No Comment - Accidental find

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Like I said, no comment from me. Doubt any is needed.


http://www.islam101.com/history/cherokee.htm

You realize that this simultaneously lends credence to mormonism, right?

A solitary datum is a solitary datum

Its effect on the receiver's conclusions depends on the total available data stack and weightings assigned by the receiver.

Lending credence is in the eye of the beholder - caveat emptor applies.

I promised no comment - hands off.

Not that I am not tempted.

Well, given that the Spaniards were in North America from the early 16th century, it is well within the realms of the credible that they had Moorish or Berber sailors with them, and that some of them started to prostelyse among the people who were already living in the "New World."

During 150 years of colonization, there is ample opportunity for several generations of a small muslim community to take root.

Most certainly there could have been Muslims in the Americas early. Free moors with the Spaniards perhaps not so likely, but Brazil was working slavery in the 16th century, and North Africa and Europe had been trading slave raids across the Mediterranean for some time. But the locus with the Cherokee is hard to fit into that..And it does not help that there is nothing isuch as is alleged supporting the hypothesis in the languages.

Without categorically proclaiming it impossible, which no true scholar would do, and without doing the work to determine HOW hokey the data are, I can only say this is very reminiscent of the attempt to explain Zimbabwe as a Phoenician colony, the alleged Welsh origin of the Mandans, the link between Mayan and Egyptian pyramids, Kon-Tiki, and other attempts either to say "These people are higher than their neighbours but they are just savages so they must have had civilized help", OR, like my great-aunt's claim that we are related to Goethe, to say "We are more important than you think because we are related to these important people."

Bizarre, but interesting.

The Arabs were accomplished seamen before Europe's age of discovery.

Arabs may have reached North America before columbus and prosytized to the natives in the late middle ages.

But then you would expect other cutural exchanges as well: old world crops turning up in the americas- tobacco in Morroco before Sir Walter Releigh. Precolumbian iron tools of North African origin in Indian graves of the 1400's, and so forth.

The Spanish ruled Florida before either Jamestown or Plymouth were founded. Maybe escaped African slaves in Spanish Florida moved in with Indians.Some african slaves may well have been muslim and may have prosyltized. The slaves would not have any korans so arab script failed to reach the native americans. So a watered down strictly verbal version islam takes root in the south eastern USA and reaches the cherokee in the southern appalachians. Maybe.

Not impossible. But hard to swallow.

IF Indian Chiefs really did have Arab names - I dont know what to make of it.

My first lesson in comparative linguistics came from my pappy one night at the dining room table. I came home from Latin class excited at the similarity of "day" - "dies" I knew Latin and Anglic were supposed to be related; here was clear evidence.

So Ol' Paw gently sets me down and explains how "blue" - "flavus" is a valid pair cognates but "day" - "dies" is not.

Moral of the story - if there really ARE Arabic based names, there will be several in one culture's naming tradition, and there will be patterns of form and meaning, and there will not be simple sensible meanings in the local tongue.