Arab's Journey to Colonial Spanish America : The Travels of Elias al-Musili in the Seventeenth Century

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