is not the slightest evidence. For given their world-view, in which Islam always was (it was merely revealed by the Prophet, not brought into existence by the Prophet – the Qur’an was uncreated), Muslims should have no difficulty in claiming every human achievement or everyone else’s history (look what Arafat and company are telling us all about the ancient Hebrews) to claim any human achievement as their own. Everyone comes out ahead.

As long as we just lie about things, and pretend there is nothing wrong with Islam, oh we should get along very well indeed. Forget about the Sudan, Pakistan, the Moluccas, East Timor, southern Thailand, the blown-up Buddhas in Afghanistan, the bombs in Cape Town, the slave trade in Mali and Mauritania and the Sudan -- and the fact that slavery is sanctioned in Qur'an and hadith and therefore permanently acceptable in Islam, forget about Darfur, or the 16-year-old girl who was hung in Iran for what precisely -- getting a little hot and bothered with a boy? Forget about the sermons to be found at www.Memri.com. Forget about the nauseating taqiyya of Petzen, and the attempt by Ibrahim Kalin to prevent any discussion of the Qur'an, and its origins -- in other words, while we can say what we want about the historical origins of Judaism and Christianity, we are not allowed to talk about Islam. Its off-limits.

That's all it takes. Systematic lying by some, and the systematic promotion, or non-opposition to that lying, by others. Then we will have no problems, or at least, we will give Muslims time to establish themselves even more fully in the Lands of the Infidels and to prevent a serious examination of their belief-system (which will continue to be called a "religion" and that makes a good many people very respectful indeed).

“Why can’t we all get along” Mr. Rodney King plaintively asked. Why, indeed?

Posted by: Hugh at August 23, 2004 3:25 PM

You can blast classroom teachers and their school boards and state boards of education for their credulity. However, their ignorance is the result of misinformation and of poor instruction given at the university level. These people are ignorant, not stupid.

We are JW understand that even universities are being held hostage by Middle Eastern donors that put strings on their largesse and that police history and other classes to make sure that Islam is treated in the manner that they deem proper.

Not only are teachers given inservice instruction that gives them slanted information, the materials and textbooks have been carefully prepared to promote a one-sided point of view. Some teachers do protest, but they are silenced by peers and by their superiors that are either ignorant or complicent.

Yes, we need to get the word out, but like Sisyphus, we are condemned to roll the informational stone uphill after every avalanche of misinformation. It's an important but thankless task.

Posted by: epg at August 23, 2004 3:33 PM

Islam is NOT beyond reproach. Spread the word.

Posted by: Rottweiller at August 23, 2004 4:28 PM

Like all good liberals he uses the standard liberal approach which is to find one piece of goodness in something, and then use that small piece to prove that the entire object you are looking at is good. Using this approach one could take a piece of human excrement, extract some of the few remaining nutrients that are still left in it, and then use the fact that these nutrients are important to humans to argue that the consumption of human excrement is healthy and necessary.

Liberals are unable to judge something in its entirety, they instead search for the little nuggets of gold, regardless of how small and insignificant they are, to make their case that all in life is good and wonderful.

Well some of us won't be swallowing the crap they feed us. I say a home schooling course on the real islam is needed. How about it Robert?

Posted by: SonofMoses at August 23, 2004 5:08 PM

quote:

-During the workshop, Barbara Petzen, outreach coordinator of Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies, said anyone studying or discussing Muslims must keep in mind the difference between what the Koran says and what is actually practiced. -

wow, such blindness or shall we use the term collaboration?

Posted by: forrestshalom at August 23, 2004 5:47 PM

The veil is nothing more than a muslim male controling the woman. One does not have to be a two bit whore just because one does not wear a veil or a tent for that matter. A woman can be faithful and modest without covering from head to toe, and the "mans ability to keep her from working" that is crap! I am sure that there are women who want to stay home, but there are also many women who have gotten an education and degree, myself included, who actually WANT to work, bottom line is the muslim male wants and somehow to feed his ego, needs to be in control of women, forcing all this modest BS on them is just the way they do it...and telling the woman it is all done FOR her instead of TO her is just to appease the west, I am sure before anyone gave a crap about muslims or islam they didnt even try to justify owning and enslaving a woman.

Posted by: USAgirl at August 23, 2004 6:14 PM

Dunn hoped to find an Islamic nation he could use as an example of where women have rights more like those in the United States, to dispel some misconceptions.

Think....France, Canada, the Commonwealth of Mass.?

Dunn has a lot of catching up to do when it comes to Islam.

Posted by: DP111 at August 23, 2004 7:18 PM

Hugh, keep your hair on!

Biased, sanitised versions of history have always been taught. A robust, free culture can deal with this and move on.

People go on about Europe being Dhimmi, but you wouldn't get this kind of crap in the UK. The Sun (for the plebs), The Daily Mail (middle brow) and The Telegraph (for the clever people) are starting to get on the case.

The word 'dhimmi' is being used increasingly in the quality press (Telegraph, Times, Spectator). A sea change is in progress.

I'm rather ignorant of the American newspapers - does the Wall Street Journal have the same nationwide coverage as The Telegraph? Is the New York Times like The Guardian or The Independent?

Maybe the rest of Europe is different.

Posted by: Interestd at August 23, 2004 7:45 PM

Islam seems to be the only 'religion' that seems to require

1. Continuous propaganda to correct the misunderstandings people have of Islam.

2. Islam is the only religion that continuously has to state that it was a civilisation. I wonder why Greeks and Chinese never need to.

3. Islam is the only religion, where the believers have to provide references for Mohammed, the prophet of Islam. No other faith, such as Christianity, Buddhism or Hinduism, need to provide references for Dalai Lama, Buddha, Jesus, Gandhi etc.

4. No other faith apart from Islam, kills apostates from Islam. I just wonder why?

It is a matter of great shame for humanity that such an ideology as Islam still persists to this day and some say its numbers are increasing.
The only hope I have, is that this is an aberration, and soon we will all recover our senses and restore our moral compass.

Muslims are the first victims of Islam, as Islam shut their minds off to any further questioning. Muslims are taught, that anything of worth is already in the Koran. That is why every invention and scientific discovery, is claimed by Muslims to be aleady in the Koran. It is probably the reason why in Islamic nations, there are such huge numbers of graduates in Islamic studies. They probably are all looking for a cure for cancer, or a replacement for the theory of relativity..

It is difficult to imagine how such a large segment of humanity can be so effectively brainwashed to believe such nonsense.

Posted by: DP111 at August 23, 2004 7:54 PM

That is why every invention and scientific discovery, is claimed by Muslims to be aleady in the Koran.

And all along I thought it was Al Gore who invented the internet, who knew it was actually Mohammed.

I found the actual verse that proves it.

Kumquat 11:19 - And so Allah bound their minds together with strings, like the beads on a copper necklace. And in an instant they knew each others thoughts, and had visions of Allah's greatness.

Posted by: SonofMoses at August 23, 2004 9:09 PM

A PUBLIC school teacher has no obligation, and according to the law, no RIGHT to teach my or any other PUBLIC school student ANY type of religion. Certainly parents can protest a public school teaching their child about islam, I would pull my children out and home school them if this became law, they will learn about islam and the koran (important to know where your enemy is coming from and the terror manual they are using) from ME and they will hear the truth, not some half truth sprinkled with sugar to make it tolerable.

Posted by: USAgirl at August 23, 2004 9:14 PM

"People look at Islam and see a group people that are all terrorists," Manning said. "It's not true, and in education I think we have the obligation to present the truth."

While all Muslims are not terrorists,
All terrorists on jihad are Muslim.

Posted by: panos at August 23, 2004 10:53 PM

Separation of church and state.

Islam is undeserving of any "special rights" to be taught in schools, particularly when the truth about it is not even taught but instead a sanitized sugar-coated version, courtesy of the NEA.

Posted by: abad at August 24, 2004 2:07 AM

Are the brainless dhimmis who come up with this nonsense British by decent? If so I apologise to my American cousins. We have so much appeasement culture in the UK it just sticks in the throat. When are we going to hear these limp wristed Namby Pambies asking (ever so nicely) if it would be ok for non-islamic religions to be taught in islamic schools....AND of course not from a negative stand point?

1. Would they EVER ask?

2. What would be the reply?

If islam is SO good, why do the protagonists have to force it upon others? The truth of islam is to be seen in Darfur. Islam is no different to the rest of religion and "culture" ( I have difficulty calling an aggressive system which condones violence and murder a culture). Arabs consider themselves as elite muslims so if we all throw away our values and take up to grovelling on the hearth rug several times a day we will still be second class. Be warned!

Posted by: Padonmeforbreathing at August 24, 2004 3:21 AM

Columbus used Portuguese pilots (which isn't surprising to anyone that knows anything about the Age of Explorations). Whether there were or not Muslims aboard the ships is something I can't tell, but as Mr Spencer rightly said there are no written evidences of that "fact".

The Portuguese did used Muslim sailing technology (lateen sail, the compass, the astrolabe) - technology they perfected to an extent the Islamic scholars couldn't even dream of. They also used Muslim captives as translators, and Vasco da Gama got a Muslim pilot from the Sultan of Malindi (modern Tanzania) that took him to Calicut (India).

I had heard about Nordicism and about Afrocentrism, but Muslimcentrism? That's a new one...

By the way, the next time you hear that Muslims invented the number ZERO, that's not even true. The Hindu Indian mathematicians invented it.

Posted by: alex221166 at August 24, 2004 8:44 AM

Distortion of history and misinformation is not the only way that America's younger students are being mislead.

This article demonstrates examples of only some of the outrages:

http://frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14758

Posted by: epg at August 24, 2004 11:30 AM