Persian Sailors
A History of Persian Navigation. By Hadi Hasan. (Methuen. £5.) This book is a fine example of Indian scholarship, and the author, a Professor in the Muslim University of Aligarh, has produced a work that in every respect fulfils the demands that we are accustomed in the West to make of a contribution to learning. It gives an account of the achievements of the Persians in the art of navigation from Achaemenian times to the conflict between the Persians and the Portuguese in the sixteenth century for commercial predominance in the PerSian Gulf and the Arabian Sea.
For the record of this long period of two thousand years he bas drawn upon Greek, Latin, Chinese, Arabic, and Persian sources, and in dealing with these materials he is no mere copyist, but has scrutinized them in a critical spirit ; for example, he combats the oft-expressed opinion that the Persians dreaded the sea ; he refutes Laufer's objections to the identification of Po-se in an important passage of the Chinese Annals with Persia ; and critically examines the earliest Arab account, given in 851, of Persian trade with China. His account of the trade conditions in the East before the rise of the dynasty of the Sasanian kings and of Persian navigation under their rule, which the late Professor Browne regarded as the greatest period in the history of, Persia, is more ample and fully documented than any yet published. But the sources from which this account is derived, varied and scattered as they are, are within the • reach of a diligent student. What is entirely new in this • volume, for the English reader, is the literary evidence here collected together, to illustrate the attitude of the Persians, during the Mohammedan period towards the sea ; the author appears to have ransacked the whole range of Persian poetry to obtain material for this interesting theme.
Many scholitrs may well envy Professor Hadi Osman for having been able to produce his book in such a sumptuous form. It is nobly printed on hand-made paper, with broad_ margins, and the two- coloured •illustrations from Persian:
MSS. have been reproduced in the best style of modern colour-, processes ; the plates of coins are also delicate pieces of. work -; and Oriental type, rarely seen nowadays in English' books, has been lavishly used, for quotations from Arabic and:- Persian sources. The volume is well worth the high. price asked for it, hut most students have slender purses„ and- it is further a matter of regret that this edition is limited- to 2541) copies, as it would serve as a model of scholarly industry, to his fellow-countrymen, who in their literary efforts are; apt to 'confine their attention to a sOrneWhat narsovi range: Especially praiseworthy is the ample and".cirreftil-index.
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