Download PDF | (Handbook of Oriental Studies_Handbuch Der Orientalistik) Dionisius A. Agius - Classic Ships of Islam_ From Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean-Brill Academic Publishers (2007).
530 Pages
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I am very grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding the research for this book.
Generous thanks are due to so many friends for their help and guidance and to the anonymous readers who read the entire text in draft and made many comments and corrections. I extend my particular gratitude to Rex Smith and Francine Stone for their advice and support and the late Alan Kaye who was an inspiration on language and language contact; David Peacock and Lucy Blue deserve especial mention; they gave me the opportunity to study the Islamic maritime presence at Quseir al-Qadim; in particular Lucy Blue’s contribution to the excavation and conclusions on the Islamic harbour of Quseir during the Mamluk period; I also wish to thank Jorgen Christian Meyer for the most stimulating discussions on ancient history; David Frier, whose linguistic skills were invaluable in checking the citations from the Portuguese sources and Sally Church for her comments and helpful suggestions on medieval Chinese ships and Chinese sources.
Many colleagues and friends have shared my enthusiasm for this subject; among those who contributed to the research and writing of the book, I am very grateful to Tom Vosmer and Rob Carter who drew my attention to Bronze Age boat construction features and for their stimulating discussion and advice. I extend particular thanks to Tom Vosmer whom I consulted on a number of occasions during the progress of my work; he steadfastly answered my queries, giving wise counsel on construction features of watercraft from antiquity to the present times; also Norbert Weismann, a meticulous researcher on boat architecture of both contemporary and late medieval Islamic periods; specialist advice came from Yousef Al-Hiji on navigation and shipbuilding in Kuwait; and Julian Whitewright on sails, Seth Priestman on the Persian Gulf during the Sasanian period, Barbara Jockers and James Montgomery on the nautical terminology of pre-Islamic poetry and the Quran, and to Stefan Heidemann on sixteenth century Raqqa and the Euphrates river.
I would also like to express my appreciation to David Nicolle whose approach to the study of the /uriistyya works gave me a better insight into Muslim warships, and to Vassilios Christides whose expertise on Byzantine and Muslim warships and technology of the Classical and Medieval Mediterranean was of great benefit; I am indebted to Joseph Muscat for his generous hospitality at his home in Rabat, Malta; his knowledge and expertise on galleys of the Order of St John contributed to the understanding of shipbuilding techniques and technology of their Muslim counterparts.
Exploring the Indian and Islamic maritime culture I benefited enormously from the knowledge of Himanshu Prabha Ray and Paul Lunde who helped me in finding my way through the history of the Indian Ocean world; I would also like to include Sila Tripati for his expertise on stone anchors and underwater archaeology on the south-west Indian coast. For the Chinese civilization, Sally Church, answered my queries with great patience, enthusiasm and detail; her untiring help in guiding me through the history of the voyages of Zheng He’s fleets and her knowledge and advice was invaluable; I also wish to thank her for her linguistic skills in translating Chinese titles and citations from text.
I am indebted to a number of Arabian mariners who were there beside me when I needed their help to explain and demonstrate shipbuilding methods and navigational techniques and who provided me with an insight into the distant seafaring past. I have listed their names in my two previous works: In the Wake of the Dhow (2002), and Seafaring in the Arabian Gulf and Oman (2005). Their knowledge was indispensable for the making of this book.
I am sure that there are colleagues and friends I have omitted to mention; apologies if I inadvertently forgot to include them. If I did not heed to good advice I bear responsibility for any misunderstandings and errors.
I should like also to extend my gratitude to Keble College, Oxford and its staff for their hospitality during my archival research at the Bodleian Library, and to the Penn Club, who offered a little oasis of peace, a stone’s throw from the British Library and Victoria & Albert Museum. My thanks are due to all the librarians and archivists who assisted me with all sorts of queries: the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Dubai; the Centre for Documentation and Research at Abu Dhabi; the Centre for Research and Studies on Kuwait; the Museum and Antiquities at Doha, Qatar; the Arab Gulf States Folklore Centre, Doha; the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture, Muscat; and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. My thanks also go to Robert Hillenbrand and Charles Melville who provided me with copies of Persian miniatures.
The forbearance of my publishers must be acknowledged, for their patience and trust in allowing me to submit my work three years after the deadline. My sincerest thanks go to Harriet Nash for her meticulous compilation of the index; and to David Appleyard for assistance with maps and illustrations. Finally, I give my profound thanks to my wife, Anne who has acted as proofreader and editor, patiently reading several drafts of the manuscript and providing invaluable help with my occasional infelicities with the English language.
PREFACE
During one of my field trips in the Gulf, in April 1992, I met a Qatari, Muhammed Saeed al-Balushi, who completely changed the way I looked at the maritime culture of the Western Indian Ocean. Muhammed was then head of research and documentation at the Arab Gulf States Folklore Centre in Doha and it was thanks to him that I began searching the history of sailing ships through early Arabic sources. One day, he introduced me to Yousef Al Majid, a master builder in Doha, who was building a replica of a 90-foot long dattil. In the days of sail the battil was a trading and pearling vessel, but also a pirate and warship in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She was a double-ended craft, with a fiddle-headed bow, a high sternpost and double forward-leaning masts.
I was transfixed by the sheer beauty and craftsmanship of the vessel and resolved there and then to find out more about these relics of the distant past and how they might relate to the modern vessels I had previously observed. Yousef told me: “If you want to know all about the past, go to the coasts of Oman; there you shall see how our ancestors build our ships and sailed them”. He was absolutely right, and furthermore, I found that traditional dhow-building, though in decline, still exists in places dotted around the coasts of the Indian Ocean.
Visiting these places, I have watched closely the different stages of building a craft and the progress of the sailing vessel herself: I watched carpenters from carving boats made out of the bark of a tree with a crude knife to others building vessels of intricate beauty. Observing how things are done and talking with people made me consider the reasons to build, equip and fit out watercraft over the centuries and the communities who existed around them. This is what this book is about: the Classic Ships of Islam, the story of river boats and ocean-going vessels.
I chose the word “Classic” to denote something which has stood the “test of time”; a “standard” form: in other words, these are the best examples of ship-types recorded by Muslim historians, geographers, travellers and storytellers. Classic Ships of Islam is about types of craft, their hull design, and equipment, but also about seamanship and technology in the context of the broader historical framework. The focal point is the Western Indian Ocean and the two corridors: the Arabian/Persian Gulf and the Red Sea. Within this context, I have attempted to look at the past through the last remnants of traditional watercraft and it is they who have inspired the writing of the book. They have not changed since antiquity; the way they are built is the same as it was then; the building materials are the same and the tools are rudimentary.
Man’s first attempts at navigation may perhaps have been made upon rivers not on the sea: the vastness of the sea frightened him, but once those first journeys were attempted, technology advanced at different stages. Ships were built light enough to ride the waves; they had a single rudder on the starboard side or two rudders, one on each side of the stern; they were also propelled by sails, the square-type or lateen; and the stars guided them through the night. Following traditional practices, the mariners voyaged across the ocean with impunity, and if necessary, they relied on a primitive compass and pilot guides.
Many of the seafarers’ yarns tell a story of suffering, courage and the endurance of the sailors who survived in difficult circumstances. They are stories about deep piety and superstition, but mixed with myth and legend there are solid facts. One factor above all else remained constant: seafaring in the Western Indian Ocean followed the rhythmic seasonal monsoonal winds, so fundamental to the physical, human and spiritual unities of the various seafaring communities.
Dionisius A. Agius Exeter 2007
NOTE
I have adopted the Library of Congress Arabic ‘Transliteration System for names of Arab(@ian)/Muslim rulers, dynasties, religious and political movements and technical terms. All bibliographical Arabic entries (.e. names of authors, titles of works etc.) and citations in the text follow the Transliteration System. Pre-Islamic and Quranic citations maintain full vocalization; other texts are transliterated in full or pausal form. Place-names of towns such as Aden, Aidhab, Basra, Jeddah, Quseir, Suakin or countries like Iraq, Oman and Yemen are better known to the reader in this form rather than using the Transliteration System, e.g. Aden for ‘Adan, Aidhab for ‘Aydhab, Basra for Basra, Goga for Qiaga, Hasa for Ahsa’, Iraq for ‘Iraq, Jeddah for Judda, Mahfuza for Mahftza, Oman for “‘Uman, Quseir for Qusayr, and Suakin for Sawakin.
A transliterated form of the place-name is found in the Index and placed in brackets, eg Ras al-Khaimah (Ra’s al-Khayma), Sohar (Suhar) and Yanbo (Yanbi‘). Also note that in the text msbas or relative adjectives relating to a country or town of origin are used with no diacritics, eg Adeni for ‘Adani, Dhofari for Zufari, Sirafi for Sirafi. Christian dates are normally preceded by Islamic dates if the subject concerns the Islamic period; in other instances only the date of the Christian era is inserted. In the text and bibliographical references, the word Ibn (son) occurs at initial position with Classical and Medieval Muslim writers, eg Ibn Hawgal, but an abbreviated & is employed in the middle of a name, eg Aba Bakr Muhammad b. Husayn. All Classical, Medieval and Modern Arabic (and Muslim) names starting with a/- are listed in the bibliography under the first letter following al-, eg al-Magqrizi under /m/, al-Qutami under /q/ al-Radhrawart under /r/ and alSamarqandi under /s/.
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