by Nayab Naseer

Created on: February 27, 2009

Islam spread rapidly to most parts of Asia and Africa, and Spain within less than a hundred years after the death of Prophet Mohammed (May Allah bless him and grant him peace.)

Musa ibn Nusayr, the great Umayyad commander set out from Cairo in 706 CE with the aim of bringing the entire African lands bordering the Mediterranean under the Islamic caliphate. Having reached the African end of the Atlantic, he drove up to the sea, and striking his sword said, "Oh Allah, were I not hindered by this great sea, I would have gone on and brought the unknown lands of the west to follow thee".

That was not the end of it. Many travelers and traders since then made many expeditions to the "New World" centuries before Christopher Columbus was born.

During the rule of Umayyad caliph of Spain Abdullah Ibn Mohammed (888 - 912 CE), the navigator Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad of Cordoba sailed from Delba (Palos), crossed the Atlantic into the "ocean of darkness and fog," reached an unknown territory (Ard Majhoola) and returned with fabulous treasures from "a strange and curious land." Al-Masudi's map of the world, drawn up during the same time, refers to a large area in the ocean of darkness and fog (the Atlantic Ocean) as the unknown territory.

Hisham II of Spain (976 -1009 CE), patronized Ibn Farrukh of Granada, who set sail from Kadesh into the Atlantic. He landed in Gando or Great Canary Islands, met King Guanariga and continued westward where he saw and named two islands, Capraria and Pluitana. He arrived back in Spain in May 999 CE.

Even outside of Spain, contacts with the Americas were frequent.

Sheikh Zaynuddin Ali bin Fadhl Al-Mazandarani started from Tarfay in Morocco during the reign of the Marinid sultan Abu-Yacoub Sidi Youssef (1286-1307 CE). He reached the islands of the Caribbean Sea in 1291 CE.

Sultan Abu Bakari I of Mali personally made two expeditions into the Atlantic. He visited America and returned to Timbuktu after his first expedition, but perished in the ocean during his second voyage, in 1312 CE.

Following the "reconquisita" or the Christian takeover of Spain and Portugal, Ferdinand and his successors also took over the active interface Moors maintained with the Americas. Very soon, the likes of Christopher Columbus and Ferdinand Malegan replaced the likes of Sheikh Zainuddin and Abu Bakri.

Two captains guided Christopher Columbus during his first transatlantic voyage. Martin Alonso Pinzon was the captain of the ship Pinta, and his brother Vicente Yanex Pinzon

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