Stories Never Told: The First Arabic History of the New World

Abstract

In 1668, a priest named Ilyās ibn Ģanna al-Mawŝilī left Baghdad on a journey that carried him to Europe and as far away as the Americas. While in Peru in 1680, Ilyās began writing what he called his Book of Travels as well as a History of the New World—the earliest known Arabic account of the Americas. Although the History was first discovered in 1905, the work has been neglected by modern schol- ars, who have tended to focus instead on the Book of Travels. This article offers the first critical study of the History. It includes a description of the extant manuscripts of the work, a summary of the contents of each of the seventeen chapters, and a few examples of particularly interesting passages. Some attention is also given to a comparison of aspects of Ilyās’ History with the Tarih-i Hind-i garbi. The article ends with a consideration of the ways in which Ilyās tailored his message specifically to an audience of Eastern Christians living on the borderlands between the Ottoman Empire and Persia. In doing so, this article seeks to demonstrate the importance of integrating the scattered writings of Eastern Christian travelers into the study of Ot- toman exchanges with the wider world.