Coco noted it in a very interesting article about an astrolabe about to be sold at auction:

Supercomputer may be a slight exaggeration, as when quantum computers do get off the ground, those things that presently claim the name of super-computer, and occupy more space than the earliest ideas of what a home computer would require, will be seen to be what they are, mere toys and playthings to amuse the mind. Such a comparison however does not denigrate the beauty and versatility of the astrolabe as an instrument of it time, any more than the more modern calculators the abacus.

The article however itself referenced a place by a relatively modern name giving the impression that its ancient name is a more modern name thereby suggesting perhaps a slight rewriting of history. Coco however hoped that the reference was merely a mistake on the part of the writer of the article perhaps out of ignorance and therefore wrote to the publisher in the following terms:

It was an interesting article about the astrolabe that is about to be sold at Sotheby’s and about astrolabes in general, but your writer appears not to have been aware that Spain was known as Spain before it ever became Andalusia after the incursion of the Vandals. Your writer refers to the land as “al-Andalus (in present-day Spain)”. The Romans used the name Hispania and the Greeks Spania long before the Vandals had any involvement.

It is also curious to note that the name, which is not an English name, appears in a list “Iraq, Iran, North Africa and al-Andalus”. Surely this is inappropriate? Andalusia or Iberia may have made sense, but to use a non-English name is no more correct in an English language article than to use Abertawe (or to use Swansea in a Welsh language article) even though the English or Welsh reader may know the location to which reference has been made it displays a contempt for the language in which the article has been written.

There is a tendency – often attributed to the victors in warfare – to present a one-sided view of history. This is exhibited in our day by the propensity to find opportunities to rewrite history. I hope that this was not such an abuse of the article but merely a mistake on the part of your write and would like forward to reading a correction. If it were not a mistake but deliberate then one might ask whether there is a contempt not merely for the language in which the article has been written but also for the reconquest of Andalusia.

The paragraph in which the mistake was made reads:

Astrolabes were first developed in ancient Greece in the 2nd Century BCE and spread to the Islamic world by the 8th Century. Over the following centuries, centres of production flourished across Iraq, Iran, North Africa and al-Andalus (in present-day Spain).

Nikhil Inamdar

You, dear Reader, may also note another anachronism in the paragraph. Whilst astrolabes were indeed developed in Greece the Islamic world did not exist before the seventh century AD. According to Islamic tradition its founder died in 632 AD. The incursion into Spain began only during the eighth century. The spreading of the knowledge of astrolabe into the parts of the world that would come to be dominated by Islam would then have taken place whilst those parts of the world, Iran, Iraq and North Africa would have been dominated by, at least nominally, Christian peoples, so that the Muslim world merely inherited the knowledge of the people its leaders had conquered.

Coco therefore reaches a tentative conclusion that there is an attempt to rewrite the history, or if not to rewrite it to sow into the minds of the readers of the article enough to cause them to doubt what any good scholar should know.

Finally, Coco would be glad of further good quality information that you, dear Reader, may have upon the subjects addressed in this article, if you would comment appropriately below.