Ahmad ibn Mājid

Ahmad ibn Mājid (Arabic: أحمد بن ماجد‎), also known as the Lion of the Sea,[1] was an Arab navigator and cartographer born c. 1432[2] in Julfar, (present-day Ras Al Khaimah, UAE) He was raised in a family famous for seafaring; at the age of 17 he was able to navigate ships. The exact date is not known, but ibn Majid probably died in 1500. He became famous in the West as the navigator who helped Vasco da Gama find his way from Africa to India. However, the leading scholar on the subject, G.R. Tibbetts, disputes this claim. Ibn Majid was the author of nearly forty works of poetry and prose.

Not to be confused with Ahmad Majid.

Ahmad ibn Mājid
أحمد بن ماجد
Dieulafoy's 1888 illustration, captioned Négociant musulman de Mascate
Bornc. 1432
Julfar (present-day Ras Al Khaimah
Diedc. 1500
Other names
  • The Lion of the Sea
  • The Shooting Star
OccupationNavigator/Cartographer
Years activec. 1450 – c. 1500
Known forNavigator of da Gama's discovery of the route to India
Notable work
Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul ‘Ilm al-Bahr wa ’l-Qawa’id

Early life

Ibn Majid was born in Julfar (present day Ras Al Khaimah, at that time classified as part of the coast of Oman).[3][4][5]

Works of the sailor

Ibn Majid wrote several books on marine science and the movements of ships, which helped people of the Persian Gulf to reach the coasts of India, East Africa and other destinations. Among his many books on navigation, Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul ‘Ilm al-Bahr wa ’l-Qawa’id (The Book of the Benefits of the Principles and Foundations of Seamanship) is considered as one of his best.[6] It is an encyclopedia, describing the history and basic principles of navigation, latitude and longitude by way of celestial navigation,[7] lunar mansions, loxodromes, the difference between coastal and open-sea sailing, the locations of ports from East Africa to Indonesia, accounts of the monsoon and other seasonal winds, typhoons and other topics for professional navigators. He drew from his own experience and that of his father, also a famous navigator, and the lore of generations of Indian Ocean sailors.

He grew very famous and was fondly called The Shooting Star for his fearlessness, strength and experience as a sailor who excelled in the art of navigation.

Legacy

Ahmad Ibn Majid's efforts in the mid-15th century allegedly helped the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama complete the first all water trade route between Europe and India by using an Arab map then unknown to European sailors. While this story is the reason for much of ibn Majid's fame in the West, this account is disputed by the leading scholar on the subject: G.R. Tibbets. The account of ibn Majid assisting Vasco da Gama is first described by the Ottoman historian Qutb al-Din, roughly 50 years after ibn Majid's death. Tibbets asserts that the account of ibn Majid leading Vasco da Gama to India is slanderous, asserting as it does that ibn Majid (a devout Muslim) was drunk when he traded his knowledge of the route for passage back to Ras al Khaimah. While there is some debate as to who Vasco da Gama's navigator was – the result of a lack of clarity in his captain's log and several competing accounts written by contemporary Portuguese scholars – according to Tibbets, the tale of ibn Majid leading Vasco da Gama is popularized largely as a result of the ascendancy of the Western narrative of world history, and is not historically accurate.[8]

Remembered as 'The Lion of the Sea', ibn Majid's true legacy was the substantial body of literature on sailing that he left behind. Arab sailing was at a pinnacle during ibn Majid's lifetime, when both Europeans and Ottomans had only a limited understanding of geography in the Indian Ocean. His Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul ‘Ilm al-Bahr wa ’l-Qawa’id was widely utilized by Arab sailors and addressed celestial navigation, weather patterns, and charts of dangerous areas in which to sail. This tome, in addition to his poetic works, were the true legacy of the sailor. Two of ibn Majid's famous hand-written books are now prominent exhibits in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.[9]

In the television series Star Trek: Picard, set in the future, the character Cristóbal "Chris" Rios (portrayed by Santiago Cabrera) is a former Starfleet officer who once served on the Federation starship USS Ibn Majid, NCC-75710, as revealed in the 2020 episode "Broken Pieces".

See also
  • Islamic scholars
  • List of Arab scientists and scholars

References
  1. Zacharias, Anna (2012-11-24). "'Lion of the Sea' - 500 years ago may be the new face of tourism". The National. Abu Dhabi. Archived from the original on 2018-07-06. Retrieved 2020-03-21. Ahmed bin Majid was a navigator, poet and scholar of such respect that he is known among mariners as "the Lion of the Sea" more than five centuries after his death.
  2. Lunde, Paul (2005-08-01). "The Navigator: Ahmad Ibn Majid". AramcoWorld. Vol. 56 no. 4. Houston, Texas. pp. 45–48. Archived from the original on 2015-12-22. Retrieved 2020-03-21.
  3. Russell, Jesse; Cohn, Ronald (2012). Ahmad Ibn Majid. Tbilisi State University. ISBN 5512794280.
  4. Alpers, Edward A. (2013-10-31). The Indian Ocean in World History. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-992994-8.
  5. Jones, Jeremy; Ridout, Nicholas (2015-08-31). A History of Modern Oman. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-107-00940-0.
  6. "Ibn Majid". Medieval Science, Technology, and Medicine: An Encyclopedia. Routledge. 2005. ISBN 978-1-135-45932-1.
  7. Hazem, Bashir (2014-06-11). "Sultan Al Qasimi: I will exert the necessary efforts to search for answers for researchers' inquiries about Ahmed Ibn Majid". Emirates News Agency. Abu Dhabi. Archived from the original on 2020-03-21. Retrieved 2020-03-21.
  8. Tibbetts, Gerald Randall (1971). Arab navigation in the Indian Ocean before the coming of the Portuguese: being a translation of Kitāb al-Fawāʼid fī uṣūl al-baḥr waʼl-qawāʼid of Aḥmad b. Mājid al-Najdī; together with an introduction on the history of Arab navigation, notes on the navigational techniques and on the topography of the Indian Ocean and a glossary of navigational terms. Oriental Translation Fund, New Series. 42. London: The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland. ISBN 978-0-718-90900-0. OCLC 9283280.
  9. Momin, A. R. (2019-04-15). "Vasco da Gama's Voyage to India and the Ibn Majid Connection". The IOS (Institute of Objective Studies) Minaret: An online Islamic magazine. Vol. 13 no. 15, Leaves from Islamic History and Culture. New Delhi, India. Archived from the original on 2019-05-14. Retrieved 2020-03-21.

General References
  • Khal Torabully, The Maritime Memory of the Arabs, documentary film (52') showing Arab navigation in the Indian Ocean, with a special attention to Ahmad bin Majid, Chamarel Film/Productions La Lanterne, 2000.
  • Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Westen Cultures, Helaine Selin, Springer Science & Business Media - 2013, Page: 424, ISBN 9789401714167.
  • Ahmad ibn Majid (15th Century CE – 9th Century AH): The lion of the Seas. http://www.alrahalah.com/.
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