The dhow refers to a number of traditional sailing vessels, usually lateen-rigged ships with one or two masts, used for navigation in the Indian Ocean. These boats usually carried goods coming from all over the Arabian Gulf, India, Africa, and China, but material goods were not the only things the dhow transported. As Abdul Sheriff states in his book Dhow Cultures of the Indian Ocean “a dhow is not merely an inanimate transporter of goods, but an animated means of social interaction between different people who need to exchange those goods and much more” (1). Dhows are believed to carry significant markers of culture, and questions such as “Does dhow culture exist?” have been formulated and discussed. The concept of “dhow culture” depicts dhows as the principal means through which economic and social interactions occurred in an extremely culturally diverse area such as the Indian Ocean. In this process of cultural exchange, “a common pool of knowledge not only of shipbuilding technology but also navigation developed around the ocean” and it has supposedly been shared all along the trade routes (Sheriff 11). It is worth investigating the possibility for dhow culture to be defined as such by looking at some evidence of cultural exchange in the Indian Ocean. Specifically, a case study of an Arabic instrument for star altitude measurement used for navigation, the kamal, could provide insight on how dhows were used to exchange intangible heritage across culturally different populations along the Indian Ocean.
The first surviving evidence of maritime navigational literature that is rich in technical details appeared in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with the writing of Ahmad Ibn Majid. Ibn Majid is amongst the most famous Arab navigators, who came from a family of navigators and composed navigational poems. His true legacy is a collection of forty poems and prose works regarding navigational practices in the Indian Ocean. As Professor Eric Staples states in his book Oman-a Maritime History, the “strong emphasis on poems likely reflects the oral tradition of the navigational sciences”, which could suggest the sharing of knowledge about instrumentations and techniques along the Arabic trade route (228). Ibn Majid’s work provides the vast majority of our current understanding of Indian Ocean navigational practices, which include navigational markers, sailing seasons and dates, star altitude measurements, stellar compass bearings, distance estimations, diagonal sailings estimates, and routes. Amongst these, this case study will focus on a star altitude measurement instrument, the kamal.
The field of star altitude measurements is referred to as qiyas in Arabic and it consists of using the height of stars from the horizon to determine one’s latitude and it is one of the most sophisticated fields in western Indian Ocean navigation. The primary unit of measurement was the finger isba, measured up from the horizon between the sky and the sea. This was inspired by navigators’ original practice of extending their arm outward with their hand in front of them, aligning the lower edge of their hand with the horizon, and then using their fingers as a reference to measure the altitude of a particular star. In his book, Professor Staples argues that the exact degree of measurement of each finger differed between Ibn Majid and other navigators’ records. In his analysis, Staples suggests that the “finger was a variable measurement with regional and even personal differences, rather than a universal constant. Such an interpretation is in keeping with the concept of western Indian Ocean navigation as a collection of culturally and regionally diverse practices” (233-234). Looking at the Indian Ocean navigation from this perspective could suggest that the exchange that occurred along those trade routes was not limited to material goods since cultural exchanges allowed for shared knowledge and navigational customs to also be shared. Dhows were not simply boats carrying dates, spices, or cotton from the Arabian Gulf to the African, Indian, and Chinese’ coasts, but they represented a medium through which people from different cultures and places were able to interact.
An Arabic instrument for star altitude measurement, the kamal, could be an example in line with such interpretation. This instrument consists of a wooden tablet and a knotted string working on the same principle as a cross-staff finger-measurement system. As reported in S. Q. Fatimi’s paper “History of the Development of the Kamal,'' the usage of kamal as a tool to measure stars’ altitude is mentioned in one Ibn Majid’s works, and it is dated to the second half of the ninth century (288). In his treatises, Ahmad Ibn Majid reported that the instrument used by him had twelve graded and graduated plates, consisting of four each of different sizes. In Fatimi’s paper, it is reported that there was an instrument maker in China, whose name was Ma Huai-te, who made a device for the observation of astral altitude which he named ‘guiding-star stretch board’. It consisted of twelve tablets and its whole structure and usage method coincided with the one described by Ibn Majid (Fatimi 289). Further, in Joseph Needham’s book Science and Civilisation in China, Needham proves that even Chinese pilots used a version of the kamal to help navigate the skies. Specifically, after the translation and interpretation of a passage from Li Hsu in his Chieh An Lao Jen Man Pi (An Abundance of Jottings by Old Mr (Li) Chieh An), Needham states:
“Evidently we have here a set of standard ebony tablets held at a fixed distance from the
eye, not the single one with its knotted string that constituted the typical kamal; plus the
interesting addition of a 'fine adjustment' in the shape of an ivory tablet with corners
truncated to small standard edge lengths, held up at the same time to allow the
measurement of fractions of a chih” (575).
From this passage, we can see how the description of the instrument used by the Chinese is extremely similar to the Arabic kamal, with the addition of some variations they had implemented. The system used is still the finger-measure system which is referred to as the chih in the passage and the results are equivalent to the Arabic isba. This passage has been dated approximately to the beginning of the tenth century, which suggests that the Chinese instrument has very likely been inspired by the Arabic kamal developed before. Therefore, it is evident that more than material goods were exchanged along the trade routes, knowledge was also shared through dhow navigation in the Indian Ocean. The fact that navigational instruments were shared by extremely distant and culturally distinct places such as the Arabian Gulf and China is evidence of cultural exchange in the Indian Ocean; researchers should reconsider the deeper significance of Arabic trade routes and dhow culture in promoting early globalization and host further investigations.
According to Needham the Chinese instrument maker implemented new features to the original version of the kamal, such as the 'fine adjustment' at the corners to allow fractions of the fingers to be measured. Hence, the Chinese instrument represents a variation to the well-known Arabic version. This not only proves that technical skills were being exchanged throughout the Indian Ocean, but it also shows how peculiar cultural contributions from different regions and cultures can add to navigational science.
Distinct civilizations in the Indian Ocean came into contact through dhow navigation for trade purposes and in this process, material exchanges, but most importantly cultural exchanges, occurred as demonstrated by the kamal. This aligns with the idea that cultural exchange was an extremely significant component of dhow navigation in the Indian Ocean and could provide insight about what dhow culture represented even before it was defined as such. Dhows brought populations from different regions in the Indian Ocean together and supported the unique dynamics of trade in the Indian Ocean which made interactions between these people possible. Dhow culture definitely exists because dhows have played an extremely significant role in creating cosmopolitan populations and sharing intangible heritage among them and around the Indian Ocean. The ability of the Chinese to understand the Arabic kamal and then modify it to create a similar navigation instrument is indeed a result of the deep intercultural connections that were formed through dhow navigation.
In conclusion, the shared use of the kamal by both Arabs and the Chinese is evidence that cultural exchange happened between extremely distant and culturally different places such as the Arabian Gulf and China. This is an indication that a dhow culture exists because dhows, as the Kamal proves, carry significant cultural luggage when it comes to Indian Ocean navigation.. This is an example of the intangible heritage shared through dhow navigation in the Indian Ocean and it suggests that there were more than material goods exchanged along trade routes. The new features implemented to the instrument by the Chinese also shows the peculiar cultural contribution to navigational science provided by each region and culture, which aligns with the idea of looking at the Indian Ocean navigation as a collection of culturally and regionally diverse practices in which dhows were means for knowledge and cultural exchange.