土耳其总统称穆斯林先于哥伦布发现美洲大陆

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.

土耳其总统埃尔多安近日称，穆斯林在12世纪发现了美洲大陆，比哥伦布踏足该地早了近三个世纪。

“拉丁美洲和伊斯兰世界的联系可追溯到12世纪。1178年，穆斯林发现了美洲大陆，先于哥伦布。”这位保守党总统在伊斯坦布尔召开的拉丁美洲穆斯林领导人峰会上发表了以上的电视讲话。

“穆斯林船员在1178年发现了美洲大陆，哥伦布曾提到古巴海岸的一座山上有清真寺。”埃尔多安说道。

埃尔多安说，首都安卡拉甚至准备根据这位热那亚探险者的位置描述，在原地修建一座清真寺。

埃尔多安说：“我想对古巴‘兄弟们’说，如今那座山上也将建起一座清真寺。”

史书记载，哥伦布在寻找前往印度的新航线途中，于1492年登陆美洲大陆。

但有少数穆斯林学者近来提出美洲很早就出现穆斯林的观点，然而到目前还未发现先于哥伦布时代的伊斯兰建筑。

1996年，历史学家尤瑟夫·莫拉赫（Youssef Mroueh ）发表了一篇有争议的文章，当中引述哥伦布的日记里一则称在古巴看到清真寺的内容，但是人们普遍认为这是一种地形比喻。