Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times

153 Pages·1975·5.32 MB·English

by  George Fadlo Hourani

ARAB SEAFARING
Volume 13
PRINCETON ORIENTAL STUDIES
PHILIP K. HITTI, GENERAL EDITOR
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Arab
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) IN ANCIENT )
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MEDIEVAL TIMES
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George Fadlo Hourani
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OCTAGON BOOKS
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A DIVISION OF FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX
) NEW YORK 1975 )
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Copyright, 1951, by Princeton University Press
Reprinted 1975
by special arrangement with Princeton University Press
OCTAGON BOOKS
A division of Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Inc.
19 Union Square West
New York, N.Y. 10003
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Hourani, George Fadlo.
Arab seafaring in the Indian Ocean in ancient and early medieval
times.
Based on the author’s thesis, Princeton University, which was
presented under title: Arab navigation in the Indian Ocean dur­
ing the ninth and tenth centuries A.D.
Reprint of the ed. published by Princeton University Press,
Princeton, N.J., which was issued as v. 13 of Princeton Oriental
studies.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Indian Ocean—Navigation—History. 2. Navigation—Arab
countries—History. I. Title. II. Series: Oriental studies series;
v. 13.
[VK15.H64 1975] 387.5'22 75-29494
ISBN 0-374-93985-3
Printed in USA by
Thomson-Shore, Inc.
Dexter, Michigan
To JQ lo
1 have seen old ships sail
like swans asleep
—j. e. flecker, The Old Ships

P R E F A C E
T he history of seafaring by the Arabs is a subject of wide
extension in space and time, fragments of which have been
dealt with in a great number of scholarly articles and chap­
ters. This book is intended to provide a general and continu­
ous account of about a quarter of the subject. In space I have
limited myself to Eastern waters, with only a brief excursion
into the Mediterranean, where Arabs have been sailing since
the beginning of Islam. Such a division can be justified by the
many contrasts between the two seas and the lands bordering
them in past times: geographical conditions, contacts with
other nations, types of ship, methods of navigation were all
different. In time, I have dealt with the earlier period: the
historical account in the first two chapters extends down to
a.d. iooo or thereabouts, although the third chapter ranges
some centuries later.
This book is a history of trade routes in the Indian Ocean
and of the ships which sailed on them. But it is not an eco­
nomic history, and the products carried as cargoes are men­
tioned only incidentally. I have even made little use of the
known facts of commercial intercourse between various
countries as evidence for the history of navigation. The rea­
son is that this commercial evidence, taken by itself, tells us
nothing about our subject beyond the bare existence of navi­
gation. If articles of Indian manufacture are found in Baby­
lonia and dated to a certain period, well and good: but we
still want to know whether they were carried there by In­
dians, or Babylonians, or an intermediary nation like the
Arabs of ‘Uman. Nor is this a history of “navigation” in the
technical sense, a subject which could be adequately treated
only by a trained navigator.
These are the principal limits, of matter or method, which
I have imposed on my work for one reason or another. On
{ vii }
PREFACE
the other hand, in one respect this book goes beyond what
its title suggests. I have wandered freely into the nautical
history of other nations besides the Arabs: largely in order
to show the historical background and environment of Arab
efforts, but also because it is sometimes difficult to draw a
sharp line between nations, when once they get onto the sea
and mingle in the ports.
This book was begun as a doctoral thesis for Princeton
University in 1938-1939, entitled “Arab Navigation in the
Indian Ocean in the Ninth and Tenth Centuries.” My first
debt of gratitude is to the wise guidance which I received at
Princeton from Professor Philip K. Hitti and Professor
Harold H. Bender—indeed it was Professor Hitti who first
suggested Arab seafaring to me as a subject demanding in­
vestigation. That thesis has been rewritten and expanded to
form the present book. I worked on it during vacations at
Jerusalem, where the Director and library staff of the Pales­
tine Archaeological Museum gave me every facility. I owe
much to the suggestions and criticisms of other scholars and
friends who will, I hope, be satisfied with this general ac­
knowledgment ; as well as to the researches of Mr. Alan Vil-
liers, the late Professor Gabriel Ferrand, the late Mr. James
Hornell and others whose writings are mentioned in the notes.
Thanks are also due to the authors or publishers who granted
permission to quote from copyright works. 1 also wish to
thank the Editor of the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
for permission to reprint the Appendix to Chapter I, parts
of which appeared in an article in the Journal in Dec. 1947.
For my illustrations I owe the following acknowledgments
and thanks: To Mr. A. J. Villiers for allowing me the use of
his own photographs in Plates 1 and 8; to the Director of the
Bibliotheque Nationale for the photographs of Plates 5, 6
and 7, and permission to reproduce them; to the Director of
the Palestine Archaeological Museum for the photographs
of Plates 2 and 3, taken from books in the Museum library;
{ I'M }
PREFACE
to the publishers of these two books, H.M. Stationery Office
and P. Payot; to the Oxford University Press for photograph­
ing Plate 4; and to the same Press and His Exalted Highness
the Nizam of Hyderabad for permission to reproduce this
plate.
I am grateful to Princeton University Press for their patient
work in preparing the text, maps, and illustrations.
My final thanks are due to my parents for the opportunities
of study at Princeton which they provided, and to my wife
for constant encouragement to complete this book.
G. F. H ourani
Ann Arbor, August i%o