Die Reihe Islamkundliche Untersuchungen wurde 1969 im Klaus Schwarz Verlag begründet und hat sich zu einem der wichtigsten Publikationsorgane der Islamwissenschaft in Deutschland entwickelt. Die über 330 Bände widmen sich der Geschichte, Kultur und den Gesellschaften Nordafrikas, des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens sowie Zentral-, Süd- und Südost-Asiens.

Die Reihe Islamkundliche Untersuchungen wurde 1969 im Klaus Schwarz Verlag begründet und hat sich zu einem der wichtigsten Publikationsorgane der Islamwissenschaft in Deutschland entwickelt. Die über 330 Bände widmen sich der Geschichte, Kultur und den Gesellschaften Nordafrikas, des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens sowie Zentral-, Süd- und Südost-Asiens.

Seafaring is a particularly important aspect of Islamic history, as not only did it allow Muslims to spread Islam as far as the seas of China, but it also played a huge role in the trade and commerce of the Indian Ocean. Yet, despite the importance of this aspect of Arabian and Islamic history, few studies have been carried out regarding the socio-cultural maritime history and the literature of the period. Even fewer deal with the language of maritime material culture. The study is a synchronic investigation into medieval maritime terminology as found in Buzurg ibn Shahriyar's Kitab 'Aja'ib al-Hind, the etymology of the nomenclature, as well as a diachronic inquiry to establish if there is a continuity of its use from the classical and medieval period to present times. It considers what the best source is for the study of maritime culture; whether lexicographical works provide us with the information we need, or whether Arabic literary sources provide more valuable information in this respect. So the work leads to a better understanding of the terminology both in definition, and in the historical, geographical, cultural and religious context in which it was used. Alongside the analysis of the maritime terminology of third-fourth/ninth-tenth century, the study ascertains how much information can be extracted from the sources regarding the evolution or development of Arabian-Persian-Indian seafaring in the Indian Ocean from early Islam to the coming of the Portuguese in the fifteenth century.

Die Reihe Islamkundliche Untersuchungen wurde 1969 im Klaus Schwarz Verlag begründet und hat sich zu einem der wichtigsten Publikationsorgane der Islamwissenschaft in Deutschland entwickelt. Die über 330 Bände widmen sich der Geschichte, Kultur und den Gesellschaften Nordafrikas, des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens sowie Zentral-, Süd- und Südost-Asiens.

Few images are as evocative as the silhouette of the Arab dhow as, under full sail, it tacks to windward on glittering waters of Red Sea before moving across the face of the rising or setting sun. In this authoritative new book, Dionisius A. Agius, one of the foremost scholars of Islamic material culture, offers a lucid and wide-ranging history of the iconic dhow from medieval to modern times. Traversing the Arabian and African coasts, he shows that the dhow was central not just to commerce but to the vital transmission and exchange of ideas. Discussing trade and salt routes, shoals and wind patterns, spice harvest seasons and the deep and resonant connection between language, memory and oral tradition, this is the first book to place the dhow in its full and remarkable cultural contexts.

A biography of Captain Alan William Frank Sutton, detailing his lengthy naval ship and airborne career during the World War II. It starts when, as a young midshipman he was in command of a small rowing cutter, and ends in the open cockpit of a Fairy Swordfish torpedo bomber during the legendry attack which destroyed the Italian fleet at Taranto.

Studies on global metageography are enjoying a revival, and in no way is this better referenced than against the geo-world system bequeathed by Claudius Ptolemy almost two thousand years ago. This is all the more important when we consider the longevity of the Ptolemaic construct through and beyond the European age of discovery allowing as well for its eventual revision or refinement. Innovations in navigational science, cartographic representations, and textual description are all called upon to illustrate this theme. With its focus upon the macro-region termed India Extra Gangem, literally the space between India and China, the book unfolds a fourfold agenda. First, it explains the Ptolemaic world system back to classical points of reference as well as to its reception in late medieval Europe from Arabic sources. Second, it tracks the erosion of the Ptolemaic template especially in the light of new empirical data entering Europe from early travel accounts as well as the first voyages of discovery. Third, through selected examples, as with India, Southeast Asia, and China, it seeks to expose textual and cartographic adjustments to the classical models flowing from the scientific revolution.Fourth, through an examination of Jesuit astronomical observations conducted at various points in Asia, it demonstrates how Eurasia was actually measured and sized with respect to its true longitudinal coordinates such had deluded Columbus and even succeeding generations. In short, this work problematizes the creation of geographical knowledge, raises awareness as to the making of region in Asia over long historical time—the Ptolemaic world-in-motion—and, as a more latent agenda, sounds an alert as to the perils of overdetermination in the setting of modern boundaries whether upon land or sea.