Excerpt: Trade Winds: Islam's Crossing-Era Economic Boom - Umar al-Sufali, Eastwind Press, AD 1997
It is tempting to fixate on matters in the Gharb al-Aqsa as the most fascinating frontier of the Crossing Period. The most immediate impacts on Andalusian life and economics came not from these new continents, but from the fallout of Ibn Mundhir's circumnavigation of Sudan in 1342 and Ibn Ghalib's maritime
hajj in 1350. These voyages proved that not only could the Sudan be circled, but that one could sail around it and reach Mecca - and all the trade routes Mecca had access to.
A decade of remarkable discovery ensued. The spearhead of it was a remarkable explorer: Abd al-Malik ibn Qasi al-Shershi, who had been an 18-year-old deckhand on Ibn Mundhir's ship, was entrusted by the Hajib with four ships and dispatched to seek Hindustan. By all accounts, Ibn Qasi - a descendant of conversos who traced his ancestry back to a Gothic family - was a dynamic man with a thirst for adventure and profit, and he pulled together a crew of eager men before setting sail.
The voyage of Ibn Qasi was a long one, but uncovered much. The ships stopped in the Kaledats, continued on to Labu, then sailed on into the Gulf of Sudan, where they stayed at Marsa al-Mushtari on the island of Mihwaria. After months of travel and a difficult crossing of the Cape of Storms, the ships reached the Swahili Coast, staying for a month in the trade city of Kilwa. From there, Ibn Qasi and his ships followed the advice of local sailors and waited for the seasonal monsoons to begin. The fleet followed the monsoon winds east across the Hindu Ocean,[1] guided by Somali traders. While one of their ships sank along the way after having its sail ripped off in a fierce storm, the remaining three survived and sailed, battered but triumphant, into the trading city of Goa.
At the time of Ibn Qasi's arrival, Hindustan was in a state of transition. To the north, the Tarazid Sultanate was in a state of rapid fragmentation after the ruling dynasty's overthrow by an ambitious Karluk general, leaving Islamic power concentrated in the Indus River area. Islam had never truly caught on beyond that region, and power vacuums in Gujarat, northern India and Bengal were stepped into by local families. Goa had never been part of the Tarazid realm, owing its allegiance primarily to the Seunas of Devagiri at the time - but its busy port was no stranger to Islamic visitors or traders of myriad cultures and colours. The Andalusian ships were certainly a little unusual, but few raised an eyebrow until Ibn Qasi offloaded his cargo: Binu pepper, Sudani gold and precious dyes.
Ibn Qasi's return voyage took some time; following the advice of his Somali guide, he waited for the monsoon winds to turn before setting sail again, winding up back in Sofala. It was not until late 1352 that he returned to Isbili, bringing word that he had reached Hindustan. While several of his sailors died of scurvy during the voyage and a second of his ships remained behind at Marsa al-Mushtari after springing a slow leak.
News circulated quickly that it would be possible to reach Hindustan, however long the voyage. Circumnavigation from this point onward took on three purposes: Trade with Hindustan on east, exploration, and the
hajj.
Exploration proved simple enough, though perilous. By 1356, Muhammad ibn Qays al-Shilbi reached the island of Lanka, and by 1360, Abd al-Qadir ibn Safwan al-Ghamri pulled his ship into the harbour of Aceh in the distant region of Melaka, discovering Muslims who bent the knee not to a Caliph but to the Emperor of China.[2]
Travelers for trade and the
hajj proved more regular. Pilgrims began to travel to Mecca by circumnavigation as early as 1353, hoping to avoid entanglements with Genoese and Venetian traders in the Mediterranean or long overland jaunts through the desert. The sea route cost most and had its own perils, but wealthier sorts nevertheless took it up. The route was also enjoyed by those seeking to trade in ports along the Swahili Coast and in Hindustan proper, though most of these traders tended to set up shop in cities like Sofala, Kilwa and Zanjibar and trade with middlemen there - still a better prospect for both price and quantity than trading it through the traditional land-based routes.
Infrastructure was the first demand these sailors created. Existing trading ports in the Kaledats, Labu and Marsa al-Mushtari would swell and grow as a result of stopovers by these ships, and they would often stop at the mouth of the Zadazir as well, but the biggest gap in the route was at the Ra's al-Awasif,[3] where foul weather often made passage tricky and a lack of cities or natural harbours made it difficult for ships to find a good place to hunker down. Most ships seeking to wait for poor weather to blow over would take shelter north of the cape itself, in a natural bay with good shelter from the winds and deep water, but little prospect for farming. That suited the captains just fine. The bay became known as the Kawf al-Hujaj.[4]
The rigors of making the crossing would strain Andalusian
saqin and
tur-type ships to the limits of their design. While explorers in a well-built
saqin could make longer voyages than virtually any other ship, including over endless kilometres of open ocean, most of these early traders would sail a larger
tur, as a smaller
saqins couldn't carry enough cargo or passengers to make a journey profitable. Yet even the
tur was considered to have limits, and the race was quickly on to build larger, faster ships capable of more reliably weathering the brutal storms of the southern Sudan.
The development of larger ships would take the form of the
qurqur,[5] which is first attested in literature around this time but likely emerged for the first time closer to 1340, probably as a development of the pepper trade. These ships were larger than those used by the first wave of Andalusian explorers, and they were used primarily by merchants more concerned with cargo and stability in rough waters than with the speed allowed by the earlier types of craft. A typical
tur would weigh in around 250 to 300 tons, while an early
qurqur weighed in closer to 600, a mass which would swell to displacements of more than 1,000 tons by the end of the century as shipbuilders perfected the new style.
It was these larger ships which formed the bulk of the eight-ship flotilla dispatched by the Hajib and the Banu Angelino in 1358, with orders to set sail for Hindustan and return with spices. These ships were the first Spice Fleet. It would become an annual tradition for a fleet under Hizamid hire to set sail from Isbili to Kilwa or Zanjibar, then follow the monsoon season to Hindustan to trade and return the next year with holds full of cinnamon, cloves, ginger, black pepper, and other goods such as fine silks and blackpowder.
The Spice Fleets proved to be the backbone of what would become an age of intense trade-driven economic prosperity. More trade money fuelled more exploration and allowed the Hizamids to earn more in taxation and tribute, which in turn led to more expeditions, more discoveries, more trade opportunities and more money. The rapid growth of the merchant class would result in economic booms not only in Al-Andalus, but in the Maghreb along the Dahab, in what was then the Simala Kingdom, after a powerful clan which assumed autonomous rule as the Mande Empire struggled and weakened beneath the raids of the Southern Blue Army. All the more remarkable about this period is that the Muslim powers held effective monopolies: Christian sailors did not enjoy the same advancements in ship technology enjoyed by the Muslims of Andalusia and the coastal Maghreb, though Basque and Galician whalers may have begun to adapt elements of it, and most ships in the Christian world remained either bulky coastal hulks or Mediterranean galleys (of which Al-Andalus and Ifriqiya each maintained fleets).
The Spice Fleets and other mercantile efforts in the Sudan, Hindustan and Melaka would bring not only wealth, but ideas. The most important of these was likely the introduction of
barud weapons.[6]
Early firearms had made it to Al-Andalus through trade with the Levant, primarily in the form of the fire lance. The first record of their use comes in 1352, at the Battle of Atalayah Pass.[7] While no Arabic source for the encounter exists, the monk Pedro de Noia describes the Knights of Saint James being turned back by "a host of Moors brandishing Satan's fire, spewed from Hell itself," which allegedly disrupted a heavy cavalry attack on a smaller Muslim army. Reconstructionists tend to agree that this was the first notable appearance of a
barud weapon in Western Europe. Through trade with Chinese merchants,
barud weapons would increasingly become available to Muslims and slowly proliferate through Mesopotamia, the Maghreb and Andalusia.
[1] The Indian Ocean.
[2] The Strait of Malacca.
[3] The Cape of Good Hope.
[4] Pilgrims' Cove.
[5] The word "carrack" may come from this word for "large merchant ship." The development is not
exactly like a carrack; a
qurqur is visibly more derived from a dhow, but the requirements of ship geometry are gradually pushing it to be more solidly-built and chunky than the current sleeker designs the Andalusians sail. Ship design is adapting to the fact that Andalusians don't need exploration ships - they need things with a big cargo hold that won't sink if they hit a monsoon or a horrible South African storm.
[6] Gunpowder.
[7] Near Cebreros.
SUMMARY:
1352: The sailor Ibn Qasi becomes the first Andalusian to reach Hindustan.
1352: The Battle of Atalayah Pass. An attack by the Knights of Saint James is broken up when Andalusian forces unexpectedly deploy fire lances.
1356: Muhammad ibn Qays al-Shilbi reaches Lanka.
1358: With the sanction of Hajib Husayn, the first Spice Fleet - largely organized by the powerful Banu Angelino - sets sail for Hindustan, sailing heavier merchant ships called qaraqir.
1360: Abd al-Qadir ibn Safwan al-Ghamri reaches Aceh.
Authorial note: Yes, I'm still alive and still writing. Work and mental health consumed me alive. It's been a tough couple of weeks but I think I'm coming out the other end of it.
