Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad

Khashkhāsh ibn Sa`īd ibn Aswad (Arabic خشخاش بن سعيد بن اسود) (born in Pechina, Andalusia) was a Moorish navigator of Islamic Iberia.

According to Muslim historian Abu al-Hasan 'Alī al-Mas'ūdī (871-957), Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad sailed over the Atlantic Ocean and discovered a previously unknown land (Ard Marjhoola). In his book Muruj adh-dhahab wa maadin aljawhar (The fields of gold and the mines of jewels), al-Mas'udi writes that Khashkhash Ibn Saeed Ibn Aswad, from Delba (Palos de la Frontera) sailed into the Atlantic Ocean in 889 and returned with a shipload of valuable treasures. As with other theories suggesting Pre-Columbian trans-oceanic contact, this is a fringe theory with little or no support amongst mainstream scholars.

Ali al-Masudi, in The Book of Golden Meadows (947), wrote:

"In the ocean of fogs [the Atlantic] there are many curiosities which we have mentioned in detail in our Akhbar az-Zaman, on the basis of what we saw there, adventurers who penetrated it on the risk of their life, some returning back safely, others perishing in the attempt. Thus a certain inhabitant of Cordoba, Khashkhash by name, assembled a group of young men, his co-citizens, and went on a voyage on this ocean. After a long time he returned back with booty. Every Spaniard knows this story."