Oceans of knowledge

You might have read the histories of famous thirteenth- and fourteenth-century explorers like Ibn Battuta and Zheng He. The tales of their journeys are incredible. But have you ever wondered how—hundreds of years ago—they managed to travel across thousands of miles and trade with the people they had just met? For example, why was Ibn Battuta welcomed in places like East Africa, the Arabian Peninsula, India, and China, even though he was a stranger from far away? How did Zheng He manage to safely get his massive ships across the perilous Indian Ocean multiple times? What skills, knowledge, and experience must they have had? The two answers I’m going to share are very different, yet equally accurate: First, the spread of a common belief system; and second, collective learning.

A great way to understand both of these explanations is to take a close look at the life of one fifteenth-century Omani navigator. His name was Ahmad Ibn Mājid.

A sailor’s education

Ahmad Ibn Mājid was born around 1432 CE in Julfar, a port city on the Persian Gulf that was part of the Omani Empire. For context, this was about the time Zheng He’s ships were sailing around the Indian Ocean. Ibn Mājid’s father and grandfather were skilled sailors who owned several merchant ships. But before Ibn Mājid could journey out to sea, he had to complete his religious studies. This included memorizing the Qur’an, the holy book of Islam—a requirement for all educated Muslims. His studies also included geography, mathematics, astronomy, languages—and of course, sailing. It might be obvious why an aspiring sailor had to study sailing, but what did all those other subjects have to do with it?

Fifteenth-century sailors had a limited number of navigational instruments. Sailors and traders in the Indian Ocean probably used a compass if they had access to one. The compass was invented in China, at least as far back as the tenth century. By Ibn Mājid’s time, the compass had made its way along trade routes from China to India and the Arab world. But it could be difficult to use a compass at sea. Therefore, geography was an essential subject for anyone wishing to sail across the Indian Ocean to cities thousands of miles away.

Astronomy was also important to sailors, because the stars and planets were useful markers for finding your way. Arab sailors relied on a tool called an astrolabe, first used by Ancient Greeks, that could determine the altitudes of stars and planets. Arab sailors made improvements to the astrolabe so it could be used to figure out a ship’s latitude (latitude is a way of describing location in terms of north and south). They did this by calculating the angle of the Sun’s altitude at a given time of day. Latitude at sea could also be found using a kamal—a piece of wood fastened to a cord or string with a series of knots in it. Sailors used this instrument to measure latitude using the polestar—a term used for the star Polaris (also called the North Star). Understanding how to determine latitude required knowledge of both mathematics and astronomy.

But to be a successful merchant and sailor in the Indian Ocean, you really needed knowledge of languages and cultures. If you wanted to trade with the many peoples around the region, knowing their beliefs and speaking their languages were important assets. Fortunately, lots of people in the region shared a language (Arabic) and a faith (Islam). Because of his knowledge of Arabic and Islam, Ibn Battuta felt welcome in ports across the Indian Ocean. In fact, he even worked as a judge in a variety of places. Having a common language and religious beliefs united communities from Africa across the Arabian Peninsula to India and Indonesia.

The development of a group of skilled sailors was important for faith as well as trade. Indian Ocean sailors transported more than goods across the seas; they also moved people. At least once in their lifetimes, Muslims were required to perform the Hajj, or pilgrimage, to Mecca (in what is now Saudi Arabia). As Islam spread throughout the region, pilgrims from Africa to Indonesia traveled across the Indian Ocean making their hajj to Mecca. A sailors’ knowledge of mathematics and geography helped the pilgrims on the journey as well. Muslims were required to pray in the direction of Mecca five times a day. A good navigator was necessary to point the pilgrims in the correct direction of the holy city at prayer time.

Collective learning on the high seas

Ibn Mājid earned a reputation as a master navigator, or mu’allim in Arabic. His seafaring skills were known throughout the Indian Ocean, earning him the nickname “Lion of the Sea.” He gained much of his knowledge from the lessons his father and grandfather taught him at sea. But he also learned from centuries of oral and written tradition. Navigational information was collected and passed down across generations in the form of long poems that were memorized, just as the Qur’an was committed to memory.

However, Ibn Mājid’s contribution to collective learning extended beyond teaching his children these lessons. He wrote several books on navigation. Some were in the form of poems that helped document the oral tradition. Others were more like encyclopedias of navigation skills. His most famous was the encyclopedia Kitāb al-fawā’id fī ușūl wa-l-qawā’id (Arabic for Book of Benefits in the Principles of Navigation). This work provided information about all aspects of sailing in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea. Topics included tides, monsoon winds, currents, and distances between ports. It also covered how to determine latitude using the polestar; reefs and other obstacles the sailor might encounter; the movement of the Sun and Moon; and much more.

In compiling knowledge from those who came before him with his own expert advice, Ibn Mājid made a significant contribution to collective learning. Yet we shouldn’t forget that Ibn Mājid’s writings were themselves the product of centuries of collective learning that took place in this region. Think about what you’ve learned so far about the spread of goods and ideas. A lot of what we’ve talked about—the compass, astrolabe, shipbuilding techniques, as well as Islam and the Arabic language—traveled along the same trade routes as spices and other goods. These ideas made the Indian Ocean a large community of knowledge.

Toward the end of Ibn Mājid’s life, that community changed dramatically. In 1498, the Portuguese sailor Vasco da Gama entered the Indian Ocean after sailing around the southern tip of Africa. But the Portuguese sailors at the time were not as skilled as the people who lived around the Indian Ocean. While Ibn Mājid doesn’t write about meeting the Portuguese, he does document their lack of knowledge on the seas.