Page 31 - Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean (before portuguese)_Neat

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I Q
h 218 ARAB NAVIGATION
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this verse that every high place is called Najd and every low-lying
place is called Ghur Tihamah. It is said that al-Hijaz is a mountain
barrier stretching from north of Medina on the east of Rutjwa as
far as the borders of aKJVif and forms a barrier between the
Tihamahs and the Najds. Everything on the east of it is known as
Najd and everything west of it Tihamah. Thus you get the Meccan
Tihamah but not the Hijazi Tihamah or the Najdl Tihamah, for
Mecca belongs to the Tihamah but is on the edge of the Hijaz. Medina
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is further north and is Hijazi and Najdi but not of the Tihamah, and
it is said that Khaibar and al-'Ula are north and Rutjwa and Jabal
i when [the Guards] are in a horizontal position on the east at the cul­
$ubh are the same, and al-Tdd, the hollow of Yalamlam,4 and al-
Wadi6 are between the branches of al-Hijaz. All Hijaz protrudes
deeply into the Tihamah. The island of the Arabs stretches from Suez
I!! to Bab al-Mandam and then to Ra*s al-Hadd and then to 'Abbadan
and the rest is joined [to the rest of the earth]. There are the Bala’ih
r
r (torrent beds) of Iraq as far as Tebuk where it is said a man takes
more than three days to cross. Then he comes to water flowing upon
the ground. There the Peninsula was joined after the flood of Noah.
I Al-Ta’if is called by its name because the waters of the flood (Tufan)
!
flowed (tafa) round it from Syria to Hijaz and were then forced
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away by the north wind [without covering it]. This is the reason why
it is so called.
(b) Madagascar
'!• The next island after it in size is that of al-Qumr (Madagascar).
This is an island at the present time. Opinions differ as to its longitude
i
and latitude6 because it only borders on the inhabited regions of the
!: world, and the occupied climates of the world, hence there is an
ii " element of doubt about it. They say in the Great Books that it is
‘i: the largest inhabited island in the world and its longitude is [f. 68v]
approximately 20 degrees. Between it and the coasts and islands of
Sofala are other islands and banks, but these do not prevent travellers
from travelling among them. The island is called al-Qumr after
* Qamiran b. 'Amir b. Sam b. Nuh and to its south is the sea known to
?■
r 4 i.e. Rudwa is the same as §ublj, i.e. both are mountain masses protruding from
: 7 The text has
the IJijSz in the Tihamah. Yalamlam is another such feature. jUL
the first word is either L* "a bay” (here a valley) or low flat land.
f:
? Neither is particularly appropriate although the flat land to the north may
be called after Yalamlam.
•- 6 The wadi is unidentified. The text is probably corrupt reading (LL
j which I have amended to ,1-JL L* for the
hollows and wadis must be between the ranges and not part of them.
El
• This might mean its length and breadth.
L,
v A
. # •:
AHMAD IBN MAJID 219
the Greeks as Oqiyanus7 which is known to the Arabs as the “Ocean
which encircles the world”. Here is the beginning of the southern
Dark regions to the south of this island. f i
(c) Sumatra
The third island is Sumatra. This is an island by which passes the
Equator. Someone who did not know better said that it passed
to the north but we think that it passes to the south. The correct
position of the Equator is at 5° of the Little Bear at the moment
I
mination of Sunbula overhead. There the two poles are horizontal (on
the horizon) and these are not two stars but two places dividing the !
east from the west. [The island of Sumatra] is the residence of al-Hafi
the ruler of all Abyssinia.8 Certain rulers are at war with him but he
is the greatest of them all.
Opinion differs as to the name Sirandib. Some say it is a name of
the island of Ceylon and some say of Sumatra. What is certain is
that the equator is a wadi, the Wadi of Sirandib (also called Sirandid
with two d’s and also with a b and a d). There are two opinions; one
that the Little Bear is 4° there [and the other that it is 5° as above]
and if you relate [the name of] this Wadi, the Wadi of Sirandib to
this island, it will be correct.
Latitudes are measured from the Pole and not from the star al- I
Juday (which is also called al-Sumayya and al-Jah in Persian). Even &
if the Pole cannot be observed, latitudes are taken from it using as a
guide to it one of the brighter stars of the northern hemisphere like
al-MIkh, al-Jah and the Faraqid. Whenever you measure a star at its
maximum altitude and again at its minimum altitude, you know that # :
the axis of its revolution is halfway between, and is so many degrees 7 i
from the horizon9 according to an astrolabe measurement. The
Equator lies east and west and the meridian cuts it so dividing the i*
earth into four and the ends of the meridian are in the Dark regions it
and the eastern end of the Equator is in the islands of Shili (Korea) 3'
and the western end is in the Fortunate Islands (Canaries) and the two
for ^LJjl Ocean us, in both manuscripts. it*
:fv.
• JiL\ a royal Ethiopian title, hade a*. Ibn Majid becomes confused because
of the confusion of the Indian Ocean in the classical geographer’s accounts,
cf. Idrisl’s map in Miller.
9 jiVl The normal word for the horizon is jiVl the word would
produce the same meaning as and here the scribe may have confused
the two. Latitude here is latitude proper and not the stellar altitude
used by the navigators J*L2ll.
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