Former U.S. Rep. Allen West celebrated Columbus Day on Monday by noting the link between Spanish exploration and their war against the Moors.
Wishing visitors a “Happy Politically Incorrect Columbus Day,” West took to Facebook and pointed toward a “link between Islamic conquest and Columbus’ discovery of the New World.”
“In 711, an Islamic force invaded the Iberian peninsula, defeated the Visigoths and pushed on to France,” West wrote. “In France, they were turned back by Charles Martel at the battle of Tours in 732. But the Islamic Moors ruled in present-day Spain for some 700 years. Later, during the Spanish ‘Reconquista,’ they were pushed into southern Spain in what they called Al Andalusia and established the Umayyad Caliphate consisting of cities such as Toledo, Granada, Seville, and Cordoba. The last Moorish city of Granada fell in 1492 under Spanish rulers Ferdinand I and Isabella I, of Aragon and Castile.
“Meanwhile, some 40 years earlier, in 1453, the Ottoman Muslim Turks conquered the Christian city of Constantinople, renaming it Istanbul and instituting Islamic rule,” West added. “The all-important trade route east for Europe had been cut. It was Columbus who went to Ferdinand and Isabella seeking sponsorship for an expedition to find a new way to the east, as he believed the world was circular and could be circumnavigated by sea. Columbus found favor with Isabella and the rest, well, is history. The founding of the New World can thus be directly attributed as a response to Islamic conquest. Lastly, never forget the Islamic concept that wherever Islam has ruled (Dar-al-Islam), but been overcome (Dar-al-Harb), it must rule again.”