Page 35 - Arab Navigation in the Indian Ocean (before portuguese)_Neat

Q
438 ARAB NAVIGATION
and the mainland. The text states that the northernmost of the
Shunga mbili group is Wamlul Jd—(Niororo?) and the southern­
most Falulu. (Sungu mbili itself or perhaps Fili, WNW of
Shungu mbili). Mafia can now be seen and also Mdqis and
Handarani jtjou on the coast opposite (unidentifiable villages). The
route seems to turn SSE towards Mafia until it reaches an unnamed 1 seventh chapter of the ‘Umda “on set voyages”, the chapter of the
zahra and reef (this must be Maduvi) and then turns due south past
Baida (Boydu I) to the point of Mafia itself. It is also possible
that Maqis is on Mafia itself and may be the modern Mbisi (i.e.
Mafis).
From Mafia to Kilwa the bearing is S or S by W, first meeting
a small island and reef called Manji (Mange I.) the reef being
SE (or SW) of it, leaving the chain of islands which run south of
Mafia to the left. The first of these is Waquza ijjij (Okuza) and the
last jJ \Kilwa Nuni (Nyuni). Shunga Shungilh (Songo
Songo) is left on the right. The last island before Kilwa is the island
of Hanash which can only be South Fanjove I. al-Hanashdn
is to the south of this by 2 zam, an uncovered bank. A bearing of
S or S by W from Hanash brings you to the right of Hanashan.
WSW then brings one to Kilwa harbour.
5. The coasts of Arabia and Persia
........#
(a) The south coast of Arabia
m appears in the texts given by Serjeant contemporary with the
This coast j together with the coast of Oman as far as Cape
■ ■,
Musandam was home ground to the navigators; Ahmad ibn Majid
I coming from Oman and Sulaiman al-Mahri originating from Shihr.
Thus as one might expect in works dealing with navigation for the
% ''-M consumption of the sailors of this coast, the coast itself is never
described in detail, but a large number of places on the coast will
be mentioned accidentally throughout the works. Thus places are
mentioned as the ports for setting out for voyages to other parts of
the world and of these Aden far outweighs the others in importance.
Maskat (especially in Ibn Majid’s works) and Shihr come next.
,-i2
Other places (e.g. prominent capes) occur when describing the
bearings taken for the voyage up the coast and others in the usual
:;l lists of Pole Star altitudes given for the coasts of the Indian Ocean.
General descriptions of this coast therefore occur in the third
I: chapter of Sulaiman’s 4Umda and the first of his Minhaj where he
jr deals with routes along the coasts and again in ‘Umda chapter 5
W and Minhaj chapter 2 where the latitudes are given.76 In the Faw’d'id
ii 76 MS 2559 f. 18v-19r; 20v; 3lr-33r; 61r; 64r-67v.
S
I
f<!
THE TOPOGRAPHY OF THE NAVIGATIONAL TEXTS 439
I bn Majid gives a description when he sets out from Ra’s al-Hadd
for a voyage round the inhabited world.77 This is really only a
general description of the coast but Ibn Majid goes into detail in
Oman and in the Gulf of Bcrbera. All other references to the coast
are scattered, but can be mainly found in Sulaiman’s works in the
Minhaj dealing with masdfdt and in the sections where both authors
give the seasons for sailing.78
The Southern Arabian coast is divided by Ibn Majid into three
parts (four including Oman jl>), and the names of these parts occur
frequently throughout the texts. From Ra’s al-Hadd to the island of
Masira is the A (wall coast a word for which I can find no
other reference unless it is the coast of the perilous places. From
Masira to Fartak the coast is designated al-Ahqdf JjU^' a name
which survives today as areas of sand in the south of the Rub‘
al-Khali. The term al-Ahqaf appears in the Quran as the home of
the tribe of ‘Ad, it appears in Ibn Battuta as in the neighbourhood
of Zafar, but to the navigators it includes the whole of this stretch
of coast including Zafar. Hamdani refers to it as a wadi which reaches
the sea in Mahra country. Perhaps Ibn Majid’s reference to this as
the abode of the Quda'a tribe is an echo of this story of ‘Ad.7u
From Fartak to Bab al-Mandab the coast was known as Ard al-
Juzr j>U ^j\ another phrase which had disappeared although it
navigational texts. Serjeant states that Juzr (lit. islands) were the
islands around Husn al-Ghurab but this does not seem a satisfactory
explanation for naming the whole coast thus.80 It is particularly odd
that Ibn Majid uses the classical plural of the word Jazira when
mentioning these islands, i.e. bill J\j>- instead of his more usual
j>-.81 It is possible that the islands meant are Soqotra and the
islands around it for they were regarded as part of this coast and
their greatest contact was with this part of the coast. Beyond Bab
al-Mandab we come to the Tihamah.
Apart from coastal features several names of regions from the
interior of the Peninsula appear in the texts. Hadramaut as
a Sultanate having political influence on the coast and in Soqotra
77 MS 2292 f. 62v-63r; 66r-v; trans. pp. 204-205, 212-214.
70 Quran, Sura xlvi, 20; Ibn Bauu{a, Gibb, Hakluyt Soc. v. II, p. 386; Hamdanj:
78 MS 2559 f. 48r-55r; 80v-r.
Geographic der arabischen Halbinsei (Muller), pp. 87, 127. Ibn Majid's
reference is MS 2292 f. 62v, 1. 12; trans. p. 204.
80 Serjeant: Portuguese, pp. 104, 108. Tomaschek calls it Gurz reading
Die topographischen Cap it el, p. 56 and plate XI.
81 MS 2292 f. 47v, 1. 7; trans. p. 166.