According to the Camel screwing Sheik Taj el-dene Elhilaly, the Australian Aboriginals are in fact a lost muslim tribe from Afghanistan or some similar rot.
Daily Telegraph, Australia - 18 Feb 2004
Aboriginal Dreamtime of Muslim Origin: Aussie Muslim Leader
Afghan Muslims discovered Australia before Captain Cook and many Aboriginal rituals resemble Islamic traditions, Australia's leading Muslim Cleric has claimed.
Sheik Taj el-dene Elhilaly said Islam had "roots deep in the Australian soil" well before Europeans set foot here.
In interviews with Arabic-language newspapers in the Middle East, the Mufti, now on a tour of Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and Egypt, claims Alice Springs bears a resemblance to the Holy Muslim city Mecca and was called that by early Afghan settlers.
"The Europeans issued a false birth certificate for [Australia] when British seafarer Captain James Cook reached it," he said. "Australia already had the most ancient race of men on the face of the earth - the Aborigine people."
The Mufti said many Aboriginal customs resembled Islamic practices - including circumcision. "You find that they have customs such as circumcision, marriage ceremonies, respect for tribal elders and burial of the dead," he said. "All customs that show they were connected to ancient Islamic culture before the Europeans set foot in Australia."
There is evidence Muslim Makassarese fishermen from the eastern Indonesia, fishing for trepang (sea slugs), sailed to Australia's north before the 16th century.
(There is no recorded history of Muslim settlement in Australia prior to 1860, when Afghan camelmen came to the outback and worked to open up the interior for an overland railway.)
But the Mufti said Muslim call to prayer was heard in Australia before a church bell.
"The best evidence of this is the hundreds of Mosques in the centre of Australia built by the Afghans," he said.
"Some of them were destroyed, others were turned into Australian archeological museums, and still others remained unharmed and they bear a history that proves that Islam has roots and ancient connections to Australia. But because they did not have the proper conditions to continue to exist . . . and connection to the Islamic world, the first generation of our Afghan ancestors dissolved."
The Mufti said he had found a map of Alice Springs under the name Mecca. "We found that our ancestors the Afghans were among the first Muslims and they settled this area and called it Mecca," he said.
"There are . . . dates and palm trees there. We did not believe that dates could grow there. Now that we know the reason, we no longer wonder."
The Cleric praised Lebanese Terror outfit Hezbollah for its "sacrifice" and warned Prime Minister John Howard would "pay the price" for banning the group.
The Mufti met the leader of the political wing of the "Party of Allah" Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, despite the group's listing as a Terrorist Organisation in Australia.
"Most of the Australian people do not support the policy," he said.
