Bay series: Episode Four
The winds that shaped destiny
"When the winds of the sea blow from the west, the ships set sail to the east; when they reverse, the world returns homeward."
—Ibn Majid, Kitab al-Fawa'id fi Usul 'Ilm al-Bahr wa'l-Qawa'id (15th century CE)
"Ignorant of the sea, no one can pretend to be skilled in strategy."
—Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War
The Bay as a teacher of winds and rhythms
Long before sextants, compasses, or chronometers, sailors in the Indian Ocean depended on the oldest navigational tool of all—nature itself.
The Bay of Bengal, unpredictable yet rhythmic, taught its people and visitors about patience, timing, and observation. Its most important seasonal guide was the monsoon, a force that was both predictable and dangerous.
For centuries, the monsoon winds of the Bay of Bengal shaped the pattern of maritime trade. Arab and Persian merchants, sailing dhows across the Indian Ocean, followed the southwest monsoon toward the Bengal delta and returned home with the northeast winds.
Starting in the early medieval period, ports like Chittagong and Satgaon became important hubs connecting Bengal to the broader commercial world. This trade carried more than just goods. Along these same sea routes, new ideas arrived—Islamic faith and customs, Arabic as a language of commerce and scholarship, and architectural styles that merged with local traditions to transform Bengal's cultural scenery.
Historians describe this period as one when the Indian Ocean became a shared economic and cultural space, with Bengal strongly linked to Arabia, Persia, and beyond, according to Barbara D Metcalf and Thomas R Metcalf.
The monsoon cycle created a predictable maritime schedule in the Bay of Bengal. Missing a departure window could leave a ship stranded for months or, worse, exposed to sudden storms. For centuries, sailors and traders understood these seasonal patterns to ensure the success of their voyages. As strategy scholars like Lawrence Freedman point out, the ability to coordinate human plans with nature's forces has always been essential to success—whether in war, trade, or governance.
Ibn Majid: Poet of the Monsoon
Among the key figures in Indian Ocean navigation, none is more notable than Ahmad ibn Majid (c. 1432–1500), the Arab navigator and poet known as the "Lion of the Sea". His Kitab al-Fawaʾid fi Usul ʿIlm al-Baḥr wa'l-Qawaʿid (Book of Useful Information on the Principles and Rules of Navigation) compiled centuries of Arab and Indian Ocean seamanship. He wrote the book not only as a technical manual but also in verse, blending science with poetry to aid memory.
In a well-known passage, often referenced in secondary sources, Ibn Majid reportedly described sailing in the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean in terms that still stand out:
The sea is vast, with waves like mountains, Yet with the monsoon, it is a bird on the wing, Carrying you to lands you seek, If only you respect its times and paths. (trans. Tibbetts 1971)
At this stage, the ocean is no longer just an obstacle but a partner—swift and generous when approached with knowledge and humility. Ibn Majid's advice was straightforward: sailors should utilise the southwest monsoon to travel east from May to September and rely on the northeast winds to return west from November to March.
He warned that disregarding these seasonal patterns could put cargo and lives at risk—because the sea rewards respect for its natural order and punishes those who ignore it (Ibn Majid, Kitab al-Fawaʾid, trans. Tibbetts 1971).
For Bengal's sailors, this knowledge was familiar, not foreign. The same winds that guided Arab dhows also propelled Bengali boats and Southeast Asian longships. In this way, Ibn Majid's development of navigational science reflected Bengal's practical maritime experience.
From Bengal to the world: Arab knowledge as a global currency
The significance of Ibn Majid's writings went beyond the Indian Ocean. His manuals, charts, and poetic mnemonics were widely distributed. When Vasco da Gama rounded the Cape of Good Hope in 1498, he didn't chart the Indian Ocean on his own; he relied on Muslim pilots.
The most famous among them, Ahmad ibn Majid—though this is still debated—was long believed to have guided da Gama across the Arabian Sea to Calicut. Whether or not Ibn Majid personally, it was definitely Arab and Gujarati pilots, trained in his techniques, who made the Portuguese voyage possible, according to Sanjay Subrahmanyam who wrote on da Gama's voyages.
Similarly, Christopher Columbus's transatlantic voyage in 1492 was made possible by navigational knowledge developed by Arab and Andalusian scholars, including advances in astronomy, cartography, and maritime science. His crew included conversos—Jews and Muslims from Spain and Portugal who had been forced to convert to Christianity—as well as interpreters familiar with Arabic, such as Luis de Torres, chosen specifically for his ability to speak Arabic and Hebrew to assist with communication if they reached the "Indies" (Vilar 1994).
Columbus himself studied charts and astronomical tables based on Muslim Andalusian traditions, which shaped his understanding of wind patterns, currents, and celestial navigation, according to Fuat Sezgin.
These elements together demonstrate that European exploration heavily relied on knowledge passed from the Islamic world, connecting cultures, languages, and scientific expertise across continents.
Therefore, the same maritime knowledge that linked Bengal with Arabia also fuelled Europe's so-called "Age of Discovery". Jeremy Black, in Empires of the Weak, stresses that Europe's expansion depended more on using Asian and Islamic naval skills and fitting into existing trade networks than on inherent superiority.
Bengal's participation in this knowledge network firmly integrated it into a global continuum of maritime science and practice—its sailors' part of the same world of expertise that empowered Columbus and Vasco da Gama.
Southeast Asian crossroads: Bengal and the Straits
While Arabs arrived from the west, Southeast Asians came from the east. Sumatran, Javanese, and Malay traders brought ceramics, timber, aromatic woods, and their seafaring traditions. Their longboats were built for both open seas and shallow estuaries—reflecting the innovation of Bengal's river-sea hybrid craft, according to Sunil S Amrith's 2013 book Crossing the Bay of Bengal: The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants.
These interactions were not merely one-sided transactions but exchanges involving language, food, and art. The spice of clove from Maluku made its way into Bengali kitchens, while Bengal's muslin decorated courts in Malacca. Sunil Amrith describes the Bay as a "shared arena of human experience," where commerce was deeply connected to culture (Amrith 2013).
Tapan Raychaudhuri highlights that Bengal's coast was never on the periphery but always central to this trade, with its rivers functioning as "arteries of a trading civilization" (Raychaudhuri 2000). The Bay was not just a corridor but a melting pot—an area where influences mixed, making Bengal a maritime hub.
Strategy, risk, and survival
Navigating the Bay relied heavily on strategy. As Thucydides pointed out, understanding the sea was crucial for leadership. The Bay's winds were intense: storms could undo months of planning, while pirates and rival nations made trade a dangerous endeavor.
Jeremy Black's Empires of the Weak shows that before European dominance, Asian polities were already skilled in their maritime environments, demonstrating resilience and adaptability. Bengal's maritime history was therefore not marked by weakness but by an ability to absorb shocks and maintain trade amid changing conditions.
Robert Kaplan's Mediterranean parallel
Robert Kaplan, in Mediterranean Winter, discusses how the sea teaches humility and perspective to those who travel across it. For him, the Mediterranean was a "classroom of culture and character". The Bay of Bengal served a similar purpose. For Bengal's sailors, the monsoon winds were like a syllabus: teaching respect for timing, collaboration across cultures, and a lasting humility before forces greater than human will.
This parallel highlights the universality of maritime experience. Whether in the Mediterranean or the Bay of Bengal, seas were more than just trade routes—they shaped civilisations.
Cultural imprints and enduring legacies
From Arab dhows came Islamic scholarship, calligraphy, and mosque architecture that still decorate Bengal. From Javanese and Malay merchants, there are linguistic borrowings and culinary infusions. Songs of the sea, still remembered in Bengal's coastal villages, evoke voyages timed with the monsoon and encounters with distant sailors.
The Bay taught its people to embrace duality: to see opportunity in risk, to build community through diversity, and to view prosperity as linked with humility.
Toward the European dawn
By the 15th century, Bengal's ports were well established within the Indian Ocean trade network. However, these existing patterns of Arab and Southeast Asian commerce laid the foundation for new arrivals—the Portuguese, Dutch, and British. When Europeans arrived, they did not create maritime Bengal; instead, they became part of an already thriving system of winds, trade, and cross-cultural exchanges.
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