Well, for starters, Al-Mexic wouldn't be the Islamist superpower that it is today.
Possibly. Would Mexico(al-Aztlan/Mexic to Muslim natives, or Mejico to Catholic ones, now about 56% of the population) perhaps be the developed and rising power it is today, along with Tejas, California, New Harmony[1], the Commonwealth of North Cabotia[2], and my home country of Kanata[3], had China or even one of the European nations gotten there first? Hard to say, really.
In any case, funny thing is, is that Al-Assani, the adventurer, actually landed in Haiti first back in 1474 and Christopher Columbus, sponsored by the Royals in Spain, in what is now the Republic of Florida in the spring of 1492, shortly after the Sicilian Muslims landed in today's California, near Santa Anna[4].
I always wondered, what if Columbus had been the adventurer and landed in Haiti?..and vice versa, if Al-Assani had landed in Florida or the Yucatan?
OOC:
[1] Think of a massive Deseret-type country settled by utopian Englishmen, Russians, Italians, Jews, and Christian Arabs.
[2]Ever read For Want of a Nail?
[3]Basically, FWoAN's Manitoba.
[4]OTL's Los Angeles with a Muslim/Spanish/Italian flair, with a significant Chinese/Japanese presence. Here, though, the Chinese were largely forced northward after losing a series of wars against the Japanese Empire, allied with Spain in the late 18th/early 19th centuries and so few Chinese structural artifacts remain compared to Japanese ones.