Voyages of Explorations: A Comparison of the First Eastern Travel to South America by Elias Al-Musili with Walter Raleigh’s one.

Abstract

European travelers in the 15^th and 16^th century begin to embark on series of explorations of the New World. This period is well known as the “Age of exploration” where many figures such as Ferdinand Magellan, explore the Atlantic road and the Pacific Ocean. Not only the American literature if full of such explorations, but also the Arabic one as well. By the year 1905, Antun Rabbat, a well-known Jesuit scholar of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, discovers a manuscript of the first eastern travel to Americas, in the library of the Suryan bishopric in Aleppo. He publishes the first manuscript in Al Masriq journal (Vol.8, nos.18-24 [1905] under the heading (The most an ancient voyage of an oriental to America (1668-83) (Farah XI). The manuscript is translated under the title “An Arabs Journey to Colonial Spanish America” by Caesar E. Farah, a professor in the Middle Eastern and Islamic History at the University of Minnesota. This book shows that, since ancient times, Easterners always have passion and love for travel, however, no one before  the Rev. Elias, the Chaldean Christian priest from Baghdad, ventures into the Americas and gives his observations of the cities, villages, provinces and native people and could travel freely to the Spanish Empire in 1675-83. In this regard, i will compare the Eastern journey to south America, Peru, and show Elias’s perspective of the native people, with the Western Journey of Sir Walter Raleigh to Peru. Though there is a wide time gap between the two Journeys, however, my main point is to draw a comparison between the Eastern perspective and the Western one of such journey. Both visited Peru, however they share different points of view. Simply put, I will focus on the purpose of such journey, the description of the prevalent religion among the natives, their habits and the search for the mines of gold.