From Alexander von Humboldt to Fuat Sezgin on the Discovery of America - A Comparative Historiography

Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) not only studied the history of the discovery of America intensively but he also acknowledged the contributions of Arabic sciences to the universal scientific heritage of humanity. Humboldt referred to astronomers and geographers from the flourishing period of sciences during the era of the Abbasid caliph al-Mamun (r. 813/819-833) in Baghdad, and he studied the adaption of Arabic astronomical-geographical works by Christoph Columbus who set sail in late Summer 1492 from the Canary Islands in order to follow a western sea route to the Far East. Humboldt could not be aware of the America map of the Ottoman admiral and cartographer Piri Reis (ca. 1470-1554) which was found in 1929 in Istanbul's Topkapi Palace, giving new impetuses to the history of the discovery of America. The Piri Rei s maps were studied by Paul Kahle (1933) and Afet Inan (1937, 1954, 1974). Fuat Sezgin embedded the Piri Re.is America map in a wider historical context of sciences, integrating relevant texts, maps and practices interdisciplinary and cross-culturally. While overcoming Eurocentric approaches, Fuat Sezgin introduced a universal understanding of the discovery of America. The historiography of assumed European discoveries requires decolonization. Keywords: History of Discoveries, Decolonial History of Cartography, A. v. Humboldt / F. Sezgin