‘When I reached the explanation of the Sura Ya Sin, he said, I translated to him this word of God-to him be glory and power: Amongst other things he recounted that had asked him to explain the Qur’an in the Indian tongue, which he did. Abdallah asked him about the King of Ra he explained what he was like and how he had left him already a Muslim at heart and in speech, but that it was not possible for him to make the profession of faith in Islam openly, for fear of damaging his position and losing his royal authority. He was sent to him, and stayed for three years and then he returned. When it was read to him, he thought it very beautiful, and wrote to Abdallah to send the author to him. So he wrote a poem which set out what was needful, and sent it to the King of Ra. They made known to him the King of Ra’s request. He was a poet, who had been brought up in the land of the Hindus and knew their different languages. So Abdallah sent for a man who happened to be in al-Mansura, an Iraqi by origin, who had a penetrating mind and good intelligence. Abd al-Aziz, to ask him for a translation of the law of Islam into the Indian language. Raiq, who lived in a country lying between Upper and Lower Kashmir, wrote in 270/883 to the ruler of al-Mansura, who was called Abdallah b. ‘I was at al-Mansura in 288/900, and an old man of the town, one of those one can trust, told me that the King of Ra, one of the greatest kings in India, called Mahruk b.
Hammawayh al-Najiramy informed me at Basra: `WITH regard to India, Abu Muhammad al-Hasan b. This translation begins with al-Ramhormuzi’s account of an Indian monarch’s conversion to Islam.Īn Indian King secretly converted to Islam The following owes to the welcome edition and translation by Freeman-Grenville. The subjects are wide-ranging, and Buzurg’s moods reflect every feeling from the sublime to the absurd’. Especially touching is section XC ‘A Woman’s Tale’. There are occasional tales about women, some in quite frank language, but never vulgar. Then there are anecdotes about animals, birds and fish, and the vagaries of foreigners. Then there are tales of tragedies at sea, of miraculously profitable voyages, and of total loss. On the contrary, his opening tale is one of conversion to Islam, and there are not infrequent references to religion elsewhere. This is not to say that all the stories are frivolous. Implicitly, his object is to please, to amuse and to entertain with a fund of stories garnered from other shipmasters and sea-captains, and occasionally from simple sailors.
A passing reference at the end of section XX apologises for a digression, and disclaims all intention other than to describe “the wonders of India”. `Buzurg never states his intention explicitly, nor discusses style. English translator, Freeman-Grenville points out however, Most of his tales have a solid substratum of fact, the human side of economic history. Al-Ramhormuzi’s Book of the Wonders of India, gives us some idea of the men, and the courage, that produced that wealth. Dr David Whitehouse’s excavations at Siraf have quite recently revealed some idea of its wealth. It linked the Abbasid Caliphate of Baghdad with the Tang Empire, and its successors in China, as well as having strong links with several states of distinction in India and the Far East. Siraf was then the most prosperous port in the Middle East.
All these ‘yarns’, as we now call them, belong to the fantasy genre with others such as Sinbad, The One Thousand Nights and a Night, and later, Boccaccio and our own Chaucer.
Some tales have religious motifs, recalling the deep piety of seafarers of all nations. Some of the tales are dated between AD 900 and Ad 953, and are salty stories of trading adventures and escapades, extraordinary profits and utter destitution, mermaids, monkeys, elephants, turtles, giant lobsters and huge birds. The locations of these tales range from the Gulf and nearby Arabia and Persia, to as far as India, Malaya, Indonesia, China, and even East Africa. In approximately AD 953 he completed a collection of sailor’s tales that he had acquired in Siraf, Oman and elsewhere. As well as stretching one's imagination, Captain Bazurg's ‘The Book of the Wonders of India' also provides insightful details of the world inhabited by Captain Bazurg and his contemporaries.Ĭaptain Buzurg Ibn Shahriyar from Ramhormuz (in the Province of Khuzistan) was a shipmaster of the 10th century AD probably from Siraf on the north shore of the Gulf. Captain Buzurg ibn Shahriyar, a shipmaster from Khuzistan compiled a collection of stories and accounts of his experiences as a sea farer between 900 and 953.
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