Page 111 - Arabian Studies (I)

Arabia in the Fifteenth-century Navigational Texts 95
Very little is given by the navigators on the Gulf coast of Arabia.
No coastal navigational detail is given at all - only the mention of
isolated places. A general description is given by Ibn Majid in
describing the coasts of the world in his ninth fd'idah and when
describing islands in the tenth fa'idah he gives a description of
Bahrain. The remainder must be extracted from occasional references
in the poem on the Persian Gulf.
In the ninth fa'idah Ibn Majid mentions al-Basrah and states that
the coast then stretches past al-Musallamlya (the text has al-
Salamlya), al-Qatlf, al-Hasa, and Qatar (called ‘Umman Qatar) in a
south-east direction. Along it are islands inhabited and uninhabited,
and there are also ports. Bahrain is mentioned with other islands
around it and the pearl fisheries are mentioned from Bahrain
onwards. The fishery of Bahrain has ‘approximately a thousand ships
used for pearl diving for years and this place is not surpassed’. i i
From this area to the end of the peninsula at Musandam, it is seven
days by sea and a month by land and the course (by sea) is a little
north of east.
A detailed description of Bahrain is given in the tenth fa'idah. Its
alternative name is Awal. It possesses 360 villages and has several
fresh water sources, in particular one under the sea which is
described. The pearl fisheries of Bahrain and the neighbouring islands
are again mentioned and the trade and agricultural products of the
island. The ruler of the time is mentioned as Ajwad b. Zamil b. Hasln
al-‘AmirT and his family is stated to be implicated in Hormuz and
Oman politics. Hormuz was of course an important port for the
navigators occurring frequently throughout their texts and the island
of Qishm nearby is described also in Ibn Majid’s tenth fa’idah. Both
of these places although not actually in Arabia had a considerable
effect on the neighbouring Arabian coasts and on the navigation in
this area.
The remaining information on the Arab coast of the Persian Gulf
comes from Ibn Majid’s poem devoted to this subject and it is worth
while to examine the contents of this poem in some detail.
Although it is specifically entitled the ‘Rajaz poem on the Arab
coast in the Persian Gulf it mentions the Arab coast only slightly
and concentrates on a description of a voyage close to the Persian
coast — in general the lengthy prose introduction to the poem does
not compare with the contents of the poem itself. The prose section
mentions that the coast (presumably the Arab coast) continues as far
as ‘Salamat and its daughters’. A list of islands is next given but two,
Hinjam and Das are not mentioned in the poem. The former is the
island to the south of Qishm I. and the second is a small but prominent
island, being the most seaward of the group between the