I just watched this visualization of the spread of religion.
It made me wonder why there were no Islamic explorers? Surely they had the means. Lack of motivation perhaps?
Imagine how different a world we would be experiencing.
Ibn Battuta? Zheng He? Arab and Persian traders went as far as Indonesia, the Philippines and according to some chronicles as far as Korea and set up Islamic communities there.
Islam had it's presence in the entire globe besides the Americas.
The Europeans never purposely set sailed to the West either, they were forced to do it.
Did we watch the same video? The one I saw had strong Islamic presence everywhere apart from the Americas.