Al Jazeera has facepalm moments from time to time.
For instance, this recent news item regarding Ancient Mosques in Bangladesh:
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/asia/...948844588.html
I admit that I was taken in by the idea that a 7th cent. mosque may have been discovered and was concerned that it would not be maintained properly by the Government but as a friend more learned than me in history and archaeology pointed out, this news report has a number of historical aberrations:
First of all, the Al Jazeera report and the speech made by Tim Steel in 2010 to the BD Asiatic Society regarding his view of
trade centres in South Asia, do not provide any evidence whatsoever that the mosque is from the seventh century. It is possible that the mosque is from the Sultanate period but again, there has been no prior evidence of this and Dr. Perween Hasan's extensive study on the book - the most authoritative text till date - does not mention any Sultanate mosque north of Gaibandha.
This is even looking beyond the mere fact that it's incredibly unlikely that a mosque, in such a familiar form, would have appeared in the sub-continent so soon after the Prophet's (pbuh) death.
Secondly, and this is something that I missed completely, the Arabic script is apparently cursive and in a style that was very different from the Arabic of the 7th century. The bricks, etc. that Tim Steel shows in the above video means nothing for that very reason.
Thirdly and I think most persuasively, there are considerations that need to be made about who Tim Steel is and why he chose to promote such an issue. It is a stretch of the imagination to even call him an 'amateur archaeologist'. He is an adviser to many tourism boards, including Tiger Tours BD. Hardly seriously academic and/or archaeological credentials. Furthermore, he clearly has a vested interest in creating a unique niche for Bangladesh - which he even admits in this 'Frankly Speaking' interview at 3:26:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybXZM...feature=relmfu
TL;DR: Distorting history for the sake of private business
Not recognizing such distortion
Not caring about such distortion