The Ottoman Empire

In 1929, an amazing discovery was made in Istanbul, Turkey. A map drawn in the year 1513 by the Ottoman cartographer, Piri Reis was found. Reis wrote that his map was based on earlier sources, including ancient Greek and Arabic maps, including maps by Christopher Columbus, who had sailed only 21 years earlier. What is remarkable about this map is the level of detail of the map, which forced historians to re-evaluate the Columbus theory of exploration.

The map clearly shows the eastern coast of South America, which is in the correct position with regards to Africa. The coast of Brazil is shown in incredible detail, with many rivers accurately placed on the map. Although Reis used Columbus’s maps as a source, Columbus never went to South America, so Reis must have gotten that from earlier Muslim maps that he used as sources. Furthermore, Reis’s map includes the Andes Mountains, which were not even explored by Europeans until the 1520s, a full decade after the drawing of Reis’s map!

Piri Reis based his map on earlier sources, which clearly had a very good understanding of the Americas and had explored the area well before the first Europeans. The map is perhaps the strongest physical evidence of Muslim exploration of the Americas before Columbus

http://www.onislam.net/english/culture-and-entertainment/history/477219-muslims-crossed-the-atlantic-before-columbus.html

http://97.105.52.213/en/artical/21034/muslims-crossed-atlantic-columbus-3