Sulaiman Al Mahri
Sulaymān ibn Aḥmad ibn Sulaymān al-Mahrī (
Works
He sailed across the Indian Ocean and wrote a book on the geography of the Indian Ocean and the islands of Maritime Southeast Asia.[citation needed] He is best known for reducing Ibn Majids's list of stars for navigation from 70 to 15.[3] Combinations of these lists of stars were used by Arab navigators and mariners up to the early 16th century.[4]
The 15th-century Arabic book Kitab al-Fawa'id fi wal al-ilmi al bahri wa'l qawa'id (Book of Useful Information on the Principles and Rules of Navigation) was compiled by Ibn Majid and his student Sulaiman Al Mahri.
He grouped the shores of Malaya with Siam, and the mainland to the east with China as a single kingdom. This passage from Al-Mahri's book illustrates the limits of Arab navigators:
Know that to the south of the Island of Jawa are found many Islands called
Maluku islands.Since many of the islands have not been identified with confidence, the extent of his travel and familiarity with the region is not known.[6]
Al Mahri's division of
Arab and Portuguese navigators.[7] Even in the mid-16th century Sidi Ali Celeb translated Al Mahri's texts into Turkish and embroidered his work.[8]See also
External links
- Technical note on Indian Ocean Arab Navigation Studies by J. Acevedo and I. Bénard of the RUTTER Project, listing all known manuscripts, editions and works of Sulayman al-Mahri.
References
- ^ History of Islam, Volume 1 By Masudul Hasan p. 642
- ^ Ibrahim Khoury, Al-ʿUlūm al-baḥrīyah ʿinda al-ʿarab (Maritime Sciences Among the Arabs), Vol. 1, p. 7.
- ^ Between east and west: the Moluccas and the traffic in spices up to the Arrival of Europeans. Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society By R. A. Donkin
- ^ The Persian Gulf States: a general survey By Alvin J. Cottrell p. 16.
- ^ Early mapping of Southeast Asia By Thomas Suárez p. 52
- ^ Al-Hind: the making of the Indo-Islamic world By André Wink p. 214
- ^ The Persian Gulf States: a general survey By Alvin J. Cottrell p. 16
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