Slavery is over, all men are equal in the eyes of God (al-Tirmidhi). Despite this powerful statement, slavery was prevalent in the Gulf region and Dhow culture for centuries.
Over time there have been many assumptions made to understand the concept of “Dhow culture” Who are the people involved in Dhow culture? Were they all from the Gulf region? Who are their predecessors or successors? Where was the Dhow culture most common? What was the influence of Dhow culture in East Africa? To answer these questions this essay will explore a series of films and literary sources that zoom into the different cultural backgrounds of slaves, who were considered essential workers in the dhow culture. This topic is essential in the understanding of the Dhow culture because it provides a more proactive and honest perception of the historical backgrounds of the individuals involved in dhow culture. This is significant because the dhow culture is frequently romanticized and a lot of the taboo topics such as slavery are often overlooked.
What is the Dhow culture? To answer this question, several films were selected including The Cruel Sea, Hamed and The Pirates, and Between the Two Banks. Although these three films revolve around very different topics and genres, there is one common theme among all of them: The ambiguity behind the ship crew’s individual cultural Identity. Whether it was the divers in Hamad and the Pirates or the men sitting around the Nokhada in The Cruel sea or the lead character in Between the Two Banks there is a mixture of cultural backgrounds that are often undefined. The mix of cultural backgrounds, as seen in the ship crew, illustrates the laying of the foundations of globalization in the sense that it shows the connection between the different regions that are linked through “dhow culture”. These diasporas of dhow culture communities were linked through several seafaring activities including pearl diving and trade (Villers, 1948, p. 410). Moreover, although the usual depiction of the dhow culture revolves around oceanic voyages, it can also be argued that it extends into the interior through cultural associations between seafarers, traders and agriculturalists extending as far as date plantations and other inland settlements and activities (Villers, 1948, p. 409). In Kuwait, Hadhramaut and certain cities in Yemen, such as Aden, dates were one of the many goods slaves were expected to collect and organize for trade (Villers, 410). Thus, dhow culture created a web in which enslaved people were spread across different regions of the Arabian Gulf and the Indian ocean for a plethora of tasks in the maritime network.
Background
The history of the enslaved people has deep roots in the Arabian peninsula, slavery in this context is not just a topic that arises in economical matters, but social and religious as well. In order to serve this tragic yet impactful part of history justice, the journey of the enslaved people will be narrated through a timeline that runs from the 7th century in the Abbasid period, to the intervention of foreign powers such as the Portuguese in the 15th century and British patrol ships in the 18th and 19th centuries to their emancipation in the 20th century. The Abbasid empire marked a crucial point for the enslaved people not because of their significance to the economy but, due to the negative exploitation, they had to endure. It should be noted that even before the Abbasid empire, there have been influential figures that have descended from slavery, for example, Bilal b. Rabah al-Habashi who was an emancipated slave from Ethiopia and considered to be one the first muezzins or caller of prayers(Alpers, 53). Moreover, his close companionship with Prophet Mohammed only further shows how influential figures such as Bilal b. Rabah al-Habashi has impacted the spread of Islam on the East African coast(Alpers, 53). As a matter of fact, the vast influence of Islam on the East African coast region was later recorded by Ibn Battuta on one of his voyages(Alper, 51).
Under the Abbasid rule (750-1258), the slave trade of East Africans was one of the most crucial factors in the economy (Campbell, 277). In spite of the ambiguity behind slavery in the context of Islam, there was a notorious law that entailed Muslims were prohibited from enslaving co-religionists (Campbell, 278). As a result, many of the slave traders began to look for regions with the non-Muslim populations, and unfortunately, East Africa was the least expensive option (Campbell, 278). Also, their genetic background served as an important factor for their employment (Campbell, 277). As more slaves were being shipped off to different regions of the Arabian peninsula it was indicated that the slaves carried the sickle cell gene which made them immune to malaria (Campbell 279). Therefore, this significant factor made the slaves immune to the marshland region of southern Iraq where they would be required to perform manual labor (Campbell, 279). Considering the prevalence of slavery in the Arabian peninsula it seemed paradoxical to me as a viewer while I was watching the film The Cruel Sea. It is a film that is supposedly aimed at indicating the hardships of the dhow culture but, even with the clear presence of the individuals of different races as can be seen in the scene with the nokhada being surrounded by the ship crew and arguing with the father about the fate of his son, the topic of race and slavery is completely abundant.
A few centuries later, the Portuguese power in the Gulf region carrying with them a spark of curiosity to understand the slave trade on the East African coast. Moreover, it could not be denied that no one could speak Portuguese, therefore, the language barrier was one of the issues that interfered with the interest of the Portuguese power to be involved in the slave trade (Agius, 391). In order to resolve this matter, they realized the only way they could be involved in maritime trade in the region would be to learn the common Arabic and Persian dialects that are spoken in Mombasa and Cambay on the west Indian coast (Agius, 394). The action of normalizing these different dialects led to the emphasis of certain sailing vocabulary, some of which are still recognized in modern-day Arabic dialects. For example, the words “Nokhada” meaning ship captain and “daw” meaning trading vessel which is derived from Persian and Indian words (Agius, 394). In contrast to Agius, Gilbert coins the term “dhow” as a sailing ship and an emblem of local culture in the Western Indian ocean (Gilbert). Interestingly, these different definitions or interpretations of the word dhow adds to the ambiguity and romanticization of dhow culture.
Flashforward to the nineteenth-century, anti-slave trade British patrol ships became common in the Arabian Gulf region and aimed to decline enslavement. Notably, the British patrol spotted dhow ships with a maximum of fifty-five slaves coming from East Africa and put the enslavement at a halt. The existence of British anti-slave trade patrol systems in the Gulf made me wonder what other influences the colonial powers must have had on dhow culture? In this case, the anti-slave trade patrols forced the maritime traders to take more risk by overloading the ships with more slaves which only led to catastrophic results such as higher mortality rate due to unsanitary living conditions. These incidents were quite common from 1858 to 1873 where ships would carry at least a hundred slaves which is double the amount of what was considered as the standard (Agius, 392). As maritime trade continued with illegal enslavement it became apparent that their trip would include certain dangers such as rat and cockroach infestation (Agius, 303). In addition, the dhow became filled with foul and stagnant water during storms when most of the enslaved people were probably kept below deck with barely any room to breathe (Agius, 303).
With the arrival of the 1930s, it marked an arduous time in the Gulf due to the low demand for pearls following the discovery of the artificial pearl in Japan. By 1939, in Kuwait, the number of deep-sea sailors has gone up to 10,000, and considering the dhow size and the budget required to pay, feed, and accommodate the divers involved in pearl diving the pearl community had to be more selective (Villers, 410). As enslavement slowly diminished, a lot of these sailors had African and Iranian origins as opposed to Bedouin so the positions in pearl diving slowly became dependent on the social hierarchy (Villers, 412). The social hierarchy placed pearl diving as the most competitive whereas other seafaring activities such as trading goods and fishing were more accessible to those of none bedouin origin (Villers, 412). The decline of the demand-led for all seamen to live a very modest sometimes difficult lifestyle. A study by Alan Villers done in 1948 states that younger seamen of African and Iranian origins would usually end by seeking shelter in the Suq by sleeping on the sand by the coast and using tree twigs for toothbrush and rough clothes (Villers, 412).
As time passed more positions seemed to appear for people of African origins in the Gulf region. As the Nokhada position usually required someone of good financial means and long experience at sea some of the men good acquire a cheaper kind of dhow ship called Boom as seen in figure 1 and choose to sail and trade on their own (Villers, 408). Although there is not much known about the interactions of the slave descendants and bedouins we can see in the film the cruel sea at 1:23 as the men are sitting by the shore they are interacting in a solemn manner which could indicate a favorable relationship between the slave descendants and the bedouins (The deep sea, 1:23). Thus, the normalization of intercultural and interracial marriages between the different diasporas might be a reasonable explanation behind these progressive interactions (Hopper, 150).
Figure 1: The boom ship
In conclusion, the history of enslavement has been prominent throughout different periods and still continues to lives on in the people of African descend. Moreover, I wanted to pursue this topic due to being inspired by the rawness of the Gulf region in the film, The Cruel Sea. I selected this topic knowing it would be controversial and taboo, but I did not want to write it to get negative attention but to raise awareness of the history behind enslavement and how it diminished. What makes it interesting is the fact that we get to see the influence of foreign powers on the slave trade and dhow culture. From my previous knowledge, I always had a very shallow understanding of colonial influences in the Gulf region but after researching this topic I understood that there was more to it than political conflict. Today, Even if an outsider was to look at a football match in the Gulf region today such as Kas al Khaleej they would notice a mix of African and Arab features (Hopper, 155) so, it makes me hopeful that this topic will be further discussed in the future.
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