By Layan Damanhouri
“We Discovered America Before Columbus”, a documentary film, made by Saudi filmmaker, Dr. Khalid Abualkhair, aims to present the real history of the discovery of the Americas through a series of interviews with historians and academics and newly-found evidences. Abualkhair holds a PhD in political media and teaches Media and Political Communication at Taiba University in Madinah. In a year and a half, he set out on a journey across continents to unveil the truth about early Muslims’ encounters in the American continents that counter today’s historical records narrated to generations since European colonialism. “It was like putting pieces into a puzzle,” Abualkhair says, in an exclusive interview with Saudi Gazette.
Responding to the long debate of who were the first Americans, the film explores the American continents in two parts with the first segment focusing on the discovery of North America. “While there are theories made, there are also scientific facts. Some theories say the Native Americans reached America 16,000 years ago. Some state that the Irish were the first to arrive while others say the Vikings. There also facts that reveal that the Africans and Chinese arrived. However, I decided to focus on the proofs from Andalusia and Mali,” says Abualkhair. The film presents facts from documented sources as well as a series of interviews with dozens of historians, university professors and academic researchers in Spain, Portugal, Brazil, Morocco, Senegal and Mali.
(Saudi Gazette)
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