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
PREFACE
During one of my eld 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 battl. In the days of sail the battl 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 ddle-headed bow, a high sternpost and double forward-leaning masts.
I was trans xed by the sheer beauty and craftsmanship of the vessel and resolved there and then to nd 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 t 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 rst attempts at navigation may perhaps have been made upon rivers not on the sea: the vastness of the sea frightened him, but once those rst 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 dif cult 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.
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