The Indian Ocean - Michael Pearson [83]
Some pirates seem to have set up almost state-like structures. Ibn Majid south of Calicut found that the pirates there, operating out of the Kerala backwaters, were 'ruled by their own rulers and number about 1000 men and are a people of both land and sea with small boats'.144 So also in the Gulf near Hurmuz in the twelfth century. The island of Kish was more or less a pirate state, or so the hostile accounts available say. These men raided up and down the Indian west coast, and across to East Africa. In 1135 they became very daring. They wrote to the ruler of Aden demanding a part of the city as protection against being raided. This was refused, so the pirate Amir sent fifteen ships, which entered Aden harbour and waited. They had no intention of landing: rather they wanted to capture merchant ships on their way back to India. Finally, two ships belonging to Abul Qasim Ramisht of Siraf, in the Gulf, appeared, but helped by troops from Aden they were able to beat off the pirates.145
Natural events were much more perilous for sea travellers than were pirates. People used various rites and ceremonies to try to avoid the perils of the sea. The sea was generally seen as more hostile, chancy, and uncontrollable than was land. There were the dangers of the deep, uncertain winds and tides, fickle fish, and frail craft on the ocean. Various rites and ceremonies were used to counter these dangers.
It would be easy to disparage these as blind superstition, yet Palmer has put forward an argument to show their utility. Magic, religion, ritual used in perilous times at sea have two positive results. They relieve anxiety amongst those in danger, and more generally they promote cooperation and solidarity amongst those on board, and this in turn can increase the chance of saving a ship which is in danger.146 It is in this context that we need to evaluate the following examples of rites and ceremonies from our period.
Let us start, as usual, with Ibn Battuta. In 1347 he was sailing south from China and they were lost at sea.
At first light on the forty-third day a mountain became visible in the sea about twenty miles away. The wind was carrying us directly towards it. The sailors were amazed and said 'We are not near land and there is no knowledge of a mountain in the sea. If the wind drives us on to it we shall perish.' Everyone resorted to self-abasement, to devotion, and to renewed repentance, supplicating God in prayer. We sought Him through his Prophet, on whom be the Blessing and Peace of God. The merchants swore to give plentiful alms, which I recorded in my own writing. [He wanted to be able to remind them of their vows once the danger had passed!] The wind became somewhat calmer and at sunrise we saw that the mountain had risen into the air and there was light between it and the sea. We were amazed at this, and I saw the sailors weeping and saying good-bye to each other. I said: 'What is the matter?' They said: 'What we took for a mountain is the rukhkh. If it sees us we shall perish.' We were then less than ten miles from it. Then God Most High gave us the blessing of a favourable wind, which took us directly away from it. We did not see it or know its true shape.147
What Battuta and his shipmates did was call