Page 20 - Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean (before portuguese)_Neat

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28 ARAB NAVIGATION I THE NAVIGATORS AND THEIR WORKS 29

the Paris copyist has written and altered it to JjiJI and the ! Abi Auja and the Zanadiqa, then a list of great men who bore the
\\ Damascus copyist has done exactly the same. Other similar cases ; name of Muhammad and the story of Firdausi and ai-TusI. The
could be mentioned. One other curious thing is that the Paris manu­ I mention of the invention of the compass then leads him into an
script has left the peculiar number which appears on f. 55v, 1. 1 incomplete technical description of compass rhumbs, followed by :
unpointed and Damascus has had to do the same thing. a brief notice of the lunar mansions. Finally, after more history,
These points and others similar to them have convinced me that definitions of i?ba\ tirfa and dhubban are given.
the Damascus manuscript is copied directly from the Paris one. The second fa'ida on the qualities required in a mu'allim is ex­
When the same copyist’s errors occur in two manuscripts they must tremely short and to the point with no side tracks at all.
be very closely connected. It is in the third fa'ida that Ibn Majid really gets down to the
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Once only does the Damascus manuscript give a correct technical I problems of navigational theory. This extremely long chapter deals
i. with the 28 lunar mansions in order beginning from the 1st point of
term when the Paris manuscript (f. 27r, 1. 12) has an obvious
lr mistake oU^l and this case alone can suggest that the Damascus Aries. This, together with the fourth fa'ida on compass rhumbs
ft manuscript used another copy for its exemplar: however this which is based on a similar plan, forms a large part of the whole
exception proves nothing. Apart from this, all the differences be­ work and comprises the whole of Ibn Majid’s star lore. The lunar
tween the manuscripts concerning the text of the Fawa'id can be mansions as might be expected are used at their culminations to fix
attributed to incorrect copying, although I have not been able to the heavens in 28 different positions for they form a girdle super­
compare the texts of all the poems in both manuscripts. The only imposed on the Zodiacal signs round the heavens and like these
other query is why the Damascus copyist omitted all those verses of signs, one is always culminating. However Ibn Majid does not limit
the fourth section of the- Hawiya, mentioned in the previous para­ himself under his description of each sign to the position of the
graph if he had the Paris manuscript before him ? heavens as its culmination, but mentions anything else that he can
Finally it will be seen that the Damascus manuscript because of i remember about these particular stars, their use as latitude
its closeness to the Paris one can be of little use in elucidating any of measurers, occurrences in poetry and many other uses. Similarly ;
the terribly obscure points which arise in the text of the Fawa'id. with the chapter on compass rhumbs, apart from listing them in the
Apparatus critica is of no real importance when examining the order in which they occur from the poles towards the east (or west)
Arabic text, so it has been relegated to an appendix at the end of the point, he does not touch on their properties as rhumbs except in
book. *•- reference to their tirfa values (see p. 298 ff.) but deals with the use
2. • Summary of contents: The Fawd* id begins with an introduction of these particular stars as latitude measurers, other stars used as .
stressing the importance of the science of navigation, showing that such when these stars culminate, occurrences in Arabic literature, etc.
it may be of some use to the ordinary Muslim in that navigational A typical lunar mansion is the first; al-Sharatan (a£y Arietis). He
methods could be of useTor determining the Qibla, i.e. the direction begins by stating when this group rises at dawn (27th March), and
of Mecca needed by all Muslims before they can begin their prayers. this sets the position of the heavens, for this group will culminate
Ibn Majid quotes other methods of determining this direction and on the same date at about 1.30 p.m. and thus culminate at midnight
gives instances where the navigational method might succeed where some seven months (176 days) later. He then goes off at a tangent
other methods fail. Thus at the same time he shows the importance defining the word “nau”, a term used by Arab astrologers and
of his science and gives :an apology for writing the book. After astronomers for the rising of a star, although most likely this referred
mentioning some of the difficulties encountered in writing good to the evening rising. Returning to the subject, he describes the
navigational material he then mentions the full title—the Book of group and gives alternative names for it and immediately launches *
i Useful Things and states that-there are-12 useful things (fa'ida into an account of its use with stars of the Great Bear in latitude
plural fawa'id) each of. which will be given a chapter in the book. measurement (qiyds). This description is broken by a description of
The first fa'ida then gives the author’s full name and titles and a the 1st point of Aries and its movement through the ages along the
brief description of the history of navigation from Noah to the ecliptic. Another digression (and a common one) is a lexico­
author’s time. This section shows Ibn.Majid’s weakness in going off graphical digression on the meaning or morphology of the name.
at a tangent on to some minor-story—first with the story of Ibn Finally a brief description is given of other stars used for latitude

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