Арабы и море. По страницам рукописей и книг

Ferrand G. Le pilote arabe de Vasco da Gama et les instructions nautiques des Arabes au XV-e siecle // Annales de geographie, 1922. No. 172.

Ferrand G. Les instructions nautiques du Sulayman al-Mahri (XVI-е siecle) // Annales de geographie, 1923. No. 178.

Ferrand G. L’element persan dans les textes nautiques arabes des XV-e et XVI-е siecles // Journal Asiatique. T. CCIV. 1924.

Ferrand G. Jbn Majid // Introduction a l’astronomie nautique arabe / Sous la dir. de G. Ferrand. Paris, 1928.

Ferrand G. L’amiral Sidi ‘Ali et le Мuhit // Ibidem.

Ferrand G. Le mu‘allim // Ibidem.

Ferrand G. Sulayman al-Mahri // Ibidem.

Ferrand G. Le Wakwak est-il le Japon? // Journal Asiatique. T. CCXX. 1932.

Gaudefroy-Demombynes M. Les sources arabes du Muhit turc // Journal Asiatique, X serie. 1912. T. XX.

Gildemeister J. Uber arabisches Schiffswesen // Gottinger Nachrichten. 1882.

Griffini E. Intorno alle stazioni lunari nell’astronomia degli arabi // Rivista degli Studi Orientali. T. I. 1907.

Hornell J. A Tentative Classification of Arab Seacraft // Mariners Mirror, January 1942.

Hourani G.F. Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times // Princeton Oriental Studies, 1951. No. 13.

Kahle P. Nautische Instrumente der Araber im Indischen Ocean // Oriental Studies in Honour of Curserji Erachji Pavry, 1933.

Moreland W.H. The Ships of the Arabian Sea about A. D. 1500 // The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. Vol. I, IV. 1939.

Nad (a) vi S.S. Arab Navigation, Adapted from Urdu by Syed Sabah Uddin Abdur-Rahman, Fellow of Shibli Academy, Azamgarh // Islamic Culture. Vol. XV. 1941. No. 4; Vol. XVI. 1942. Nos. 1, 2, 4. Nafis, Ahmad. The Arabs’ Knowledge of Ceylon // Islamic Culture. Vol. XIX. 1945. No. 3.

Nainar S.M.H. Arab Geographers’ Knowledge of Southern India. Madras, 1942.

Prinsep J. Note on the Nautical Instruments of the Arabs // Ferrand G.

Introduction a l’astronomie nautique arabe. Paris, 1928. Saussure L. de. Commentaire des Instructions nautiques de Ibn Majid et Sulayman al-Mahri // Introduction a l’astronomie nautique arabe / Sous la dir. de G. Ferrand. Paris, 1928.

Saussure L. de. L’origine de la rose des vents et l’invention de la bous-sole // Ibidem.

Sauvaget J. Sur d’anciennes instructions nautiques arabes pour les mers de l’Inde // Journal Asiatique. T. CCXXXVI. 1948.

ARABS AND THE SEA: after old manuscripts and books

by Theodor Shumovsky

The Arabs have long been taken for underdeveloped nomadic tribes came from wild deserts. Many European observers of the two last centuries associated them with the dry Land, and not with navigation across the immense Ocean on whose coasts many Arab peoples have been living and sailing from the old times. This wide spread but misleading Orientalist vision dating back to the era of the first colonial encounters between the Europeans and the Arabs is contested in the book written in 1962 by a St.-Petersburg historian Theodor Shu-movsky, the renowned authority in historical geography of premodern Arabic navigation. The second corrected edition of the book comes out in 2010.

A thorough examination of old Arabic manuscripts and modern academic scholarship led the author to the conclusion that before the advent of European sailors the Arabs had succeeded in creating an original art of navigation. The sea was present in their traditional culture that is witnessed in its well-known literary monuments including the Qur’an. Shumovsky argues that achievements of the pre-modern Arab navigation much contributed in discoveries happened in the Indian and Pacific Oceans at the Age of Exploration when the Europeans intensively investigated and mapped the World. This is not a tale full of sound and fury. It should be noted that the famous Portuguese explorer Vasco da Gama opened the maritime way from the Western Europe to the Oriental Seas in the fifteenth century following instructions of his Arab pilot Ahmad ibn Majid from Julfar or Ra’s al-Khaymah in Oman. The latter composed in verses three sailing directions whose unique copy was preserved in the collection of Arabic manuscripts at the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts in St.-Petersburg. This important source was introduced into the research use, translated and commented by Shumovsky who devoted to its study almost half a century from 1938 to the mid-1980s. In the 1960s-1980s the first Soviet edition of Arabic sailing directions (1957) was republished in Portugal and the Middle East.