Turkey’s Erdogan wants to build a mosque in Cuba. It’s based on a historical fallacy.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, and Cuban Vice Foreign Minister Rogelio Sierra during a wreath-laying ceremony at Revolution Square in Havana on Feb. 11. (Adalberto Roque/AFP/Getty Images)
Erdogan went on, citing as evidence the assertion that "Columbus mentioned the existence of a mosque on a hill on the Cuban coast," and said that he would be inclined to build a new one in the Caribbean. "I'd like to talk about it with my Cuban brothers," Erdogan said in November.
Despite the deluge of bemused and derisive reactions on social media to Erdogan's version of history, the Turkish leader made good on that vow. While on a visit this week to Havana, Erdogan reiterated his desire to construct a mosque in Havana.
The proposed structure would be modeled after Istanbul's elegant 19th century Ortaköy Mosque. Curiously, Cuban authorities are also entertaining a Saudi bid to build a separate mosque.
"We want to build the mosque ourselves. We don’t want a partner," Erdogan was quoted as telling Cuban authorities on his presidential Web site. "If you find it appropriate, we would like to build it in Havana. But if you have promised a Havana mosque to other people, then we can build our Ortaköy Mosque in another Cuban province."
There are an estimated 1,500 Muslims in Cuba, the vast majority of whom are international students from countries in the developing world such as Indonesia and Pakistan, according to CNN. Larger and older communities of Muslims exist elsewhere in the region, from the bustling coastal metropolises of South America to Caribbean countries with legacies of indentured migration from South Asia, such as Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. The largest mosque in Latin America is the King Fahd Islamic Cultural Center in Buenos Aires.
No matter his enthusiasm for the project, Erdogan's initial reasoning for it is grounded in a clear misreading of history. I sketched the problem with his claim earlier in WorldViews:
Erdogan is apparently citing the disputed work of Youssef Mroueh, an academic affiliated with the As-Sunnah Foundation of America.Mroueh does not appear to be an accredited historian at any institution of higher learning. The passage Mroueh thinks he's citing, as blogger Jason Colavito notes, is actually a reference in the journal
In a 1996 paper, Mroueh referred to the presence of a mosque spotted by Columbus along the Cuban coast. "Columbus admitted in his papers that on Monday, October 21, 1492 CE while his ship was sailing near Gibara on the north-east coast of Cuba, he saw a mosque on top of a beautiful mountain," writes Mroueh.
Despite the deluge of bemused and derisive reactions on social media to Erdogan's version of history, the Turkish leader made good on that vow. While on a visit this week to Havana, Erdogan reiterated his desire to construct a mosque in Havana.
The proposed structure would be modeled after Istanbul's elegant 19th century Ortaköy Mosque. Curiously, Cuban authorities are also entertaining a Saudi bid to build a separate mosque.
"We want to build the mosque ourselves. We don’t want a partner," Erdogan was quoted as telling Cuban authorities on his presidential Web site. "If you find it appropriate, we would like to build it in Havana. But if you have promised a Havana mosque to other people, then we can build our Ortaköy Mosque in another Cuban province."
There are an estimated 1,500 Muslims in Cuba, the vast majority of whom are international students from countries in the developing world such as Indonesia and Pakistan, according to CNN. Larger and older communities of Muslims exist elsewhere in the region, from the bustling coastal metropolises of South America to Caribbean countries with legacies of indentured migration from South Asia, such as Guyana, Suriname and Trinidad and Tobago. The largest mosque in Latin America is the King Fahd Islamic Cultural Center in Buenos Aires.
No matter his enthusiasm for the project, Erdogan's initial reasoning for it is grounded in a clear misreading of history. I sketched the problem with his claim earlier in WorldViews:
Erdogan is apparently citing the disputed work of Youssef Mroueh, an academic affiliated with the As-Sunnah Foundation of America.Mroueh does not appear to be an accredited historian at any institution of higher learning. The passage Mroueh thinks he's citing, as blogger Jason Colavito notes, is actually a reference in the journal of famed Dominican friar Bartolome de los Casas, who invokes what Columbus saw second-hand:
In a 1996 paper, Mroueh referred to the presence of a mosque spotted by Columbus along the Cuban coast. "Columbus admitted in his papers that on Monday, October 21, 1492 CE while his ship was sailing near Gibara on the north-east coast of Cuba, he saw a mosque on top of a beautiful mountain," writes Mroueh.
Remarking on the position of the river and port, to which he gave the name of San Salvador, he describes its mountains as lofty and beautiful, like the Pena de las Enamoradas, and one of them has another little hill on its summit, like a graceful mosque. The other river and port, in which he now was, has two round mountains to the S.W., and a fine low cape running out to the W.S.W.The Cuban mosque in question — which drew Erdogan into a heated conversation about history and his country's Islamic past — was clearly just part of a metaphorical allusion.
Susanne Posel 
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