The Eternal Glass Ceiling :: The Neo-Reconquista

The Americas

The Year 1642

The Moriscos were muslims whom lived under the rulership of Christian Spain. Aside from the Almohads and Umayyads, Masarra's caliphate was one of the more prominent muslim khilāfah of the Moorish Empire throughout Spain during 16th century. Their navy deployed on a voyage from Morocco to South Central America in search of gold, among many other valuable commodities. Sultan Masarra Zamora [One of the sovereign rulers of The Saadi Dynasty] and his beautiful Sultana of Fulani Descent; Nazia Zamora had both received information from a collective of Mauritanian travellers that had went on a journey to The Americas earlier that year in search of the mythical city of El Dorado that was rumored by the Europeans in Spain to have existed.

It was said to be located somewhere within the mountains of South America. These tales intrigued many travellers, but the Europeans were the first documented to embark on the quest to find it. When the Mauritanian travellers had arrived they came in contact with a group of indigenous people that traded jade, cotton, obsidian, honey, quetzal feathers and most importantly, gold. In return the Mauritanian travellers offered the natives guanin gold tipped spears from West Africa, salt and spice from Southeast Asia, silk and fine textiles from Arabia, Somali frankincense and myrrh, and ivory, ebony, tortoise shell, emeralds and pearls from The Bani Arfida of Ethiopia.

When the travellers saw the gold that the indigenous people possessed it lead them to assume that the indigenous people must have known the location of El Dorado. Nevertheless, they would have to continue living among them to assimilate into their society, if they were hoping to discover any esoteric knowledge of this mysterious land. Letter after letter, the description of the people's daily way of life became quite captivating to the council. From their strange tonal language, to their elaborate pyramidal structures, to their reverence of nature which included the sun, rain and maize, and their love for astronomy in which they applied to observe the celestial bodies.

Be that as it may, these natives were anything but primitive. Once assimilated, the Mauritanian travellers were introduced to Mesoamerican writing systems, mathematics, record-keeping, metallurgy, chinampa irrigation, art and symbolism, political systems, social hierarchies, sacred"religious" practices and local architecture that was purposely built to align with astronomical and cosmological elements. What stood out the most among their many unorthodox traditions were their gory and frightening rituals of human sacrifices. One of the letters had described one of the many Gods they submitted human sacrifices unto.

The followers of this God were called The Nahuas, with the God itself being described as a giant serpent much like the giant serpent, Falak [Arabic: فلك] in the arabic folklore ; One Thousand and One Nights [Arabic: أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, ʾAlf Laylah wa-Laylah]. Sultan Masarra was less interested in their culture and traditions, instead he was more curious about the wealth that their lands was rumored to harbour. The Sultan, along with his grand council believed that the travellers may have been right to assume that the land contained more treasures than they had actually witnessed.

While sailing among The Ottomans, Sultan Masarra had heard rumors of The Americas or 'Vilayet Antilia' as The Ottomans would call it during their conquest. During the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the mysterious uncharted islands that lie in the Atlantic Ocean, far to the west of Portugal and Spain was mentioned constantly. Therefore the claim of the Mauritanian Travellers were taken into consideration by the sultan. But mainly because the travellers were sent on the behalf of his long time friend, who was currently The Great Sultan of Mauritania, Ali ibn al-'Aziz. Sultan Masarra had told his sons many stories of how he and The Great Sultan of Mauritania formed a secret underground assemblage to preserve Islam during the time of The Reconquista in Spain.