Seafaring in the Arabian Gulf and Oman: People of the Dhow

by Dionisius Agius

This book is a study of the seafaring communities of the Arabian Gulf and Oman in the past 150 years. It analyses the significance of the dhow and how coastal communities interacted throughout their long tradition of seafaring.

In addition to archival material, the work is based on extensive field research in which the voices of seamen were recorded in over 200 interviews. The book provides an integrated study of dhow activity in the area concerned and examines the consciousness of belonging to the wider culture of the Indian ocean as it is expressed in boat-building traditions, navigational techniques, crew organisation and port towns.

People of the Dhow brings together the different measures of time past, the sea, its people and their material culture. The Arabian Gulf and Oman have traditionally shared a common destiny within the Western Indian Ocean. The seasonal monsoonal winds were fundamental to the physical and human unities of the seafaring communities, producing a way of life in harmony with the natural world, a world which was abruptly changed with the discovery of oil. What remains is memories of a seafaring past, a history of traditions and customs recorded here in the recollections of a dying generation and in the rich artistic heritage of the region.

313 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 2005

About the author

Dionisius Albertus Agius (1945) , is a Professor of Arabic Studies and Islamic Material Culture at the University of Exeter. He is also a Fellow of the British Academy, the Royal Society of Arts and the Royal Geographical Society. His research focuses on maritime culture and the Islamic world; ethnography of the material culture and heritage of the Western Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean; lexical development of maritime and nautical terminology. He have particular interest in the socio-cultural history and provenance of the traditional sailing water craft, the sea people and their activities, folklore belief and practices, resources and trade in the Western Indian Ocean. He have conducted extensive maritime ethnographic fieldwork on the coasts of the Arabian Gulf and Oman between 1990 and 2000, and the African and Arabian coasts of the Red Sea from 2002 to 2014