An Iraqi priest wrote the first Arabic descriptions of the New World

Evidence

A Chaldean Uniate priest from Mosul in Iraq visited the Spanish colonies in America between 1668 and 1683 and gave us what is certainly the first Arabic description of the New World, including South and Central America as far north as Mexico. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 738

Categorization

• CANDY: Amazing cocktail fact: the first Arabic account of the Americas came from a Chaldean priest from Mosul in the 1660s.
• SEED: An essay on who gets to describe “discovered” lands — an Iraqi cleric as chronicler of the Spanish colonies complicates the discovery narrative.