Ahmad ibn Mājid, also known as the Lion of the Sea, was an OmaniArabnavigator and cartographer born in Julfar, He was raised in a family famous for seafaring; at the age of 17 he was able to navigate ships. The exact date is not known, but ibn Majid probably died in 1500. He became famous in the West as the navigator who helped Vasco da Gama find his way from Africa to India. However, the leading scholar on the subject, G.R. Tibbetts, disputes this claim. Ibn Majid was the author of nearly forty works of poetry and prose.
Ibn Majid wrote several books on marine science and the movements of ships, which helped people of the Persian Gulf to reach the coasts of India, East Africa and other destinations. Among his many books on navigation, Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul ‘Ilm al-Bahr wa ’l-Qawa’id is considered as one of his best. It is an encyclopedia, describing the history and basic principles of navigation, latitude and longitude by way of celestial navigation, lunar mansions, loxodromes, the difference between coastal and open-sea sailing, the locations of ports from East Africa to Indonesia, accounts of the monsoon and other seasonal winds, typhoons and other topics for professional navigators. He drew from his own experience and that of his father, also a famous navigator, and the lore of generations of Indian Ocean sailors. He grew very famous and was fondly called The Shooting Star for his fearlessness, strength and experience as a sailor who excelled in the art of navigation.
Legacy
Ahmad Ibn Majid's efforts in the mid-15th century allegedly helped the Portuguese navigator Vasco da Gama complete the first all water trade route between Europe and India by using an Arab map then unknown to European sailors. While this story is the reason for much of ibn Majid's fame in the West, this account is disputed by the leading scholar on the subject: G.R. Tibbets. The account of ibn Majid assisting Vasco da Gama is first described by the Ottoman historian Qutb al-Din, roughly 50 years after ibn Majid's death. Tibbets asserts that the account of ibn Majid leading Vasco da Gama to India is slanderous, asserting as it does that ibn Majid was drunk when he traded his knowledge of the route for passage back to Ras al Khaimah. While there is some debate as to who Vasco da Gama's navigator was – the result of a lack of clarity in his captain's log and several competing accounts written by contemporary Portuguese scholars – according to Tibbets, the tale of ibn Majid leading Vasco da Gama is popularized largely as a result of the ascendancy of the Western narrative of world history, and is not historically accurate. Remembered as 'The Lion of the Sea', ibn Majid's true legacy was the substantial body of literature on sailing that he left behind. Arab sailing was at a pinnacle during ibn Majid's lifetime, when both Europeans and Ottomans had only a limited understanding of geography in the Indian Ocean. His Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul ‘Ilm al-Bahr wa ’l-Qawa’id was widely utilized by Arab sailors and addressed celestial navigation, weather patterns, and charts of dangerous areas in which to sail. This tome, in addition to his poetic works, were the true legacy of the sailor. Two of ibn Majid's famous hand-written books are now prominent exhibits in the Bibliothèque nationale de France.
In the television series , set in the future, the character Cristóbal "Chris" Rios is a former Starfleet officer who once served on the Federation starship USS Ibn Majid, NCC-75710, as revealed in the 2020 episode.
