Posted: 07/26/09

OBAMA-STUDENT OF HISTORY? (part 2)
William J. Federer

 In his speech in Cairo, Egypt, June 4, 2009, President Barack Obama stated:

 "As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam...that Islam has always been a part of America's story."

 Islam has indeed been a part of America's story, but the President's retelling leaves out some important facts.

 One such fact is, Columbus would have never set sail and discovered America had it not been for Islamic jihad.

 Europeans had for centuries traded east, traveling the breadth of the Byzantine Empire, across northern India, by caravan route on the China Silk Road, through the Gobi Desert to China.

 An Italian from Venice, named Marco Polo, traveled the route from the Black Sea to China in 1271 and worked for Kublai Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan, for 17 years.

 China had many advances, such as gunpowder, charcoal, spaghetti, thread from silk worms, porcelain dishes called "China," wooden printing blocks, the compound bow, and paper money.

 India had many attractive trade items, such as tea, spices and dyes.

 China's Emperor, Kublai Khan, had asked Marco Polo to bring back from Europe, among other things, a hundred teachers of the Holy Christian Faith.

 Unfortunately, the Pope had just died, Europe was in turmoil with wars, and the Plague was just beginning, so no teachers went.

 Muslims raided the caravans along the land trade routes between Europe and India and China, stealing and taking prisoners.

 Muslims then conquered the Byzantine Empire, culminating with Sultan Mehmet II capturing Constantinople in 1453, effectively ending land trade from Europe to India and China.

 Columbus proposed a sea route to India and China, and, in 1492, he inadvertently discovered America.

 Columbus wrote to the King and Queen of Spain in his Journal of the First Voyage (El Libro de la Primera Navegacion), as recounted in the abstract of Bartolome' de Las Casas' and translated into English by Samuel Eliot Morison, (Journals & Other Documents on the Life & Voyages of Christopher Columbus NY: Heritage Press, 1963):

 "In the Name of Our Lord Jesus Christ,
 "Because, most Christian and very Exalted, Excellent and mighty Princes, King and Queen of the Spains and of the Islands of the Sea, our Lord and Lady, in this present year 1492,
 "After Your Highnesses had made an end to the war with the Moors (Muslims) who ruled in Europe, and had concluded the war in the very great City of Granada, where in the present year, on the second day of the month of January, I saw the Royal Standards of Your Highnesses placed by force of arms on the towers of the Alhambra (which is the citadel of the said city),
 "And I saw the Moorish King come forth to the gates of the city and kiss the Royal Hands of Your Highnesses and the Prince of my Lord,
 "And soon after in that same month, through information that I had given to Your Highnesses concerning the lands of India, and of a Prince who is called Gran Khan, which is to say in our vernacular 'King of Kings,'...

 Columbus continued:

 "How many times he and his predecessors had sent to Rome to seek doctors in our Holy Faith to instruct him therein, and that never had the Holy Father provided them, and thus so many people were lost through lapsing into idolatries and receiving doctrines of perdition;
 "And Your Highnesses, as Catholic Christians and Princes devoted to the Holy Christian Faith and the propagators thereof, and enemies of the sect of Mahomet and of all idolatries and heresies,
 "resolved to send me, Christopher Columbus, to the said regions of India, to see the said princes and peoples and lands and the dispositions of them and of all, and the manner in which may be undertaken their conversion to our Holy Faith,
 "And ordained that I should not go by land (the usual way) to the Orient, but by the route of the Occident, by which no one to this day knows for sure that anyone has gone."

 Columbus thought the islands he discovered were around India, so he named inhabitants "Indians."

 Native Americans, therefore, would never have been called "Indians," and their civilization would have never been disrupted by Europeans, had it not been for Muslims cutting off the land routes to the Orient.

 President Obama stated:

 "As a student of history, I also know civilization's debt to Islam...that Islam has always been a part of America's story."

 President Obama was correct in his Cairo Speech, Islam has indeed been a part of America's story, beginning with the reason Columbus set sail - though the President's telling of the story contains a little "obamaguity."
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William J. Federer is author of the best-selling book, What Every American Needs to Know About the Qur'an-A History of Islam & the United States.

By William J. Federer Email: wjfederer@aol.com Click here for bio and archived articles