Classic Ships of Islam ─ From Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean

Drawing upon Arabic literary sources, iconographic evidence and archaeological finds, this book examines trade, port towns, ship construction, seamanship, ship typology and their historical development in the Western Indian Ocean, focussing on the Medieval Islamic period but including earlier sources.

Dr Dionisius A. Agius is a Fellow of the British Academy. He currently holds the Al Qasimi Professorship in Arabic and Islamic Material Culture at the University of Exeter and is affiliated with King Abdulaziz University, Jeddah. Originally from the Island of Malta, he read Arabic and Islamic Studies at the Universite St-Joseph, Beirut, the Pontificio Istituto di Studi Arabi, Rome, and University of Toronto. An ethnographer, and linguist with particular expertise in Arabic semantics he has, for the past twenty-five years, focused on the traditional watercraft of the Western Indian Ocean, past and present, studying their typology and provenance as well as the people of the sea, their folklore and belief. Author of In the Wake of the Dhow: The Arabian Gulf and Oman (2002, 2010) and Seafaring in the Arabian Gulf and Oman: The People of the Dhow (2005, 2009), the latter being awarded a major book prize by The Abdullah Al-Mubarak Al-Sabah Foundation and the British-Kuwait Friendship Society. His latest work, Classic Ships of Islam: From Mesopotamia to the Indian Ocean (2008) was given Honourable Mention by The Keith Matthews Prize and was Highly Commended by The Keith Muckelroy Memorial Award.