In the Wake of the Dhow: The Arabian Gulf and Oman

About this book

The Arabian dhow, with its characteristic features, is one of the most evocative images of the Gulf, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. The great cargo dhows represented a flourishing trade which stretched from the Mediterranean up to China in the time of the Portuguese and the Dutch from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries. When the pearling industry was at its height in the 19th and early 20th centuries, hundreds of pearling dhows were actively employed, carrying thousands of seamen diving for the finest pearls, a commodity much sought by the Western powers. In times of war, the dhows were magnificent fighting vessels and associated with the piracy so prevalent in these waters.

This book is a product of over two hundred interviews with shipwrights and seamen in the Arabian Gulf and Oman over a period of nine years. It compares information given firsthand with the literature already written on the dhow and on Arab seafaring in the past seventy years, much of which was simply technical. Documenting the dhow as an important element in the prosperity of the area before the discovery of oil, we find in this book the geographical conditions and the historical-linguistical background of each dhow-type, the life-pattern in its role as cargo, pearl-diving, pirate and slaving vessel and also how the seafaring communities interacted with the dhow world.

About the author

Dionisius A. Agius is Professor of Arabic and Islamic Material Culture at the University of Exeter. His research is mainly on the comparative and historical aspects of Arabic language, society and culture, focusing particularly on the semantics of material-cultural terminology, with a special interest in ship-types and ship-building techniques in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean.

Reviews

• "This book will undoubtedly become the standard text which everyone interested in Arab craft will have to consult.", William Donaldson, Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies, University of Edinburgh
• "With his marvellously and deftly researched book, Agius has made a very significant contribution to filling in some of those gaps in our knowledge of medieval and post-medieval Arab seafaring, ship design and construction methodology.", Tom Vosmer, Department of Maritime Archaeology, Western Australian Maritime Museum, Fremantle
• "Agius’ long awaited study … completely analyses the forces that influenced the building and the shape of the Arabian boats", Joseph Muscat, Sunday Times
• "Agius’ book, with its collection of oral testimony enriching his glossary with new linguistic material, is an impressive achievement enhanced by the lucid and pleasing manner in which he writes.", James Taylor, British Yemeni Society Journal
• "[Agius] has responded, in the wake of a number of Arab chroniclers of the dhow, by supplementing a scrupulous trawl of almost the entire corpus of useful written material with observations and anecdotes meticulously gathered from a number of surviving Arab shipwrights and seafarers, compressing a wealth of detail from a wide range of sources between the covers of a single, elegantly presented book and making material of Arabic origin available to readers unacquainted with the language … The bibliography is excellent …a welcome addition to the library of anyone already well acquainted with the subject.", Asian Affairs
• "… a fascinating regional, historical, philological, and technical comparative survey. In the Wake of the Dhow is an important contribution. Its classification system and analysis bring clarity to the confusing web of relationships – geographic, linguistic, and technological – that are integral to these vessels and the society that created them.", Nautical Research Journal
• "This book is a mine of information, which is systematically presented … The wealth of detail and the hints and leads for further research, given in footnotes and the bibliography, are useful material for anyone with an interest in the social and economic history of the Gulf; these leads should go a long way to satisfy the specialist in maritime research.", Frauke Heard-Bey, DAVO Nachrichten
• "… a very comprehensive glossary … anyone wishing to pursue the topic would find this book an admirable starting point.", David A. Walker of the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, Halifax, Canada, Maritime History
• "… now the definitive work on the subject.", Allan S. Kaye, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies
• "a major contribution to the study of navigation in the Gulf and in the Indian Ocean", International Journal of Marine Archaeology

Details

Format: Paperback

Page extent: 276pp

Size: 235 x 155mm

Imprint: Ithaca Press

ISBN: 978-0-86372-341-4

Published: April 2009