The Ocean of Churn: How the Indian Ocean Shaped Human History

by Sanjeev Sanyal

  Eventually some order was restored by the part-legendary hero Sayf Ibn Dhi-Yazan who used Persian help to evict the Ethiopians. Sayf became king under the understanding that he would pay tribute to the Sassanian monarch. However, Sayf was stabbed to death by a group of Ethiopian slaves and the Persian army was dispatched once again. This time the region was put under direct Persian rule.

  These events need to be seen in the broader context of the prolonged wars between the Persians and Byzantines across the Middle East. The campaigns in Yemen were part of an attempt by the Byzantine–Ethiopian alliance to take control of the Red Sea trade route to India and bypass the rival Persian Gulf route. As a contemporary Byzantine put it, ‘For it was impossible for the Ethiopians to buy silks from the Indians, since the Persian merchants always locate themselves in the very harbours where the Indians first put in, as they inhabit the adjoining country and are accustomed to buy the whole cargo.’10

  As if the wars were not enough, the Middle East was also devastated by a deadly pandemic. Known as the Plague of Justinian, it was first reported in Egypt around AD 541. Egyptian grain ships then took it to the Byzantine capital Constantinople where it is said to have killed half the population. It soon spread across the Mediterranean and the Middle East where, over a few decades, it killed an estimated 25–50 million people. Thus, when the seventh century dawned, the Middle East was exhausted. These were the circumstances in which a completely new force emerged—Islam.

  The Rise of Islam

  The sudden rise of Islam radically changed the power dynamics of the western Indian Ocean in the seventh century. As is well known, Prophet Muhammad was initially not successful in convincing his own tribe, the Quraysh of Mecca, about his message. In AD 622, he and his followers slipped away to Medina. Their fortunes began to turn after they successfully defended Medina against an alliance of their enemies in AD 627. It is remembered as the Battle of the Trench as Muhammad used trenches to neutralize the enemy’s superior cavalry. Within three years, he would capture Mecca and carve out a significant kingdom in the Arabian peninsula.

  Having secured his base, the Prophet sent out messengers to the chieftains of neighbouring tribes asking them to join his cause. This included Yemeni and Omani groups that had tired of Persian rule and wanted to push them out. Muhammad’s envoy is said to have arrived just as the Omanis led by King Julanda were contemplating a major offensive against the Persians. The Persians held the coast while the Omanis held the mountains in the interior. The Julanda princes received the envoy in Nizwa. It is an oasis surrounded by tall craggy mountains, and one can see why the Omanis would repeatedly fall back on it throughout history when threatened (although the picturesque fort and souk that one sees there today is of a much later period than being discussed here).11 The contents of Prophet Muhammad’s letter to the Omanis are said to have survived and reads as follows:12

  In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful,

  From Muhammad bin Abdullah to Gaifar and Abd, sons of Al-Julanda, peace is upon him who follows the guidance now and after,

  I am calling both of you in the name of Islam.

  You will be safe if you submit to Islam. I am the messenger of Allah to all of the people. I bring news of Islam to all the people, and will fight the infidels. I hope you accept Islam, but if you do not, then you will lose your country, and my horsemen will invade your territory, and my prophecy will dominate your country.

  The Omanis were clearly impressed with the message for they accepted Islam. Thus, they are among the first people to have converted to the religion. Fortified by the new faith and the promise of Muhammad’s support, the Omanis proceeded to oust the Persians from the settlements along the coast.

  The Prophet died in AD 632, just two years after he had conquered Mecca. However, his immediate successors would rapidly expand the empire. The Arabs defeated the Persians at the Battle of Qadisiyyah in AD 637 which led to the fall of Ctesiphon, the capital of the Sassanians. Soon they would take over the whole of the Persian empire. The Byzantines put up a more spirited resistance in their heartlands of Anatolia but the Arabs captured Jerusalem by AD 638 and controlled the whole of Syria, Palestine and Egypt by AD 641.13 Yemeni and Omani warriors played an important role in these early conquests.

  In other words, within a decade of Muhammad’s death, the Arabs came to control a vast empire. Their extraordinary success must have convinced them that God was really on their side. Unfortunately, such a rapid increase in wealth and power inevitably led to rivalries and tensions within the newly emerging elite. The power struggle culminated in the Battle of Karbala in AD 680 where Muhammad’s grandson Husain ibn Ali and his followers were massacred by a much larger army sent by Umayyad Caliph Yazid. Husain is said to have died with his infant son in his arms. This incident created the Shia–Sunni sectarian divide that exists to this day.

  Intriguingly, there is an oral tradition in India that Husain’s party included a group of Hindu mercenaries who were also killed in the battle. This is why the Mohyal Brahmins of Punjab still join Shia Muslims in the annual ritual mourning of Muharram. Given the atmosphere of suspicion and intrigue within the Arab leadership, one should not be surprised that outsiders had been hired as personal guards. As we shall see, twelve centuries later, another group of Indian soldiers would find themselves under siege in Iraq.

  The Umayyads next decided to impose direct control over the Omanis who, as early and willing converts to Islam, had come to expect a degree of autonomy. Two brothers, Sulaiman and Said, organized a heroic defence against a large army of 40,000 sent by land and sea. The Omanis were initially successful but the enemy kept getting reinforcements and eventually their resistance broke down. Around AD 700, the two brothers fled by ship with their families and followers to Africa. Thus began Oman’s long relationship with the eastern seaboard of Africa, which the Arabs called the Land of Zunj.14

  Umayyad rule came to a bloody end in AD 750 when the dynasty was overthrown by Abu-al-Abbas. It is said that after he defeated and killed his predecessor, he called a banquet of reconciliation for the surviving nobility of the former regime. After they had sat down to eat, they were all slaughtered to a man. A carpet then was laid out over the dead bodies and the new caliph and his followers then sat and ate upon the bed of corpses!15

  Given all this bloodshed, another wave of refugees fled to Africa. In this way, the east coast of Africa came to have a smattering of Arab settlements. Meanwhile, the remaining Omanis withdrew once more to the rough Al Hajar mountains around Nizwa. There they developed a distinct branch of Islam called Ibadhi. To this day, the majority of Omanis follow Ibadhi Islam.

  The Arabian Nights

  Despite disruptions caused by all the wars, merchants continued to sail between India and the Middle East. Few people realize that India is home to the second oldest mosque in the world—the Cheraman mosque in Kerala. If the claimed date is accurate, it was built by Arab merchants before the Prophet had conquered Mecca.16 The mosque is located an hour’s drive north of Kochi in the general area of Muzeris, highlighting yet again the importance of this ancient port. Old photographs show that the original structure of the mosque was based on local temple architecture but unfortunately, during renovations in 1984, the building was modified to add domes and minarets to conform to a more conventional view of Islamic architecture. There is talk now of reverting to the old design in order to attract tourists but it is never quite the same thing.

  As we saw in the previous section, the initial years of the Abbasid caliphate were very bloody and rivals were mercilessly eliminated. Eventually, the Abbasids managed to establish order over the vast empire. They also shifted the capital from Damascus to Baghdad. Under the rule of Harun al-Rashid (AD 786–809), the empire enjoyed a period of peace and prosperity. However, at the same time, the relative simplicity of early Islam was replaced by a glittering court and the elaborate pomp reminiscent of the Sassanians. It was also a time that trade boomed in the western Indian Ocean. />
  The spirit of the times is echoed in the tales of the Arabian Nights. In the tale ‘How Abu Hasan Broke Wind’ we are told of a wealthy Yemeni merchant who had become very rich by trading with India.17 Having loudly farted at his own wedding, he fled social embarrassment by sailing off to India where he settled in the port of Calicut (Kozhikode) in Kerala. We are informed that the local king, a Hindu, welcomed Arabs and that the port had a large community of Hadramawt Yemeni merchants. We are not concerned here with the storyline but the vivid description of medieval globalization.

  The constant circulation of merchants and sailors meant that a significant part of the male population in Kerala was transitory while the female population was more rooted. Over time, it seems to have led to matrilineal social arrangements. The Nairs of Kerala and the Bunt of the Karnataka coast, both warrior clans, developed matrilineal customs. The Arab merchants also took on local wives and their descendants, the ‘Mappila’ Muslims, are now a quarter of Kerala’s population. It is worth noting that the term ‘Mappila’ means son-in-law in the local Malayalam language.

  The Arabian Nights contains many tales about merchants and voyages but arguably the most entertaining are those of Sindbad. The collection contains several of his voyages but his second voyage is especially interesting. It tells us that Sindbad’s ship anchored near a beautiful island and he decided to go for a walk. Finding a nice spot, Sindbad fell asleep under a tree. Unfortunately, he slept for much longer than expected and, when he woke up, he discovered that his ship had left without him! Naturally he was very alarmed at being abandoned on what seemed an uninhabited island.

  To cut a long story short, Sindbad soon found himself trapped in a valley with very steep sides. He was surprised to find that the valley floor was covered in valuable diamonds. However, he also discovered that there were huge serpents sleeping in nearby caves and that they would devour him as soon as they came out in the evening.

  As he was thinking of ways to escape, a large chunk of meat landed near Sindbad and a giant eagle picked it up and flew off. Looking up, he saw that some people at the top of the ravine were throwing down large chunks of meat in the hope that some of the diamonds would stick to the flesh. The eagles would pick up the meat and take them to their nests. At this point, people would scare the birds off by making a lot of noise and collect their diamonds. Sindbad saw his opportunity and filled his pockets with diamonds before tying himself to a piece of meat. In due course, he was picked up by an eagle and made his escape from the valley. The diamonds made him a rich man.

  Many readers will be familiar with this Sindbad adventure. What is remarkable is that a very similar tale was told by Herodotus when he wrote about how the Arabs acquired cinnamon. In other words, versions of this story had been circulating in the Indian Ocean for over a thousand years!

  The Conquest of Sindh

  By AD 711, Arab armies had reached Spain and within a few years they had won control over the Iberian peninsula. The Umayyads were simultaneously pushing east and, in AD 705, an Arab army invaded the Makran coast and took over Baluchistan. This brought them to the borders of Sindh and the first direct encounter with Indic civilization. The kingdom of Sindh was ruled at that time by Raja Dahir, who even Muslim sources accept was an able and popular ruler.

  An initial exploratory expedition was repulsed but in AD 711, a more substantial military force was sent out from Iraq under the leadership of a young general called Muhammad bin Qasim. The campaign is recounted in the chronicles of Ferishta and in a text called Chachnama. According to Ferishta, the army first attacked Deval, a port in the Indus estuary, not far from modern Karachi. It seems that the town also had a large Hindu temple and was a place of pilgrimage. The town was defended by a fort garrisoned by four thousand Rajput soldiers. Muhammad bin Qasim directed a constant bombardment against the fort using catapults. Eventually the fort was stormed and all the defenders massacred. As a pilgrimage town, Deval also had a large Brahmin population. Ferishta tells us that every Brahmin male above the age of seventeen was decapitated and all their women and children were enslaved.18

  After receiving reinforcements from Iraq, the Arabs moved north to meet Dahir’s main army. Muhammad bin Qasim used a barrage of burning naphtha balls to disrupt the enemy’s elephants before making a cavalry charge. Although surrounded and severely wounded, Raja Dahir fought till he was killed on the battlefield. The Sindhis now withdrew to the fort of Ajdur under the command of their queen where they remained under siege for several months. Facing starvation, they eventually decided to commit ‘jauhar’—the Hindu equivalent of the last stand. The gates were thrown open and the queen led the survivors out for a final charge and they were all massacred. Many of the remaining non-combatants committed suicide. In this way, the Arabs conquered Sindh.

  The story does not end here. According to Ferishta, Muhammad bin Qasim captured two of Dahir’s daughters and sent them to the caliph as a gift. They were added to the imperial harem; but when the caliph called the elder princess to his bed, she told him that she was no longer a virgin as Muhammad bin Qasim had already raped her. The caliph flew into a rage at this insult and had the general executed by having him sewn up in animal hide. When his corpse was presented to her, the brave princess confessed that she had lied in order to have her revenge. The veracity of this extraordinary tale of revenge is difficult to ascertain. Arab sources independently confirm that Muhammad bin Qasim was executed soon after his conquest of Sindh but they do not mention the princesses.

  Despite the relative ease with which they had taken over Sindh, the Arabs found it difficult to expand beyond their foothold in the subcontinent. The Gurjara–Pratihara empire ruled over much of north India at that time and its armies easily fended off the Arabs. Indian inscriptions also record that the Arabs attempted to push into the Deccan through Gujarat and were repulsed by the Chalukya king Vikramaditya II. Indeed, Hindu rulers seem to have made counter-raids and continued to rule over Afghanistan till the end of the tenth century.

  With eastward expansion blocked off, the Arabs turned their attention north towards Central Asia. The Turkic people of the region mostly worshipped the sky god Tengri or were Buddhist. There were also Hindu and Zoroastrian influences. In the middle of the eighth century, they found themselves caught between two great powers. The Chinese Tang dynasty was pushing in from the east while the Abbasid caliphate was pushing in from its base in Iran. The two faced each other at the Battle of Talas in AD 751 in which the Arabs decisively defeated the Tang army. Thus, Central Asia came into the Islamic sphere of influence rather than the Chinese.

  Qissa-i-Sanjan19

  When the Arabs conquered Persia in the seventh century, the majority of Iranians were Zoroastrian. After the conquest, however, more and more people converted to Islam. Faced with growing persecution, some of the remaining Zoroastrians fled to India where their descendants survive as the tiny Parsi community. The history of how this community settled in India is recounted in the Qissa-i-Sanjan, a text composed around 1600.

  The text tells us that in the early tenth century, a small group of Zoroastrians left their homes in Khorasan, north-eastern Iran, and set out to look for a country where they could practise their religion in peace. They made their way south to the port of Hormuz from where these families sailed for India. It appears that they first landed on the island of Diu and spent a few years there. However, they still felt insecure and decided to head for a small Hindu kingdom on the Gujarati mainland around AD 936. The text says that the ruler of the kingdom was Jadi Rana (probably of the Jadeja Rajput clan) and describes him as ‘liberal, sagacious and wise’.

  Jadi Rana received the refugees warmly and listened patiently to their request for a place to settle. While he was sympathetic to their predicament, he was hesitant to let so many foreigners settle in his lands. There is a well-known legend, probably apocryphal, that the king asked one of his servants to bring a bowl filled with milk to the top. The message being that the bowl would overflow if a
ny more milk was added. The leader of the Parsis, however, responded by adding some sugar to the milk. The dissolved sugar sweetened the milk but did not cause it to overflow. Thus, the account goes, the Parsis convinced the king.

  The Qissa contains a somewhat different narrative that is likely to be more accurate. According to this version Jadi Rana asked the Parsis to explain their religion and rituals to him. He must have been struck by the obvious similarities between Zoroastrian and ancient Vedic rituals. The newcomers also composed sixteen Sanskrit slokas to explain their beliefs (these have been preserved). The king must have been satisfied by the explanations for he decided to give the Parsis refuge provided they accepted the following conditions in perpetuity: that they would give up arms; that they would adopt Gujarati as their language; that their women would wear the local dress; and finally, that all marriage ceremonies would be held in the evening (the last condition is particularly sensible, in my view, as morning weddings can be a real drag on the feasting).

  The refugees accepted the conditions and the Parsis came to settle in Gujarat. A piece of forested land was identified and given to the newcomers who cleared it and set up a town that they named Sanjan after their city of origin in Khorasan. We are told that it was soon a prosperous settlement and that the Zoroastrians were given full freedom to practise their religion. A fire temple was built using a flame brought from Iran. It is also likely that news of this reached the remaining Zoroastrians in Iran and that Sanjan soon attracted new refugees.

  The Qissa tells us that the settlement in Sanjan flourished till the fifteenth century when the town suffered an attack by a large Turkic army led by Alf Khan, general of Sultan Muhammad. The local prince, a descendant of Jadi Rana, rushed to defend Sanjan but was forced to request the Parsis to join his army, thereby lifting one of the original conditions. The text says that the defenders were able to repulse the first raid but, in 1464, Alf Khan returned with a larger army and occupied Sanjan. The surviving Parsis fled, taking with them a flame of the sacred fire. After a period of wandering, they would establish a new settlement at Navsari, close to Surat.