Review: Classical Ships of Islam

Last Wednesday there was a lecture on Classical Islamic Boats by Dr. Dionisius Aguis and hosted by the Qatar Natural History Group. I was there with a friend who, like me, is also interested in these “unexciting” subjects. We arrived at 6:58pm, just two minutes before 7:00pm, when the lecture was supposed to start.

Just a few moments after taking our seats the talk began and it was fascinating, this world of naval history. If only I could focus on what the lecturer was saying.

He began by listing his books on the topic, (In The Wake of The Dhow, Seafaring in The Gulf and Oman) and then commenced to discuss the chapters of one specific book he wrote called Classical Ships of Islam, which is based on ten years worth of research.

I thought the topic was very exciting, and you could tell Dr. Aguis is very passionate about his work, his research and the historical facts of the subject. I was impressed with his Arabic pronunciations, and I learned later that he is fluent in the Arabic language.

But as I sat there, looking ahead, with notebook and pen in hand, staring at the slides, the passing text, the pretty images, my mind would slowly, stealthily begin to wander. After a few minutes of brain babble, I remember that I am here to listen, scolding my silly brain, and dragging it back to focus on the man standing at the front, catching a few sentences of the topic before my brain begins to tiptoe away as I sat there gazing ahead. This cycle went on for the entire hour.

Even though I have reprimanded my brain for behaving in such an ill manner, after all I was very excited to attend this lecture; I have decided it was not entirely my brain’s fault. Some lecturers have a droning tone to their speech that does not help their attention-deficient audience.

Another matter that was extremely unhelpful in this scenario was that my pen decided it was time to die slowly, and so it kept drying up after every third word I wrote, so that I had to keep shaking it and stabbing my notepad with it a zillion times during the hour we were there. I did not care if it was in pain from all the shaking and jabbing, I was so aggravated by its inconvenient sputtering health that I made sure it knew it would have a grisly macabre end the second we left.

 

These are what meager notes my slinking brain was able to clutch, and what my late pen was able to cough up from the lecture:

• Use of the word “classical” for these types of boats because they have stood the test of time.
• The region covered is from the West Indian coast to the East African coast, also from the Red Sea to the Persian Gulf.
• Lexicography: the practice of compiling dictionaries.
• Iconography: the study of symbolic images.
• Ibn Majid (d.1500)
• Poopdeck (hahahaha… shhhhhhh! stupid brain), it’s the raised deck in the stern section of the ship.
• Persian was the language of trade before Islam, then Arabic became the lingo franca of trade after Islam.
• Ottoman war galleys were called “ghurab” (like ‘crows’ in arabic? nice.)
• “Sukkan”, which means steer, is a word with Akkadian origin.
• The planks for the boats were sewn with coir, they were not nailed together, and were able to make very long distances crossing oceans carrying tons of merchandise weight.
• The Red Sea is an understudied area.

My consolation is that I bought this hat to wear for when we go lizard-hunting (kidding), and must buy Dr. Aguis’s book to make my brain read it as punishment.