By NOEL MURPHY
MOVE over Captain Cook.
Likewise, Abel Tasman, William Dampier, Willen Janszoon, Cristavao de Mendonca and Zheng He – the title to Australia’s discoverer belongs to someone hundreds of years earlier.
Precisely who arrived on the Great Southern Land’s shores first – after Aborigines 40,000 years ago, that is – has been the subject of learned debate for many years.
But a little-known fact is Muslims beat them all, arriving as early as the Ninth Century.
Ocean Grove academic Dr Dzavid Haveric points to a map drafted in 820AD by Persian cartographer Muhammad Ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi as clear evidence Muslim seafarers found their way to Australia long before any navigators from Europe.
He cites another map, in 934AD, by Muslim cartographer al-Istakhri, as further evidence.
Dr Haveric’s 2012 book Muslim Discovery of the World also told of the discovery in northwest Australia of Arabic-inscribed coins from Kilwa, off the coast of Tanzania, possibly the result of a shipwreck.
A discovery this year of more Kilway coins, dating between 900AD and 1300AD, in the Northern Territory has added even more weight to his Muslim discovery theory.
“I’m not surprised the coins were found in Australia. In my book I indicated previous Islamic coins found in Australian waters,” Dr Haveric said.
“They support my claim that Australia was discovered over the course of centuries by different ethnicities.”
Dr Haveric said al-Khwarizmi , who drafted the 820AD map of Australia, New Guinea, the Indian Ocean and the Horn of Africa, was the same man who devised the Arabic numerical system adopted by Western civilisation.
“He’s the same scholar who invested Arabic algebra, based on ancient Indian numerals, and he’s the first mapmaker of Australia,” Dr Haveric said.
“This is our Renaissance, our Enlightenment.’’
