Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan initiated a controversy on Nov. 15 by claiming that “Muslims discovered the Americas three centuries before Christopher Columbus.” Since then, dozens of articles, both in Turkey and abroad, have commented on Erdogan’s claim, often with a tone of sarcasm. However, the reason for Erdogan making this remark, and what it means regarding Turkey’s political past and future, deserves a sober analysis.

Erdogan made the comment during his speech at the “First Latin American Muslim Religious Leaders Summit,” which was organized and hosted by Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs. That Turkey invited 75 Muslim leaders from 40 countries was noteworthy in itself, pointing to the “soft power” Ankara is trying to expand in the broader Muslim world. And this should be encouraged, especially when the alternatives to “Turkey's Islam” can be much more rigid and intolerant interpretations of the faith, such as Salafism.

In his address to his Latin American guests, Erdogan spoke highly about the history of Islamic civilization, arguing, for instance, “You cannot observe colonialism in our history.” His remarks about the Muslim discovery of the Americas was a part of that discourse. He said, “Islam came to Latin America in the 12th century. It is claimed that Columbus discovered America in 1492. Yet, Muslim seamen had reached the American continent 314 years before him in 1178. Christopher Columbus recalls seeing a mosque at the top of a hill at the shores of Cuba in his memoirs. We can discuss this with our brother from Cuba. A mosque will be fitting for that hill today.”

Were Erdogan's remarks completely over the top? Not entirely, as I explained elsewhere, because while “discovery” might not be the right term, it is possible that Muslim sailors might have hit the shores of the New World before Columbus. (Turkish science historian Fuat Sezgin, who teaches at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Germany, infers this possibility from medieval oceanic maps by Muslims in his article “The Pre-Columbian Discovery of the American Continent by Muslim Seafarers.”) But Erdogan’s reference to “a mosque at the top of a hill at the shores of Cuba” was a misquotation. Columbus rather wrote about a hill “in the form of a handsome mosque,” not a mosque at the top of a hill.