Ibn Abdul Majeed

Shahabudeen Ahmad Ibn Abdul Majeed popularly known as ibn Majeed is regarded to be one of the greatest Arab navigators of his time. He was born in Najd, Arabia in about the second quarter of the fifteenth century.

He was born in a seafaring family whose ancestors we reconnected with the navigation of ships, as a result of which ibn Majeed followed in the footsteps of his forefathers and became a "Muallim-al-Bahr" - Navigator of the Seas. He was not only the master navigator in the Red Sea area, but ventured beyond it and acquired an additional title of an able navigator of the Indian Ocean.


Ibn Majeed was the inventor of the first accurate compass used in navigation. When he came in contact with the Portuguese who also were great sea-faring people of the time, he saw that the instruments used by them were in many ways inferior to those used by him. Ibn Majeed showed them his instruments of navigation, the like of which the Portuguese had never seen before.

The efforts of the Europeans to find a sea route to India were successful largely through the help they received from Arab navigators in general and from ibn Majeed in particular, for ibn Majeed was the Arab navigator who guided Vasco da Gama from Malindi on the East Africa n coast to Calicut on the western coast of India. This fact has been proved by the Portuguese and Arab sources.

The Arab historian Qutbuddeen, of the 16th century, for instance mentions Ibn Majeed in his records. He says that a band of the "cursed Portuguese" sailed in a southern direction down the Atlantic Ocean which he called the "Sea of Darkness" and turned east passing through "a narrow channel" - Mozambique Channel - in search of a sea route to India. They continued failing in their mission until they met the Arab navigator ibn Majeed who instructed them. They followed the instructions and reached the coast of India. Qutbuddeen describes this as the "most exceptional and terrorising event" because in the years that followed, "Portugal built a fort in Kuwwa (Goal and began plundering and capturing Muslim boats" in frequent acts of piracy in the Indian Ocean.


Ibn Majeed was a learned man who made serious study of the works of Arab navigators and added his own knowledge and practical experiences to the science of navigation. He was also devoted to the study of literature and history. He wrote several books covering a variety of subjects including poetry.

Most of his books however, deal with navigational matters recording facts about the seas, the coast, the reefs, the winds, the birds. the land marks, the capes etc., all of which were of great help to seafarers. His nautical guides were considered to be the most accurate in his age.


It seems that he was well acquainted with the African coast and had explored the seas around the southern tip of the African continent, for, although the Arabs carried out active trade with people on the East African coast as far as the present Mozambique regions, the seas beyond that were well known to them.

Books of Arab navigators refer to the meeting place of Indian and the Atlantic Oceans, as situated around the "Bahr-us-Suhayl" - the Sea of Ruin,- which they said was at the end of "Jabal-un-Nadama", - the Mountain of Regret - along the coast of Africa, giving its nautical position as Long.l170 and Lat. 160. This is obviously the present Cape of Good Hope which was formerly named the Cape of Storms by the Portuguese.


Ibn Majeed's name became a legend and it occupies a prominent place in the folklore of seafaring Arabs in the centuries that followed, and it became a custom among them, not to embark on a sea journey without first reciting a Fateha for the soul of ibn Majeed.
The year of his death is not known.