An Arab's Journey To Colonial Spanish America

In 1905, the Jesuit scholar Antn Rabbt discovered the writings of Elias al-Msili in a Jacobite diocese in Aleppo, Syria. Al-Msili, a seventeenth-century Arab and a priest of the Chaldean Church, traveled widely across colonial Spanish America, becoming the first person to visit the Americas from Baghdad. Rabbt transcribed into Arabic and published those portions relating to al-Msilis travels. Acclaimed Middle Eastern historian Farah is the first to make these writings available in English translation.