Did Muslims Discover America

			Bismillah Alhamdulillah wa salaam aleikum, which is a greeting of peace, peace be unto you. Thank
you for tuning in to another episode of the deen show. We are here trying to help you understand
Islam and Muslims. Now my next guest, who is coming out in a minute he's been with us before he has
a special section at the deen show.com. You can hear his story and how he embraced Islam amongst the
top topics that we've done with him. Now, we are going to be talking about Muslims in America,
American history with Muslims. Now,
		

			just to note, we're going to be using the word Islam by now many viewers who've been with us, you
know what this word means? Simply surrender submission, obedience, doing all this sincerely to the
One God the One God who created the sun, the moon and everything in this universe. And that's easily
summed up with one word in Arabic, which is Islam. And a Muslim is one who does this action, the
action of submitting and surrendering, sincerely, being obedient to the One God who created
everything in this universe. It's much easier summed up one word, Muslim, how long have these
Muslims who implement Islam in America, and that's what our next guest, Dr.
		

			Gerald Dirks is going to help. Answer when we come back here. In addition, you don't want to go
nowhere.
		

			There's only one
		

			there's only one. Jesus was his messenger.
		

			Why did that maybe, maybe it's just to break the ice. All Salaam Alaikum peace on the mercy of God
be upon you and you to my brother? How are you? Good. Good. It's good to have you with us here on
the show. We've covered quite a few topics with you before. For those of our viewers who don't know
who you are, just take a minute and tell us a little bit about yourself.
		

			Well, I converted to Islam in 1993 did the Hodge pilgrimage in 1999. Prior to that, I practice for a
number of years as a psychotherapist, I have a doctorate in clinical psychology. But before that, I
was an ordained minister of the United Methodist Church, having received a master of divinity degree
from Harvard Divinity School.
		

			To Christopher Columbus discovered America or the Muslim discover America. Let's let's talk about
this history with Muslims in America. Well, it's kind of ironic to say someone discovered America
when American Indians were already here.
		

			But this issue of Muslims in American history is a very important issue. And what why is it so
important? Well, let me illustrate it with the story. It was a year before 911 Yes. And my wife and
I were standing in our local Midwestern airport located right on the buckle of the Bible Belt,
waiting for our luggage to come down the conveyor belt. And a gentleman across the way, oh, maybe 20
feet 30 feet away, having to glance over. And he saw my long unruly beard. And he saw my wife
wearing her scarf and her long outer garment.
		

			And he did sort of a double tank I noticed out of the corner of my eye. And then over the course of
the next five minutes, he sort of slowly meandered across the space until he was standing right next
to me. And at that point, he turned to me and he said, Where are you from?
		

			And I said, Well, I'm from 35 miles north of here.
		

			And he said, No, no, no, no, no. I mean, where are you from originally?
		

			And I said, Well, I was born 30 miles north of here. And if that's sort of a puzzled, confused,
look, crossed his face, and he started to turn and walk away. And then you could just see the light
bulb going on over his head. And he turned back to me with this look of triumph on his face, pointed
to my wife and said, well, where she from?
		

			And I said, Well, you know, she was born 40 miles north of here.
		

			You see what he was trying to do brother. He had correctly identified us as big Muslims. And because
he had made that identification, he was going to rob us of our American identity and our American
heritage. And in doing so, he was reflecting a myth that is very, very common amongst the American
public. And that is
		

			Muslims came first to America in the latter half of the 20th century, that somehow Muslims or Johnny
come lately is on the American scene. The truth of the matter, however, is far far different than
that. We Muslims have been here long before the latter half of the 20th century. We Muslims help
tame and settle the American Wild West. And the latter half of the 19th century, we Muslims fought
to preserve the Union and the American Civil War between 1861 and 1865. We Muslims stood armed and
ready to defend the American coastline from British invasion and the war of 1812. We Muslims fought
to secure American independence from Great Britain, during the American Revolutionary War. We
		

			Muslims built the agricultural base of the American South, long before there ever was a United
States of America. We Muslims were here in the early part of the 17th century in the British colony
at Jamestown. We Muslims were here in the latter part of the 16th century, in the Spanish colonies.
We Muslims were here with the Spanish Conquistadores and the early part of the 1500s. We Muslims
were here with Columbus in 1492. And yes, we Muslims, even though this is a little controversial. We
Muslims were here long before Christopher Columbus ever thought of coming to America. Amazing. Tell
us now, I want to just go backwards at the airport. You were doing nothing minding your own
		

			business. But was it because now we see a lot of Muslims. And we addressed this in previous shows
the beard so you had the you said the rulli beard long unruly beard. And now your wife wearing the
scarf, which if you look back a with the beard, in any picture that is portrayed of supposedly
Jesus, he has a beard, doesn't he? And most of them, pictures of him as a youth obviously do not or
most of even if you look at the 10 commandments with Moses, he had a beard, didn't he? Well, that's
how artists how they try to say, yeah, represent it. And if you look back to some of the modest
woman, if you look at who supposedly Jesus's mother what they have portrayed of her in that picture,
		

			you will see her wearing the, the headscarf, sure, sure. Many of the righteous women, you'll see
them preserving their modesty wearing this and that's all correct, you know, so this is just
amazing. Now, tell us continue on how come most of us we don't really get to know this. This is a
shock to a lot of people that are listening. You know, why is this? Well, it's because knowledge is
so compartmentalised. Unless you read Arabic, or have access to someone who reads Arabic. And you go
back to these very early Arabic books, you won't find this information. But if you do go back and
you read Arabic or have access to someone who reads Arabic, you go back to these early books, you
		

			find that there were a number of voyages from the Muslim world to the Americas long before Columbus.
In fact, the earliest of these was cash cash, Eben Sade, Eben oswaal, who sailed from Muslim
andaluza what's now Spain, Portugal in the year 889 600 years before Columbus, sailing west across
the Atlantic, discovering a new land apparently islands in the Caribbean, and sailing back to
Andalusia about 100 years later, Eben Farouk in the year 1999 made a similar voyage from Muslim
Andalusia to the new world. You said Eben, what does that mean for SUV? Yeah, Center for center for
that would be his father. Okay. Yeah. And then Al idrisi, famous Muslim geographer and scientific
		

			adviser to the king of Sicily, in the 12th century, wrote about a group of eight Muslim sailors that
sailed west across the Atlantic, from Muslim andalusi or Spain, Portugal
		

			arrived at two new islands
		

			hitherto unknown to them. And there they were captured by American Indians and held captive for a
few days. And after two or three days, another Indian came, who served as translator between the
Indians, and these Muslims from Andalusia. And he arranged for their release and they went back to
Andalusia. The important thing in this story is to stop and think for a moment Wait a minute,
there's an American Indian who can serve as translator. There's an American Indian who has had
enough contact with Muslims, that He can speak Arabic
		

			and serve as a translator.
		

			So we have these stories from written and very early Arabic books, detailing these three voyages for
Muslim and illusio. But it's not just from Muslim Andalusia. It's also from what today we call
Morocco. For example Shaykh Xena Deen Ali ibn Fadel El Moussa rondi sailed west from Morocco across
the Atlantic in the year 1291. reached the new world. And perhaps the most impressive of all, is
sailing from West Africa, the mandinka Kingdom of Mali.
		

			around the year 1310, the Sultan or king of that Empire, named Abu Bukhari sent to expeditions west
across the Atlantic. Now, Columbus sailed in 1492, or three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the
Santa Maria,
		

			from what is documented in the ancient Arabic books, Abu Bakar, he said two fleets, which together
totaled 2200 ships. So this was a huge amount of men moving west across the Atlantic. And we know
they reached the Americas they never returned, but we know they reached the Americas. Because there
is a South American Indian tribe, which even today uses mandinka idiom grams as their form of
written communication. There's a North American Indian tribe, whose syllabus of words was written
down by a Moravian missionary in the mid 1700s. And when modern linguists look at that syllabus,
they discovered a large number of those words or mandate, the language of the mandinka of Western
		

			Africa. So they obviously made it to the Americas explored parts of South America and North America
intermarried with the American Indian tribes. And gradually their history was lost. But they were
here. And they were here almost two centuries before Columbus. So yes, we Muslims, were here before
Columbus. You mentioned that if you don't have access to some of the Arabic books on history, or do
you find this in some of the history writings here in America? Like when you were attending
university at Harvard? Would you see this information there? No, no, the sort of information again
is to compartmentalised Uh huh, people who are writing about American history typically don't read
		

			Arabic. Yeah.
		

			The person who did the pioneering work on Muslims in America before Columbus was Dr. Abdullah Hakim,
quick, yeah, who is fluent in Arabic? And who has a PhD in history, by the way. So he went and
looked at this authentic information, and this was documented. And now, anybody who is sincere
historian now he can take from this work that he's done. Yeah, it's, it's beginning to receive some
answers. Okay. So let's go back to what we said, Why is it so important to say, for the Muslim youth
to know this history, crucial for the Muslim youth to know this, or not even just the Muslim youth
for Americans in general, our crucial for them to realize that Muslims have been here all along, and
		

			that Muslims have made contributions to America all along. But especially for the second generation
of Muslims in America, this is a most important piece of information. Because as they hit
adolescence, they're struggling to develop their own sense of identity,
		

			establishing their national cultural identity as Americans, and establishing their religious
identity as Muslims. And when you meet are confronted by this sort of bias that says, Well, if
you're a Muslim, you obviously can't be an American. Yeah, that creates conflict for them that
creates identity conflict for them. So it's important that they have this grounding, and
understanding their own unique heritage in America, that Muslims centuries before them, were
contributing to America.
		

			Tell us some more interesting things that we probably didn't hear before about some of the other
contributions that Muslims have made to America. Well, as I mentioned, Muslims were here with
Columbus and has epic voyage in 19 and 1492. Amongst them, we can point to at least one Muslim who
was Pedro Alonzo Nino. He was a Muslim from Africa sailed with Columbus, and helped charter and
navigate much of the Atlantic Ocean. But three very important people we need to point out are the
pin zone brothers, and the pin zone brothers were moriscos. Now that's a term that needs some
definition. Most people probably you're not familiar with that term. In 1492, the Spanish
		

			Inquisition was going on for
		

			blast. And the Spanish Inquisition targeted both Jews and Muslims for their persecution. Let's start
from there and digress. What was this about the Spanish Inquisition, just in short, Ferdinand and
Isabella, their Catholic Majesty's of Spain, had reconquered, Spain from the Muslims, with the fall
of Granada and 1492. And they had received a special bowl. That's the technical term from the Pope,
to launch the Spanish Inquisition, to force people to convert to Christianity, both Jews and
Muslims. A lot of torture went on, a lot of people were killed. In the process of doing this, both
Jews and Muslims.
		

			At that time, the Muslims in Andalusia or Spain received a religious verdict from scholars in North
Africa that said, Look, if your life is threatened, go ahead and undergo a sham conversion to
Christianity. And on the outward side appear to be Christian. Just continue to practice your Islam
and this is if you're at the sword. Yeah, that's your neck and your life is threatened.
		

			So a number of Muslims did this. And these Muslims who did this and their descendants were known as
moriscos.
		

			So we had the three pin zone brothers with Columbus there mariscos.
		

			Now the three brothers had very important positions in Columbus's expedition. Martin shinzon was the
captain of the penta one of the three ships. His brother has sent he was captain of the Nina, the
second of the three ships, and Francisco was the pilot of the pitha. So three key positions in
Columbus's staff were held by moriscos people who had either undergone a sham conversion, or were
the descendants of people who had undergone the Sham conversion to Christianity, but continued to
maintain their Islam and private. In addition, one sailor that sailed with Columbus in 1492 Rodrigo
de Triana, who was a Christian when he made the voyage. As soon as he got back to Spain, he actually
		

			converted to Islam, which took a tremendous amount of courage because the Spanish Inquisition, like
I say, was going full tilt, and persecuting Muslims and Jews. So these are the people we know of
that sailed with Columbus, and helped Columbus quote unquote, discover America. Please keep keep on
going. We're really intrigued by this information. Well, and after Columbus, we had Muslims coming
with the Spanish Conquistadores because again that Spanish Inquisition was still going on. And many,
many Muslims volunteered to go to the new world as a way of escaping the Spanish Inquisition. So for
example, we have Muslims in almost every one of the Spanish expeditions to the new world by the
		

			Conquistadores nuflow de olano, was a Muslim who accompanied bow Boa and his expedition of the
Americas. The probably the most famous of these Muslims with the Spanish Conquistadores was estiva
Nika of aza more. That's how you'll find his name written in the history books. And he his famous
Spanish language films have been made about estiva nico have as a Muslim. He was a Muslim, his real
name was Mustafa's Amaury estiva, Nico of acid more was his slave name. He had been captured in
Morocco and enslave, and in the year 1527. He sailed with his owner from Spain, to the Caribbean and
landed in Hispaniola. And there he and his owner joined the dinar vaes expedition that sailed from
		

			Hispaniola in the Caribbean to Florida. And this expedition consisted of five ships in about 500 to
600 men.
		

			along Route they were hit by a hurricane. Some of the ships sank. The survivors when they made it to
Florida were immediately attacked by Indians, many of them perishing. Those survivors including
Mustafa began a 5000 mile westward and then Southern trek on foot from Florida, to Mexico City. And
they were the first people from the old world to go through, you know, Georgia and Alabama, and
Mississippi and Louisiana, and then down into Texas and finally down into Mexico and to Mexico City.
And when they finally arrived there, there was only Mostafa and three others still left alive out of
those 500 to 600, who had begun an expedition history
		

			Books talk about him. But they'll talk about him as estiva nico have as a more. They won't mention
that his real name was Mustafa Mori. And they won't mention the fact that he was a Muslim. Yeah.
What about Quintin Khun? kintai? Well, this is later Yeah, he obviously wasn't there with
Conquistadores. But before we get to the kind of keys to doors or get to come to kempty. You know,
Muslims were here with with the early colonies, the Spanish established a colony early on at Santa
Alina back in the year 1566. And many of the colonists that they took, were from the Galician
mountain areas of Spain and Portugal, which was an area that was very, very densely populated by
		

			Muslims. So it's a very safe assumption. We had a number of Muslims in the Santa Lena colony, which
was located in the southeastern what is now the United States. We also know that Spain settled
Turkish Muslims, both in Cuba and Mexico, and in the southwestern United States. These are primarily
Turkish Muslims who were silk and textile workers. And in Jamestown colony that the British
established, again, we had Turkish Muslims, who were brought into the colony, again, primarily silk
and textile workers. And in fact, they became so numerous, and Jamestown colony, that Virginia
actually passed a law prohibiting any more Turks and Muslims from entering the Jamestown colony. And
		

			the first written record we have of those Muslims being there is from the year 1631. So again, very
substantial contributions. You mentioned content content. Yes. Very famous when Alex Haley's book
roots. Yeah, they should have a new or revised DVD or movie that one can see. Yeah. And the the mini
series that was the miniseries Yes, years ago, really doesn't mention the fact that he's was a
Muslim.
		

			If you are a Muslim, and you know what to look for, you can deduce it. But the book makes it very,
very clear that cuts I can say, was a Muslim.
		

			In the Americas, both North and South America. During this unforgiveable period of human slavery,
there were approximately 20 million enslaved Africans that were brought to the Americas. Of these
current historians are now estimating between 20 and 30%, were Muslims. So between four and 6
million enslaved African Muslims, were brought to the Americas, many of them highly educated, some
with the equivalent of PhD degrees from the University of Timbuktu.
		

			And historians are now finding a little county museums in the American South, entire books written
in Arabic, by these enslaved African Muslims. Wow, the entire Quran written from memory in Arabic,
entire books of Islamic jurisprudence, written from memory in Arabic. So a very educated group of
people and some modern historians are now positing that the percentage of literacy among the
enslaved Africans in the American South was actually higher than the percentage of literacy among
the slave owners. It's just that the slaves literacy was an Arabic. Not in English. Yeah. So who
were some of these Muslim slaves one was contained. Yes. And contained Kim Tae, grew up in please
		

			born around 1750 and g4 and West Africa and what is now Gambia, when he was a teenager, he went out
to into the jungles to get someone to make a drum. And at that point, he was captured and enslaved,
		

			taken to the coast and put on board a ship the Lord ligonier and transported to the Americas. And
how horrible these conditions were on the ship. These people were chained in a
		

			reclining position where they were lying down body next to body and kept in this position throughout
almost the entire voyage. How long would a voyage take Oh, it could take a couple of months.
		

			And they were given, you know, a bare minimum for food and water, the conditions? sanitary
conditions, as you can imagine, were horrible or no bathroom breaks. You know, you just stayed in
that position.
		

			How bad was it well on the ship that can take him take him over on. We're told that approximately
30% of those enslaved Africans died during the voyage to the Americas.
		

			Well, could they can't they reach the Americas and was sold at auction.
		

			JOHN Walker are Waller of Spotsylvania County. And could they can't a
		

			could not adjust to being a slave. And so he repeatedly tried to escape. And finally to prevent him
from escaping anymore, while we're headed one of his feet amputated.
		

			And at that point then he was sold to wallers brother who was a more somewhat more compassionate
slave owner. He later married father to daughter named Kizzy, who was sold away from the family to
another owner. That owner raped Kizzy producing a son called chicken George. And there's a
photograph of chicken George take a late in his life as an old man that shows him sitting down and
he's wearing the Koofi, the skullcap associated with the Muslim and the Thurber or long gown
associated with Muslim men. So we know Conte Conte was able to pass along at least some of his Islam
to his daughter, and she in turn some of it to her son.
		

			So cut they can say probably the most famous of the enslaved African Muslims in America, though in
my book, Muslims in American history, I give the biographies. I think of about 30 of these enslaved
African Muslims submitted to the United so which one your books Is this the one that people now who
really want to know more about Muslims in America? They can find that history here in your book,
Muslims in American history of forgotten forgotten legacy us? Okay, yeah. So and they can see this
book at Dirks online books. dirts. Online? books.com. Yes. Okay. And amongst other books, you have
written how many books total? Six, and then I wrote five chapters in the seventh book. Yeah, if you
		

			can give some the audience some closing remarks regarding the conclusion of this topic and some
advices. And they can also learn more. Yeah, there's a lot more to be said about American Muslims.
And American history, we've only just started scratching the history of the earliest part of that
history, you have to be sad is the the Muslims who fought the American Revolutionary War, the war of
1812, the American Civil War,
		

			and those who helps tame and settle the American Wild West. So there's a very rich, rich history
here of Muslims in America, contributing to America and that goes back centuries. So there is a long
standing Muslim American heritage that people do need to be aware of. We didn't just arrive
yesterday we did. We've been here all along. And I'm sure there's many others who may be had
interaction with Muslims who because like we said, a Muslim is one who makes a conscious decision to
surrender submit to the one God and agree that Muhammad was the last and final messenger sent to
mankind. That's correct. Then confirming Jesus is a messenger, Abraham, Moses and all the other
		

			messengers, right, right. It's something very simple. Thank you for being my pleasure. Like Thank
you for tuning in to another episode of the deen show. You can learn more Muslims in America, the
history forgotten legacy, and you can go to our brothers website. That's Dirks online books to read
more on this topic. I hope that you got to benefit and learn something new. And we will hopefully
see you again next week here on the deen show. Until then, I Salaam Alaikum. Peace be unto you. The
DVDs for Dawa as Allah has said in the Quran in surah now 16 125 Voodoo Eliza be lira bakeable
hickmott Hekmati invite all the way of your Lord with wisdom beautiful preaching and reason with
		

			them in ways that are best and this is a great opportunity for you to take up the obligation take up
the call is Allah has told you to do and share this beautiful message with the world Islam
submission to the One God see what everyone's talking about. You find one contradiction it can't be
from God.
		

			But the rational idea the rational explanation is you do your best to give up worshiping God is one
I will never give up spreading this hope that you take the necessary steps you don't know if you're
gonna live till tomorrow.
		

			So you got to find that urgency to do the right thing right now.
		

			If you say that you do not believe in Jesus, you have stepped outside of Islam you cannot be a
Muslim is attended our faith to
		

			eats comb eats lay everybody asleep.
		

			I arise and ask a lot of thinking may own law you see, oh law, you know all the sins. I do.
		

			Turn to you to pick him
		

			up.
		

			Today, yo
		

			runs away. Ola guide me