Classic Ships of Islam agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd i 11/6/2007 3:10:54 PM Handbook of Oriental Studies Section 1, The Near and Middle East Editors H. Altenmüller B. Hrouda B. A. Levine R. S. O’Fahey K. R. Veenhof C. H. M. Versteegh VOLUME 92 agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd ii 11/6/2007 3:10:58 PM Classic Ships of Islam From Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean by Dionisius A. Agius LEIDEN • BOSTON 2008 agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd iii 11/6/2007 3:10:58 PM On the cover: Arabesque oral carved decoration on a river boat from a copy of al-bar r ’s Maqmt, Baghdad 635/1237. Bibliothèque Nationale, Ms 5847, fol. 119v. This book is printed on acid-free paper. A C.I.P. record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. ISSN 0169–9423 ISBN 978 90 04 15863 4 Copyright 2008 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishers, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd iv 11/6/2007 3:10:58 PM To my wife Anne agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd v 11/6/2007 3:10:58 PM agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd vi 11/6/2007 3:10:59 PM CONTENTS Acknowledgements ..................................................................... ix Preface ......................................................................................... xiii Abbreviations .............................................................................. xv Transliteration System ................................................................ xxi Note ............................................................................................. xxiii Part One Chapter One A Journey into the Past .................................. 3 Part Two Chapter Two Early Maritime Contacts ................................ 37 Chapter Three Trade and Port Towns of the Classical and Medieval Islamic Period .................................................. 63 Part Three Chapter Four Primitive Boats and Bronze Age Construction Features: Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf .......................................................................... 111 Chapter Five Construction Features of Perso-Arabian and West Indian Ships in Medieval Islam .................................... 141 Part Four Chapter Six Seamanship ..................................................... 171 Chapter Seven The Ship at Sea: Trade and bajj .................. 215 Chapter Eight The Ship at Sea: Naval Incursions ................ 245 agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd vii 11/6/2007 3:10:59 PM viii contents Part Five Chapter Nine General Boat and Ship-Terms .................. 265 Chapter Ten Classic Ships ............................................... 277 Chapter Eleven River Boats and Deep-Sea Vessels: Types and Functions ............................................................... 297 Chapter Twelve Warships and Transport Vessels ................ 321 Part Six Chapter Thirteen Language and Culture Contact: Terminology and Technology ................................................ 361 Appendices .................................................................................. 385 Glossary and Index of General and Maritime Terms .............. 399 Bibliography of Works Cited .................................................... 427 List of Illustrations, Tables, Figures and Maps ......................... 457 Main Index ................................................................................. 463 agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd viii 11/6/2007 3:10:59 PM ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am very grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for funding the research for this book. Generous thanks are due to so many friends for their help and guid- ance and to the anonymous readers who read the entire text in draft and made many comments and corrections. I extend my particular gratitude to Rex Smith and Francine Stone for their advice and support and the late Alan Kaye who was an inspiration on language and lan- guage contact; David Peacock and Lucy Blue deserve especial mention; they gave me the opportunity to study the Islamic maritime presence at Quseir al-Qadim; in particular Lucy Blue’s contribution to the excavation and conclusions on the Islamic harbour of Quseir during the Mamlk period; I also wish to thank Jørgen Christian Meyer for the most stimulating discussions on ancient history; David Frier, whose linguistic skills were invaluable in checking the citations from the Por- tuguese sources and Sally Church for her comments and helpful sug- gestions on medieval Chinese ships and Chinese sources. Many colleagues and friends have shared my enthusiasm for this subject; among those who contributed to the research and writing of the book, I am very grateful to Tom Vosmer and Rob Carter who drew my attention to Bronze Age boat construction features and for their stimulating discussion and advice. I extend particular thanks to Tom Vosmer whom I consulted on a number of occasions during the progress of my work; he steadfastly answered my queries, giving wise counsel on construction features of watercraft from antiquity to the present times; also Norbert Weismann, a meticulous researcher on boat architecture of both contemporary and late medieval Islamic periods; specialist advice came from Yousef Al-Hijji on navigation and ship- building in Kuwait; and Julian Whitewright on sails, Seth Priestman on the Persian Gulf during the Ssnian period, Barbara Jockers and James Montgomery on the nautical terminology of pre-Islamic poetry and the Qurn, and to Stefan Heidemann on sixteenth century Raqqa and the Euphrates river. I would also like to express my appreciation to David Nicolle whose approach to the study of the fursiyya works gave me a better insight into Muslim warships, and to Vassilios Christides whose expertise on Byzantine and Muslim warships and technology of agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd ix 11/6/2007 3:10:59 PM x acknowledgements the Classical and Medieval Mediterranean was of great bene\ t; I am indebted to Joseph Muscat for his generous hospitality at his home in Rabat, Malta; his knowledge and expertise on galleys of the Order of St John contributed to the understanding of shipbuilding techniques and technology of their Muslim counterparts. Exploring the Indian and Islamic maritime culture I bene ted enor- mously from the knowledge of Himanshu Prabha Ray and Paul Lunde who helped me in nding my way through the history of the Indian Ocean world; I would also like to include Sila Tripati for his expertise on stone anchors and underwater archaeology on the south-west Indian coast. For the Chinese civilization, Sally Church, answered my queries with great patience, enthusiasm and detail; her untiring help in guiding me through the history of the voyages of Zheng He’s eets and her knowledge and advice was invaluable; I also wish to thank her for her linguistic skills in translating Chinese titles and citations from text. I am indebted to a number of Arabian mariners who were there beside me when I needed their help to explain and demonstrate ship- building methods and navigational techniques and who provided me with an insight into the distant seafaring past. I have listed their names in my two previous works: In the Wake of the Dhow (2002), and Seafaring in the Arabian Gulf and Oman (2005). Their knowledge was indispensable for the making of this book. I am sure that there are colleagues and friends I have omitted to mention; apologies if I inadvertently forgot to include them. If I did not heed to good advice I bear responsibility for any misunderstand- ings and errors. I should like also to extend my gratitude to Keble College, Oxford and its staff for their hospitality during my archival research at the Bodleian Library, and to the Penn Club, who offered a little oasis of peace, a stone’s throw from the British Library and Victoria & Albert Museum. My thanks are due to all the librarians and archivists who assisted me with all sorts of queries: the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Dubai; the Centre for Documentation and Research at Abu Dhabi; the Centre for Research and Studies on Kuwait; the Museum and Antiquities at Doha, Qatar; the Arab Gulf States Folklore Centre, Doha; the Ministry of National Heritage and Culture, Muscat; and the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich. My thanks also go to Robert Hillenbrand and Charles Melville who provided me with copies of Persian miniatures. agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd x 11/6/2007 3:10:59 PM acknowledgements xi The forbearance of my publishers must be acknowledged, for their patience and trust in allowing me to submit my work three years after the deadline. My sincerest thanks go to Harriet Nash for her meticu- lous compilation of the index; and to David Appleyard for assistance with maps and illustrations. Finally, I give my profound thanks to my wife, Anne who has acted as proofreader and editor, patiently reading several drafts of the manuscript and providing invaluable help with my occasional infelicities with the English language. agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd xi 11/6/2007 3:10:59 PM agius_f1_i-xxiv.indd