For decades now, there have been discussions about whether Muslims discovered and reached America before Columbus; there have actually been claims that Muslim were in America long before Columbus, by well-known scholars such as Fuat Sezgin and some of his interlocutors, based on their analysis of Arab maps through the ages.^[1] Some went even further, saying that Columbus admitted in his journals that he had seen a mosque on a Caribbean island on one of his voyages.^[2] Such stuff is easy to debunk, especially when one begins to look at the sources, or lack thereof, which are used to make such claims.^[3] Vague talk of architectural remains of a mosque, or what looks like a mosque on Cuban or Haitian hilltops, are used to come to the conclusion that since there was a ‘mosque’ there must have been an ‘early arrival’ of Muslims that preceded Columbus. Another brand of such statements is that Muslims/Arabs/Ottomans could have discovered America only if <insert condition> could have occurred. A variation of this can be found in Turkish TV personality and self-proclaimed historian Celal Şengor’s sensationalist claim on Fatih Altayli’s show that “if the Pirî Reis map had come along during the reign of Mehmed II the Conqueror [instead of Süleyman I], ‘we’ too would have had our own colonial empire.”^[4]

More often than not, such claims are big on the claim part, while being vague on the sources and evidence behind the claim, which makes them ideological statements, rather than historical claims backed by evidence. While the very question of whether Muslims arrived in America before Columbus appear to sound a like a bad one, it is a relevant one to ask in an age of popular, yet shoddy, historical scholarship that tends to romanticise so-called "golden past(s)" and cater to nationalistic conceptions of the past. Such romantic conceptions of the past fuel a belief in the impractical rather than the practical, in the legendary rather than in painful realities; proponents of such theories are more ready to accept that Muslims may have sailed to the Americas 500 years before Columbus, rather than imagine that a mosque in Haiti could have been probably built by Muslim African slaves brutally displaced from their native lands and imported to the Caribbean via the Atlantic slave trade, the latter being a more likely scenario via which Muslims “came” to the Americas.

Putting aside these questions, however, one can still ask a much more practical question - could the Ottomans have gone to the Americas and taken it over before or even after Columbus in 1492? The state of Ottoman scientific culture was quite high at the time; the Ottoman Piri Reis’s highly detailed 1513 map in his Kitāb-ı Baḥrīye, or "Book of the Sea", showing the coast of the Americas, drawn just twenty years after Columbus’s voyage is an indication of the fact that the Ottoman intellectual circles were probably as up-to-date as the rest of Europe on the enormity of the events unfolding with the discovery of the Americas. This question is thus not of whether the Ottomans knew about the Americas, but why they did not sail towards them.

Image: Piri Reis's map, accessed here

Fortunately for us, the decline of the “decline paradigms” since the 1990’s meant that earlier Orientalist assertions, that the Ottoman empire entered a three century long period of all-encompassing stagnation and decline starting after the reign of Kanuni Sultan Suleyman in the mid-16th century until its dissolution in early twentieth century from which it was never able to recover, were done away with for good.^[5] It has ushered in a new era in terms of historical scholarship pertaining to the early modern period, such that one can address present day claims of “Muslims/Ottomans could have discovered the Americas before Columbus” without falling into Orientalist "the Ottoman empire was in decline" claptrap. An exploration into the question of whether the Ottomans could have gone to America is an exercise in exploring the technological and physical considerations in empire building in a volatile and transitional early modern world. The above is a question that we deal with in discussion sections with first year undergraduate students studying the early modern period at Turkey’s Ibn Haldun university, in a course taught by the historian Halil Berktay, where initial indignant responses often give way to contemplative discussions of a past that is a “different country,” and where “things are done differently.”

The concept of the “limits of the possible” in a transitional early modern era is used to chalk out problems that the Ottomans would have faced in sailing to the Americas and colonising it. First consider the human, structural and technological “limits of the possible” - the ocean-going sail-powered carrack and caravel, the chief vessels used by Columbus in his journey to the Americas, were quite different from the oar-powered Mediterranean galley often employed by the Ottomans, alongside others such as the Genoese, Venetians and the Mamluks. The Mediterranean galley with its low sides, long and narrow body, and oars on both sides, would have been incapable of withstanding the ocean winds and waves. Moreover, the labour intensive nature of the galley meant that it basically ran on drinking water supplies, and had limited space for the storage of supplies; scholars have estimated that a Mediterranean galley could stay at sea for a maximum of three weeks before it needed to replenish its water supplies.[6] Couple that with the fact that rowing was an energy intensive, slow business which could not be sustained for long periods of time, and it becomes clear that crossing the Atlantic Ocean in a Mediterranean galley is near to impossible, since the water supply would run out early in the oceanic voyage. Moreover, the question about voyaging to the Americas is not simply about going there, but also returning to tell the tale, followed by multiple voyages, as Columbus did.

Image: Ottoman galley in 17^th century, accessed here

The ocean-going sail-powered carrack and caravel used by the Spanish, on the other hand, had high sides, a wide body with a large cargo hold which allowed it to both hold larger amounts of essential supplies and be stable on the high seas. Also the reliance on sail power meant that there was a smaller and more specialised crew, unlike in the case of the Mediterranean galley; fewer mouths to feed meant provisions lasted longer.

Image: Replica of Columbus's ships, accessed here

Secondly, despite controlling all manner of land trade routes, the Ottoman empire was in a rather disadvantaged position vis-a-vis the Atlantic Ocean. The large distance away from the Atlantic ocean meant that an Ottoman fleet of Mediterranean galleys, or even ocean going vessels, would have to cross the Venetians, Mamluks, the Genoese, the Portugese and the Spaniards, before even beginning to set sail for the Americas. While in theory the Ottomans should have conquered either Portugal or Spain to attempt this voyage, the historical reality of the Spanish Reconquista meant that this too, was probably far-fetched at a time when the Ottomans had just set about consolidating their gains after conquering Constantinople in 1453 and ending the Byzantine empire. Thus, when Columbus set out on his oceanic voyage of Reconnaissance in 1492, also the year of the fall of the last Muslim stronghold in Spain, not only were the Ottomans at a structural and technological naval disadvantage, but an exit from the Mediterranean would itself have been a major challenge for them in the first place.

While we have established that the Ottomans knew of the Americas, but faced many challenges in setting about going towards it, it is important to note what set the Portuguese and Spanish sailors and explorers apart from others in this age of European Reconnaissance. After all, it was not enough for Columbus to theorise that the Earth was round and by extension, India was just at the other side of the great ocean; the fact that he was able to lobby the monarchy for financing his voyage, which in part entailed convincing them that great riches and lands were to be gained in the process, is in itself that defining leap of faith of that so characterised the European spirit of the Reconnaissance.  A ruthless spirit for trade, plunder, and conquest with which they carried out their discoveries to find quicker, and cheaper routes to the famed wealth of the East, coupled with the conviction that they were undertaking Divine work for the glory of the Christian faith meant that the rest of the world was set to witness a new face of the European - increasing in confidence, growing in wealth, and righteous in conviction.

References

Çalişir, M. Fatih. “Decline of a ‘Myth’: Perspectives on the Ottoman ‘Decline.’” Tarih Okulu, no. 9 (2011): 37–60.

Jason Colavito. “Did Columbus Find an Ancient Mosque in Cuba?” Accessed March 3, 2022. http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2013/06/did-columbus-find-an-ancient-mosque-in-cuba.html.

CNN TÜRK. “Prof. Dr. Celal Şengör’den Kanuni Sultan Süleyman için çok tartışılacak sözler.” Accessed March 3, 2022. https://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/prof-dr-celal-sengorden-kanuni-sultan-suleyman-icin-cok-tartisilacak-sozler.

Pryor, John H. Geography, Technology, and War: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean, 649-1571. Past and Present Publications. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

Sezgin, Fuat. “Amerika’nın Keşfinde Müslümanlar (Muslims in the Discovery of America),” 2016. https://www.muharrembalci.com/ornekkisi/fuatsezgin/261.pdf.

“Who Discovered Americas?” Accessed March 3, 2022. https://www.centuryassociation.org/assad-bhuglah-toc/2518-who-discovered-americas.

[1] Fuat Sezgin, “Amerika’nın Keşfinde Müslümanlar (Muslims in the Discovery of America),” 2016, https://www.muharrembalci.com/ornekkisi/fuatsezgin/261.pdf.

[2] “Who Discovered Americas?,” accessed March 3, 2022, https://www.centuryassociation.org/assad-bhuglah-toc/2518-who-discovered-americas.

[3] “Did Columbus Find an Ancient Mosque in Cuba?,” JASON COLAVITO, accessed March 3, 2022, http://www.jasoncolavito.com/1/post/2013/06/did-columbus-find-an-ancient-mosque-in-cuba.html.

[4] “Pîrî Reis’in hayatındaki en büyük talihsizliği Kanuni Sultan Süleyman gibi bir salağın zamanında doğmuş olmasıdır. Fatih zamanında Pîrî Reis olaydı inanır mısınız bugün bizim sömürge imparatorluğumuz vardı. Çok samimi söylüyorum bugün biz Amerika’ya falan gitmiştik,“ in “Prof. Dr. Celal Şengör’den Kanuni Sultan Süleyman için çok tartışılacak sözler,” CNN TÜRK, accessed March 3, 2022, https://www.cnnturk.com/turkiye/prof-dr-celal-sengorden-kanuni-sultan-suleyman-icin-cok-tartisilacak-sozler.

[5] M. Fatih Çalişir, “Decline of a ‘Myth’: Perspectives on the Ottoman ‘Decline,’” Tarih Okulu, no. 9 (2011): 37–60.

[6] John H. Pryor, Geography, Technology, and War: Studies in the Maritime History of the Mediterranean, 649-1571, Past and Present Publications (Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 80.