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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zheng_He

There is a permanent exhibition about Zheng He in the China mall at Ibn Batutta - an exhibit that I passed many times without looking at. Yesterday I was showing some guests around and went and read the accounts of this man.

I'd seen a documentary on him and his navy and how it was one of the largest (if not the largest) in history. However, I didn't pick up on the fact he was a Muslim from this documentary - but was surprised at the time of China's dominance of the seas at the time - and the fact I hadn't heard of this. That in itself was a fascinating story - especially the inexplicable decision of a later emperor to destroy the navy and give up maritime dominance.

However, the 'discovery' that the admiral was a Muslim was a surprise and a quick look at the wiki entry above showed he is also involved in the development of Islam in Indonesia and Malaya. I always thought it was traders who took Islam there..and wasn't aware of this aspect.

I don't really have a point to make - just sharing some information that I wasn't aware of before. I guess it just goes to show that there is a lot of history out there and I have a lot to discover!

Cheers,
Shafique

Interesting post.

We really do learn something new everyday.

Today i learned that Omar Khayyam, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmī (the father of Algebra) and Ibn Seena (Avicenna in Greek) were all Persians and not Arabs.