Page 13 - Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean (before portuguese)_Neat

ry &
14 ARAB NAVIGATION
who are willing to run him down, yet when he has proved himself
successfully as he always does they will take his own words and use
them against him. “However the wise man will take note of these
words of mine and profit from them, becoming more knowledge­
able.”25 Nevertheless he admits that his works may one day be out
of date and another greater than him will come along and revise
them.
One of the most important points that he bears in mind is that his
work must always be an improvement on what has gone before. He
makes it clear at the outset of his work that he was dissatisfied with
the works of the three Luyuth of whom he regards himself as the
legitimate successor: “the fourth of the three.” They were compilers
and although their works are valuable, they themselves were not
navigators—and hence hardly knew what they were writing about.26
But Ibn Majid has corrected their errors for he is a practising navi­
gator. He “has written, selected and experimented” and taken “all
that was best of their work and their books”.27 They are the better
men for they had no one to base their works on as he has, but be­
cause of that they were often in error and this is where Ibn Majid’s
experience comes in useful for he did not attempt this book until
after fifty years of experience on the sea.28 Even his own earlier
works are now out of date. In the fourth fa’ida29 he states how he
wrote the Hawiya in his earliest youth and then later corrected it in
the Sa'biya and now the Fawa’id is the work of his old age. Long
practical experience is a vital quality needed by a navigational
writer30—Ibn Majid has this and he continues to rub it into the
reader at every available opportunity—new works like his cannot
possibly appear every year because of the vast experience that goes
into them.31 Not only does he have his own long experience but also
■ to classical Arabic poetry wince. His mixed metaphors become so
I that of his father and grandfather in addition to it—hence he is
% doubly, even trebly, qualified. The fact that this experience is no
■
idle boast is substantiated'by several accounts of Ibn Majid’s actual
I doings. Some of these accounts can be put down to Ibn Majid’s
strong sense of self-glorification—I did it when no one else could—
as in the description of how he brought the ships home when the
monsoons were unfavourable,32 but even in these there is a point i.e.
33 f. 49v, 1. 16; trans. p. 175.
i ” f- 3v, 1. 15 ff.; f. 31r, 1. 3 ff.; trans. pp. 71, 130.!
17 f. 3Ir, 1. 10; trans. p. 130.
*“ f. 48 bis r, I. 3; trans. p. 170 or 20 years in f. 49r, 1. 1; trans. p. 173. 36 f. 39r-40r; trans. pp. 147-151.
19 f. 36r, 1. 18 ff.; trans. p. 141.
30 f. 46r-46v; trans. p. 163.
31 f. 83v, 1. 12; trans. p. 257.
33 f. 72v, 1. 10 ff.; 74r, I. 7 ff.; trans. pp. 229, 232.
THE NAVIGATORS AND THEIR WORKS 15
this is how it was done and there is no reason why someone else
in the future cannot do the same, following Ibn Majid’s directions.
Other accounts like those given in the 12th fd'ida of exploration in
the Red Sea, are genuine feats of exploration.33 No one knew what ;
sailing was like in such a place so Ibn Majid went and found out,
so that others might profit by his experience. He is particularly proud
of his unique knowledge of the Red Sea.34 Not only practical ex­
ploration was done by Ibn Majid but also an attempt to solve some
of the anomalies of the mathematical side of navigation, thus the
value of the tirfa of E by N is forty36 say the earlier navigators, but
Ibn Majid disagrees and spends some little time explaining why,
showing that he has gone into the matter fairly thoroughly, even if
his results are still a little haphazard. Similarly he often claims that
he has checked his figures.38 He also states that he has watched cer­
tain stars carefully in order to prove that his version of their values
is correct and has never mentioned anything if he thought it at all
r doubtful37—experience leads to accuracy.38 So we see that he has
put his 50 years experience to good use, and is really in a good :
position to correct and supplement the works of the other writers
’
and that when he boasts of his excellence at navigation or at writing
we see that there is something to justify it.39
Similarly when he boasts of himself as a literary man—which
again is often, especially in his poetry, it is not completely in vain.
Admittedly his qa?ida poetry, like the one that constantly crops up
“in praise of the days of youth” is inferior stuff. Stilted use of the
language and form of classical poetry even to grammatical termin­
ology in his poem on his own name;40 repetition of words and
phrases—especially rhyming words—make the person who is used
alarmingly exaggerated as to make some passages completely meaning­
less—to translate these is a hopeless task. His navigational poems
as one might expect are even worse poetically—whether they are
qatfdas or arjuza—just a series of navigational dicta placed in rajaz
metre and the line made out to the right length by adding some
rhyming phrase like—“Oh captain”, or “Oh my friend”. There are
33 f. 80r, 1.13; 82r, 1.12; 84v, 1.4; 86r, 1. 12; 88r, 1.1; trans. pp. 247,252,259, 262.
267.
34 f. 56v, 1. 1; trans. p. 189.
|
34 f. 4r, 1. 9; trans. p. 71; f. 86r, 1. 13; trans. p. 262.
37 f. 5v, 1.'9; 13.r; 34v, 1. 14; 48bis v, 1. 12; trans. pp. 74, 91, 138, 156.
38 f. 50v; trans. p. 177; f. 49r, 1. 1; trans. p. 173.
39 f. 78v, 1. 1 ff.; trans. p. 243.
40 f. 18v-19r; trans. p. 103.