Indian Ocean History

Our recent discoveries are now fully accepted by most of the specialists of Islamic art and the Africanist archaeologists. Our archaeological investigations in Mayotte allowed us to understand the raison d’être of an early Islamic site in the western Indian Ocean. Dembeni was occupied between the ninth to the twelfth century, a period of intensive trad, first with the Abbasid caliphate in Iraq/Iran, then with the Fatimid caliphate in Egypt. Dembeni appears to be a major distribution centre for rock crystal in the Indian Ocean. The fragments of rock crystal discovered in Mayotte were imported from Madagascar. The rock crystal was exported from Madagascar to the Comoros together with other products, notably steatite (soapstone).

An important outcome of our research was to put the Comoros and Madagascar in the “big picture” of East African trade, as rock crystal was a much-valued product. This “Eastern” or Malagasy road could serve as an explanation for the urbanization of Kilwa, the biggest and most well-known city-state of the East African coast. The city state of Kilwa has always been interpreted in relation to the gold trade with Sofala and the gold mines in Zimbabwe. But Kilwa is also located at a major crossroads between the East African coast and the Comoros. I would argue that the development and urbanization of Kilwa was due to this key position at the crossroads, between gold and rock crystal mines, the two most valued products of the Abbasid and Fatimid caliphates.

Portugal in the Sea of Oman - Religion and Politics is an editorial achievement, which is unique in the Arab World. In cooperation with the Ministry of Religious Affairs of Oman, the University of Aachen and the Centro de Estudos Históricos (Universidade Nova de Lisboa), more than one thousand documents, ranging from 1504 to 1697, from the Arquivo Nacional da Torre do Tombo (Lisbon), are published in a trilingual edition (original portuguese, translation into English and Arabic). Thus, invaluable primary sources are now available for scientists all over the world and a new scholarly dialogue about this essential period for the Arabian History can ensue.

Shah Jahan’s period (1627-1666 A.D) is known as the golden age of the medieval Indian history. All historian of modern age dedicated their energies to prove this fact that Shah Jahan was the master of the wealthiest Empire of the world. As far as the matter of wealth and territorial boundaries are concerned this is a fact that he ruled on the largest Empire of the world in Middle Ages. This Empire was the legacy of his father in which he did not contribute even a single inch. The wealth he had used for his personal aspirations must have been used for the welfare of the people. These questions are generally avoided by the historians. Taj Mahal, the seventh wonder of the world made the life of common people miserable because they had to pay many taxes for the satisfaction of architectural sense of Shah Jahan. This paper attempts to find out those realities which may challenge this myth.

This article examines the consequences of the Ming maritime expeditions led by Admiral Zheng He (1371–1433) in the early fifteenth century on Indian Ocean diplomacy, trade, and cross-cultural interactions. The presence of the powerful Ming navy not only introduced an unprecedented militaristic aspect to the Indian Ocean region, but also led to the emergence of state-directed commercial activity in the maritime world that extended from Ming China to the Swahili coast of Africa. Additionally, these expeditions stimulated the movement of people and animals across the oceanic space and might eventually have facilitated the rapid entry of European commercial enterprises into the Indian Ocean region during the second half of the fifteenth century.

This article explores ways that the concept of equine cultures, developed
thus far principally in European and/or early modern and colonial contexts,
might translate to premodern South Asia. As a first contribution to a history of
equine matters in South Asia, it focuses on the maritime circulation of horses from
the Middle East to Peninsular India in the thirteenth century, examining the different
ways that this phenomenon is recorded in textual and material sources and
exploring their potential for writing a new, more connected history of South Asia
and the Indian Ocean world.

Bibliografische Information der Deutschen Nationalbibliothek: Die Deutsche Nationalbibliothek verzeichnet diese Publikation in der Deutschen Nationalbibliografie; detaillierte bibliografische Daten sind im Internet über https://dnb.de abrufbar.

The retail of alcohol was so central to the economy and society of the Cape of Good Hope during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries that it earned the nickname “tavern of two oceans”. This retail business was organised on the so-called
lease or monopoly ('pacht') system whereby a person paid the authorities for the right to sell a certain type of alcohol for a given period in a specific area. This article traces the intellectual origins of this system of alcohol retail at the Cape during the VOC era. It does so by tracing both the idea of using leases or monopolies, first in the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth century, and by investigating the ways in which various products, including alcohol, were leased off in the largest and most significant of the VOC’s colonies, Batavia, during the first half of the seventeenth century. It is demonstrated that the ways in which alcohol retail and other economic activities were organised at the Cape developed out of practices established elsewhere in the seventeenth-century Dutch world, but that the exact nature of the system was adapted to unique local circumstances at the early Cape. As such, this comparative article serves as an illustration that developments at the Cape in such a central sphere as business practices were the product of both global and local forces and influences.

Pearls, People, and Power is the first book to examine the trade, distribution, production, and consumption of pearls and mother-of-pearl in the global Indian Ocean over more than five centuries. While scholars have long recognized the importance of pearling to the social, cultural, and economic practices of both coastal and inland areas, the overwhelming majority have confined themselves to highly localized or at best regional studies of the pearl trade. By contrast, this book stresses how pearling and the exchange in pearl shell were interconnected processes that brought the ports, islands, and coasts into close relation with one another, creating dense networks of connectivity that were not necessarily circumscribed by local, regional, or indeed national frames.

Essays from a variety of disciplines address the role of slaves and indentured workers in maritime labor arrangements, systems of bondage and transoceanic migration, the impact of European imperialism on regional and local communities, commodity flows and networks of exchange, and patterns of marine resource exploitation between the Industrial Revolution and Great Depression. By encompassing the geographical, cultural, and thematic diversity of Indian Ocean pearling, Pearls, People, and Power deepens our appreciation of the underlying historical dynamics of the many worlds of the Indian Ocean.

Author : Roland E Miller
Translated by : Thomas Karthikapuram
ISBN Number : 9789380081113

https://goo.gl/V2bSeM

പ്രമുഖ കനേഡിയന്‍ പണ്ഡിതനായ റോളണ്ട് ഇ. മില്ലറുടെ ഈ ഗ്രന്ഥം ഇന്ത്യക്കകത്തും പുറത്തുമുള്ള അനേകം ചരിത്രാന്വേഷികളും ഗവേഷകരും മാപ്പിളമാരെക്കുറിച്ചുള്ള പഠനത്തിന്റെ പ്രമുഖ സ്രോതസുകളിലൊന്നായി ഉപയോഗിക്കുന്നു. സ്ഥൂലവിശകലനങ്ങളില്‍ വരുന്ന ദൂരക്കാഴ്‌ചയുടെ പരിമിതികള്‍ ഉണ്ടായിരിക്കെ തന്നെ മാപ്പിള സമുദായത്തിനും കേരളചരിത്രത്തിനുമുള്ള വലിയൊരു വൈജ്ഞാനിക സേവനമായി ഇതു ചരിത്രത്തില്‍ ബാക്കിയാകും; കൂടുതല്‍ ഭദ്രവും സൂക്ഷ്‌മവുമായ മറ്റൊന്നില്ലാത്തപ്പോള്‍ പ്രത്യേകിച്ചും.
'മാപ്പിളമാരുടെ ഉത്ഭവം, വളര്‍ച്ച, സവിശേഷതകള്‍, സമകാലീന സ്ഥിതിവിശേഷങ്ങള്‍ എന്നിവയെക്കുറിച്ച്‌ ഗഹനമായി അന്വേഷിച്ചറിയാന്‍ മില്ലര്‍ ശ്രമിച്ചിട്ടുണ്ട്. ഇത്രയധികം ശ്രദ്ധയോടുകൂടി ഈ വിഷയത്തെക്കുറിച്ച്‌ പഠിക്കാന്‍ താല്‍പര്യമെടുത്തിട്ടുള്ളവര്‍ കുറവാണ്‌. ഇത്രയേറെ ശുഷ്‌കാന്തിയോടെയുള്ള പഠനം വേറെ ഉണ്ടായിട്ടില്ലെന്നാണു തോന്നുന്നത്‌.'

This chapter, based on a brief overview of approaches in Indian Ocean studies, depicts the Indian Ocean world as a historical and epistemological trans-region, as a space of transfers between and transformations of regions, and as an area that transcends its confines. In so doing, the Indian Ocean serves as an entry point for applying different transregional perspectives.

By the latter half of 1942, the High Command of the German U-Boats (BdU) realised that the “sinking results’’ of the North Atlantic had decreased immensely. The successes of the Allied anti-submarine operations in the North Atlantic precluded the successful employment of the German submarines in said waters. It was realised that the “sinking potential” of the Cape Town - Freetown convoy route, in terms of tonnage, had increased exponentially by the latter half of 1942. This sudden increase was a direct result of the successful German submarine operations in the North Atlantic during 1939-1942. The first German submarine offensive in South African waters during 1942, Operation Eisbär, was aimed at striking a devastating blow to shipping off the South African coast. By the end of December 1942 an estimated 310 864 tons of shipping had been sunk through Operation Eisbär alone. The success of Operation Eisbär led to a further two German submarine offensives being launched by the BdU in South African waters during the remainder of the Second World War, with a number of opportunistic attacks also made by submarines travelling to the Far East. This paper deals with the German Submarine Offensives off the South African Coast between1942 and 1945. It focusses on three key aspects of the maritime war off the South African coast: the maritime threat perception, the Axis maritime strategy in these waters, and the resulting
U-boat offensives.

https://thelicham.com/essay/indian_ocean_circulation_of_text_sound_padappattu/
This study concerns the Paṭappāṭṭu (War Songs) genre of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, surviving among the Muslims of Malabar, ashore of the southwestern Indian coast of the Indian Ocean. It explores the genesis of the Paṭappāṭṭus in a colonial historical time connected through the Indian Ocean, and its textual and meta-textual claims to be part of Arabic, Persian and Sanskrit literary traditions.

The early history of nautical technology in the western Indian Ocean and adjoining parts of the African coast is poorly understood. In the absence of evidence from shipwrecks, it has hitherto been based largely on the uncertain interpretation of a few documentary references and speculation surrounding technological parallels and assumed lexical resemblances. This paper examines some of the linguistic evidence in a more rigorous way, by undertaking a cross-dialectal comparison of names for watercraft and terms for outriggers in Swahili (Kiswahili), a Bantu language spoken on the islands and in scattered communities along the western seaboard of the Indian Ocean. The resulting analysis provides a new outline of the development of Swahili nautical technology and maritime culture, highlighting the key role played by particular boat forms, and the relative importance of indigenous innovation and different external influences, including the elusive impacts of Austronesian seafaring.

This is a well-documented book that provides useful historical and academic insights into understanding the social, economic, and political interactions among the different interests that converged in the Indian Ocean basin in the early modern era.

Himanshu Prabha Ray looks at the maritime orientation of communities of the Indian subcontinent prior to European expansion. She uses archaeological data to reveal the connections between the early history of peninsular South Asia and its Asian and Mediterranean partners in the Indian Ocean region. Differing from traditional works on the subject, the book discusses maritime history in the broader sense of ancient seafaring activity, religious travel and political economy rather than focusing specifically on maritime trade and shipping.

Dopo otto anni dalla prima edizione pubblicata nel 2009 con la casa editrice Polimetrica di Monza, la ristampa di questo volume in italiano con Educatt, Università Cattolica, necessita di una breve riflessione sulle vicende sia entro l’oceano Indiano, sia entro gli studi internazionali su questa regione ormai fondamentale per le politiche e per le economie globali. Non tutto ciò che è avvenuto è stato positivo. Le guerre, la pirateria nel Corno d’Africa, il terrorismo di matrice islamica, i disastri eco-ambientali, le aggressioni nei confronti delle minoranze etnico-religiose, le tratte e i flussi migratori hanno condotto la regione alla attenzione del mondo che ha assistito alle drammatiche crisi economiche e geopolitiche internazionali. Quanto agli studi sulla regione, numerose sono state le conferenze internazionali, i simposi, i workshops, e le pubblicazioni in questi anni. Ormai sono attive più sedi che prevedono la pubblicazione di Indian Ocean Studies e includono questa tematica a pieno titolo nelle rassegne internazionali. Innanzitutto in questo arco di tempo si è tentato di definire meglio ciò che s’intende per Mare Arabico e per Oceano Indiano, con le varie accezioni e le rispettive dinamiche, non solamente geografiche; per quanto la Penisola Arabica nel suo complesso e il Sultanato dell’Oman, con le sue storiche propaggini est-africane, siano stati al centro di numerose recenti analisi, si è tenuto conto anche delle influenze entro un più ampio quadro anche geopolitico. A questo riguardo, l’impostazione passatista della necessità del ‘controllo’ politico-territoriale è stata al centro di accesi dibattiti con lo scopo di rileggere e rivedere tali dinamiche, ormai ritenute obsolete, così come ad esempio i ‘miti’ che descrissero alcune aree della Penisola Arabica e dell’Africa orientale sub-sahariana come ricchissime e lussureggianti. Rileggere questo volume è interessante per la consapevolezza della ‘pesantezza’ del passato descritto, ma ancora di più per gli strumenti di ricerca sulle realtà contemporanee, mai disgiunte dalle antecedenti. Attualmente sono in corso una serie di politiche volte all’occupazione di alcuni ‘spazi vuoti’ in quelle aree dell’interno sia della penisola Arabica, sia dell’Africa orientale per riconvertire economicamente gli equilibri e gli squilibri tra fasce costiere e interno. Progetti, questi, potenzialmente stabilizzanti, ma anche fonti di autentica preoccupazione nel lungo periodo. La questione dell’identità, e non solamente da una prospettiva antropologica, è inoltre stata al centro dei dibattiti, in quelle aree dove le persone vivono costantemente in due o più luoghi, e le successive ondate migratorie, e i rispettivi flussi, contribuiscono a significative modificazioni delle società, delle politiche e delle economie locali. L’isolamento versus aggregazione, e le loro implicazioni e conseguenze, sono certamente aspetti caratterizzanti di più litorali dell’oceano Indiano occidentale. E a questo riguardo, il termine ‘translocal’ è stato oggetto di pareri spesso discordanti. Nell’ambito delle analisi riguardanti le comunità migrate e migranti, alcuni aspetti culturali e magico-medicali da esse praticati hanno gettato luce su numerose questioni poco studiate, fortemente connesse alle principali dinamiche anche dello sviluppo. Quanto ai fenomeni dell’urbanizzazione, le comunità che progressivamente hanno composto le città swahili lungo i litorali dell’Africa orientale hanno dato vita a processi ‘d’inclusione’ ed ‘esclusione’ che non sempre si sono identificati con i processi di ‘gerarchizzazione’, tipici dell’accelerazione coloniale. Il ruolo delle famiglie swahili nelle relazioni tra le coste e l’interno est-africano di mediatori, i middlemen descritti da Middleton nel testo, non può considerarsi più valido grazie agli studi di T. Vernet. La città di Zanzibar, una città swahili, ampiamente inserita nella cultura africana è, allo stesso tempo, fortemente influenzata da culture mercantili cosmopolitiche, ma anche dalle fasi coloniali. I suoi ‘confini’ sono costituiti dalle mura, dalla fortezza di origini portoghesi, da costruzioni d’influenza asiatica e araba, e dal mare, dall’oceano Indiano: tutte apposizioni e sovrapposizioni di ‘pellicole culturali’ che coesistono nelle loro progressive omogeneizzazioni. Qui i confini ‘solidi’ e i confini ‘fluidi’ s’incontrano in luoghi che vengono continuamente definiti e ridefiniti in costanti ricerche d’identità e di spazi. La scelta della copertina è dal testo di Enrico Pottinger, dal titolo Relazione di un viaggio in Belutchistan e in una parte della Persia, pubblicato per i tipi della casa editrice Sonzogno di Milano nel 1819. Questo volume è il risultato di ricerche condotte attraverso un mondo non solamente ancora non noto, e per questo considerato esotico, misterioso, nel quale perdersi, e forse morire, ma un mondo privo di definizioni territoriali e di confini politici. Il Balochistan era totalmente sconosciuto agli europei poiché le ultime testimonianze risalivano al tempo di Alessandro Magno. Il graduale coinvolgimento dei territori medio-asiatici nelle tensioni europee dei primi decenni del diciannovesimo secolo diede inizio alle relazioni tra la regione del Khanato di Kalat e i rappresentanti del governo dell’India. L’intera area venne così a rivestire una notevole importanza geostrategica. Profonda era la curiosità e ampio l’interesse per i viaggi in ciò che viene erroneamente definito Oriente, e per tutto ciò che proveniva da quelle regioni. Henry Pottinger (1789-1856) fu Tenente, al servizio dell’East India Company nel presidio di Bombay. Non 1808 egli compì una missione esplorativa nel Sind, in India, per ordine di Lord Minto, Governatore Generale dell’India. Fra il 1809 e il 1810 il Tenente Pottinger, offertosi volontario, esplorò il Balochistan. Fu scelto da Lord Clare, Governatore Generale di Bombay per stipulare un trattato commerciale con gli Amir del Sind che venne firmato nel 1832. Con il grado di Colonnello, Henry Pottinger fu Residente nella regione di Kutch, confinante con i domini britannici dell’India. Sopravvissuto alla prima guerra anglo-afghana (1839-1842), nel 1846 divenne Alto Commissario nei territori dell’Africa meridionale; fu Governatore di Madras, nell’India sudorientale e oggi il suo ritratto si trova a Whitehall a Londra. Indubbiamente copiosa e articolata è la letteratura su quest’ampia tematica e numerosi sono gli studi che hanno contribuito alla conoscenza di queste regioni ancora oggi al centro di rivalità politico-istituzionali e socio-economiche. A questo riguardo proprio la regione pakistana del Balochistan, il porto di Gwadar ha una forte presenza cinese con copiosi investimenti economico-strategici, è in questi anni sotto attacco da parte dell’esercito governativo di Islamabad e le uccisioni e sparizioni hanno condotto a numerose richieste di rispetto dei diritti umani e di difesa anche davanti alle amministrazioni presidenziali americane, appelli purtroppo ancora senza risposte. Le coste della Penisola Arabica assistono a una importante e significativa ridefinizione di vecchie e nuove alleanze che includono la immane tragedia dello Yemen. La Somalia è una terra di morte e disperazione in seguito al sanguinoso attacco terroristico del 14 ottobre 2017 che ha lasciato quasi 400 morti a Mogadiscio, mentre le coste dell’Africa orientale vivono avvicendamenti politici molto lontani dalle libertà e dalle politiche volte al benessere delle proprie popolazioni. Il terrorismo è una realtà sia in ambito islamico sia in Europa e il sentimento di insicurezza, fragilità e paura ora pervade ogni luogo. Infine, ma di certo non da ultimo, il tema della schiavitù - nelle sue differenziazioni tra società schiavistiche e società che possiedono schiavi, ma anche nelle basi del potere e nei sistemi di subalternità - offre importanti spunti di riflessione sulla possibilità di studiare questo drammatico fenomeno globale del passato per poter comprendere come mettere fine alla tratta di esseri umani oggi nel mondo. Ambizione, questa, al centro di numerosi progetti di ricerca e studio internazionali. Rimando alla bibliografia aggiornata, priva di differenziazioni ragionate, la mia produzione scientifico-accademica dal 2009. È opportuno ricordare che a oggi gli studiosi italiani di tali aree sono ancora una minoranza, ma che fondamentale è stato, ed è, il loro contributo.
This book was the result of lifetime research studies both on the field and through archival and literature sources, conducted in Europe, Pakistan, Sultanate of Oman, and Zanzibar-Tanzania. In this study, I tried to focus on more than one littoral and on more than one region inside the Indian Ocean, with the object of analysing different perspectives both methodological and chronological. Since the first edition of this study published by Polimetrica in 2009, and throughout the years, I came across numerous new theories and interpretations, and the importance of the Indian Ocean is worldwide recognized, while when I started I was the only Italian scholar attending many international conferences where this area remained for a long time a neglected one. The fluid space of the Indian Ocean was influenced by different forces of capital and by knowledge–power nexus during and after the colonial period. The history of the Indian Ocean has gained a renewed interest as it reminds us of the greatest mobility and traversal with such an impact that it forces us to rethink how the processes of such encounters operate and what the areas stand for. Many stories remain untold inside this cosmopolitan interregional arena. The challenge is therefore great to try to reshape our understanding of Africa and Asia.

Studies of the relations between the Tripartite powers have primarily been concentrated on the relations of Nazi Germany with Imperial Japan and Fascist Italy. This article, based on original documents from the Italian archives, offers an original insight on the Italian perspective about the naval relations between Italy and Japan before and during the early years of the Second World War. It analyses the strategic motivation that led Fascist Italy to seek naval cooperation with Japan and how their relationship evolved during the period between the Ethiopian War (1935–6) to the end of the Axis campaign in North Africa in 1943.

Marco Polo dont on sait qu'il ne parcourut pas tout l'océan Indien fit de nombreux emprunts aux auteurs arabes. Cet article vise à montrer que le mésusage qu'il fit de termes arabes fut à l'origine de la dénomination de deux îles de l'océan Indien, Madagascar et Zanzibar, qui portaient d'autres noms avant lui.

Abstract As Marco Polo did not travel everywhere in the Indian Ocean, he borrowed largely from the Arab navigators. This article aims at trying to get hints at his borrowings. But it mainly shows that he unwillingly named Madagascar and Zanzibar islands, using terms given by the Arabs who had never applied them to those islands. By doing so, he coined new names by misusing Arab words and gave them to posterity.

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Published on 18 October (2018) with Cambridge University Press in the Asian Connections series edited by Sunil Amrith, Engseng Ho and Tim Harper. Previewed on Google Books too.

From a single merchant's list of baggage begins a history that explores the dynamic world of medieval Indian Ocean exchanges. This fresh and innovative perspective on Jewish merchant activity shows how this list was a component of broader trade connections that developed between the Islamic Mediterranean and South Asia in the Middle Ages. Drawing on a close reading of this unique twelfth-century document, found in the Cairo Genizah and written in India by North African merchant Abraham Ben Yiju, Lambourn focuses on the domestic material culture and foods that structured the daily life of such India traders, on land and at sea. This is an exploration of the motivations and difficulties of maintaining homes away from home, and the compromises that inevitably ensued. Abraham's Luggage demonstrates the potential for writing challenging new histories in the accidental survival of apparently ordinary ephemera.

The history of Indians in colonial South Africa betrays a long history of settlement, from at least the mid-seventeenth century, regulated by inter-imperial spaces of negotiation, first via the regulation of religion and custom in the 1795–1814 period and then via the regulation of mobile laborers a century later in the high era of legal intervention from 1885–1914. During the latter period, Indians were still categorized as “Asiatic,” even though many Indians began to identify as Indians in the context of political protest against discrimination. In this essay, I argue that a history of law governing “Asiatics” in colonial South Africa reveals important processes of settler colonialism in the British Empire that situate Indians as settlers in a complex landscape of power. Because of their ever-increasing settlements and attachments to land, legal regimes sought to control their movement and residence. Through a brief review of early Indian migration into the Cape region from the mid-seventeenth century through the early nineteenth century assumption of power by the British Empire, I discuss how Indians, though still categorized in a blanket “Asiatic” category by the colonial state, as in previous time periods, were increasingly monitored and controlled because of their expanding settlements from 1885 to 1914. Such a process shows how Indians of South Africa fit into contemporary frameworks of settler colonialism, particularly those developed by Lorenzo Veracini, and the concept of an “exogenous others,” or settlers who were blocked from indigenization in the process of empire. If extended into larger histories of “settler colonies” in the British Empire, such a new vantage point will allow histories of the British Empire that transcend narrow strictures of race, ethnicity, or community.

The coasts of southern India have historically been the center of an important commercial network that brought the West (and the Mediterranean) into contact with the Far East. After the fall of the Roman Empire, other commercial actors came into play and Arab and Jewish merchants began to travel the ‘Western’ routes, as attested by written sources at least starting from the IX century d.C. In this context, the typological-formal and scientific analysis of some pottery samples coming from the last archaeological surveying campaign, conducted in Madayipara (Kannur District, Kerala) can give a preliminary interpretation of the main components active in commercial traffic starting from the early Middle Age