Secondly, the introduction of Ptolemaic theory into the Arab world view created irreparable confusion. Geographers such as Khwarizmi (tenth-century) attempted to incorporate elements of Ptolemy's Geographia into their conception of Southeast Asia, juggling their data to make it 'work'. This was exacerbated by the Ptolemaic idea of an enclosed Indian Ocean which led to a mixing up of information from Southeast Asia (al-Zabaj) with material from East Africa (al-Zanj), even though Arab geographers did not accept the existence of the land bridge itself(see figs. 27 & 28).
When the Portuguese reached Southeast Asia at the turn of the sixteenth century, the Arab geographical concept of Southeast Asia had stagnated for three centuries, and Persian and Turkish geographers were beginning to rise to prominence. For example, 'Abd al-Razzaq, a Persian historian of the fifteenth century, already cites Tenasserim (Burma) and Shahr-I Naw (Siam) as being among the destinations of sailors leaving Hurmuz. Arabic mapping of Southeast Asia began to utilize European sources in the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century.
Southeast Asian Landfalls in Arab Navigational Texts
Navigational texts offer better insight into the Arab geographic conception of Southeast Asia than the geographers' treatises, though even they are often ambiguous and inconsistent. The better Arab geographical texts, such as that of Ibn Sa'id (d. 1274), also record detail about topography, and quote information derived from earlier navigational tracts.
The earliest surviving Arab navigational treatises detailing travel in Southeast Asian waters are relatively late, dating from the latter part of the fifteenth or early sixteenth century, but incorporate data from previous centuries of navigation. They were written by two fifteenth-century sea captains, Ahmad ibn Majid, whom tradition tenuously ascribes as the pilot Vasco da Gama hired to conduct his fleet's crossing from northeast Africa to India, and Sulaiman al-Mahri. Ibn Majid's work was written in poetry to facilitate committing its instructions to memory. These pilot books seem to have been the culmination of at least four centuries of such texts; ibn Majid, in fact, cites predecessors to his work dating back to the early twelfth century, and a travel narrative from the beginning of the eleventh. These navigational works, however, had no obvious impact on Arab mapmaking.
The pilots' tracts cite compass bearings, and latitudes, measured in isba' (approximately 1° 43') from a given star. A sample passage about Sumatra from Ibn Majid's text gives a flavor of these works:
Sumatra begins on the north with mountain of Lamuri at 77/8 isba' against the Little Bear, but according to some 7¾ isba'; and it ends in the south with a place called Tiku Tarmid. People disagree as to the latitude of this place and there are three opinions: the first that there the Little Bear is at 4 isba' and most of the Indians lean toward this; the second is not quite 4 isba' and the Arans and some of the Cholas prefer this; while according to others, it is 3½ isba'.
Ibn Majid believed the last of these to be the most accurate.
Sulaiman al-Mahri's navigational tract reads similarly. He notes islands off the west coast of Siam (Malaya)
which are called Takwa, and are from 5 isba'- 2 isba' Pole Star. The first of them is the island of Fali. This is a large island, the northern point of which is 5 isba' Pole Star, and the southern one, 4 ¾ isba' Pole Star. Next, to the south in line with it is Fali Kara, the northern point of which is 4½ isba' Pole Star, and facing it on the east is the island of Lamamand and the estuary of Markhi. After it on the south is another island nearby called Awzamanda, having the appearance of the large sail [of an Arab boat]. The Pole Star there is 4¼ isba'... [Another is] the island of Pulau Lanta, an inhabited island, whose inhabitants are permanently settled. Fruits are found there and it is at 2¾ isba' Pole Star... Now the island of Urang Salah Junk Ceylon, = Phuket] is a large, long island [whose cape is] at 2¾ isba' Pole Star.
The most important destination covered by these navigational texts, and one whose identity is not in question, is Malacca, which had risen as the region's principle trading center for Arab navigators during the fifteenth century (see extract, page 104). Singapore, parts of Sumatra and Java, and China were also focal points of these sailing instructions.
The coasts of Burma and the Andaman-Nicobar Islands were well-frequented, and are described in the pilot books. The texts group the shores of Malaya with Siam, and the mainland to the east with China, though Zaiton (Quanzhou) is considered the threshold of the kingdom of China proper. Along the route from Singapore to China, the ports described included Shahr-I Naw, referring to the Thai metropolis of Lop Buri or Ayuthaya. The term Shahr-I Naw (new city) was later borrowed from Arab acquaintances by Europeans such as Mendes Pinto, and incorporated by some mapmakers (see fig. 80). Beyond it, along the eastern shores of Indochina, the navigators frequented Champa (Shanba), and the port of Kiao-Chi in Annam. Borneo was visited, the Arabs' Barni referring to the sultanate of Brunei; other parts of Borneo are probably recorded by some of the unidentified place-names, the sailors who visited them not realizing that they were parts of the same island. To the northeast, Arab merchants sailed as far as Formosa, which was known as Likiwa (Liu-ch'iu) or al-Ghurand was described in Ibn Majid's navigational text of 1462. The Portuguese chronicler, Tomé Pires, writing in 151 2-15, had heard both names, noting that "the Lequeos are called Guores." Timor, Sulawesi and Banda were the southeastern limit of the Arab pilots' traditional ports of call. This passage from al-Mahri illustrates the limits of Arab navigational confidence to the east, as well as the texts' tendency to offset the Indonesian islands to the south:
Know that to the south of the island of Jawa [Sumatra or Java] are found many islands called Timor and that to the east of Timor are the islands of Bandam, also a large number. The latter are places for sandal, aloeswood, and mace. The island called the Isles of the Clove [i.e., the Moluccas] as east of Jawa; they are called Maluku.
Since many of the islands described in the navigational and travel texts have not been identified with any confidence, the extent of Arab sailors' familiarity with the region is not known. For example, although Arab traders were apparently transporting merchandise from the Philippine island of Mindoro to Canton at least as early as 982, there is no reference to the Philippines in the pilot books which is clearly recognizable to us now. Some of the unidentified places mentioned in the pilot books are probably parts of the Philippines. For example, the island of Fariyuq, which is described in a navigational treatise by the fifteenth-century captain, Sulaiman al-Mahri as a "large, inhabited island to the southeast of the ports of China", may be Palawan.
Geographical Treatises and Travel Narratives
Whereas the authors of navigational texts had little interest in recording anything that was not specifically of value to the seafaring merchant, the authors of geographical treatises and travel narratives filled their pages with descriptions of fauna, vegetation, strange peoples and lore about the region, which they compiled from existing books, or from the testimony of sailors and traders who claimed to have been there. These works are the most numerous extant Arab texts about Southeast Asia.
The one first-hand travel narrative of a credible voyage to Southeast Asia is the classic Rihlah (Travels) of the most famous of Arab travelers, Ibn Battuta. Battuta's odyssey, which began in 1325, came relatively late in the history of Arab voyages to Southeast Asia, and although his text is certainly based to a large extent on the author's own extensive travels, whether or not even he actually reached Southeast Asia is disputed. The only earlier extant account which purports to be first-hand is the tenth-century work Meadow of Gold by al-Ma'sudi, who claimed to have traveled to Southeast Asia and China in the pursuit of knowledge, but the veracity of his voyage is doubted, and his work was probably compiled from the stories he heard in the port of Siraf.86
One of the most important Southeast Asian destinations, according to Arab texts, was the port of Zabaj, which was said to belong to the empire of a Maharaja and was located along the sea route to China, though far to the south, perhaps on the equator. It was believed