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Ahmad ibn Majid was born in Oman, probably in 1432, the year Zheng He’s junks docked at Jiddah.
Ahmad Ibn Majid was a navigator and Arabic poet who is well-known for having assisted Vasco da Gama, the famous Portuguese explorer and the first European to reach India by sea, in his quest to go around the Cape of Good Hope of South Africa. Raised in a family of seafarers, he was able to navigate ships at the age of 17 and was so famous that he was known as the first Arab seaman.
Authoring nearly forty works of poetry and prose besides conquering the seas, he was also known as 'The Lion of the Sea'. He was known to have provided Vasco da Gama with a map of the world that was unknown to other European sailors at the time, which was crucial in da Gama's successful expedition to India.
His most important work was Kitab al-Fawa’id fi Usul ‘Ilm al-Bahr wa ’l-Qawa’id (Book of Useful Information on the Principles and Rules of Navigation), written in 1490. It is an encyclopedia of navigational lore: the history and basic principles of navigation, lunar mansions, rhumb lines, the difference between coastal and open-sea sailing, the locations of ports from East Africa to Indonesia, star positions, accounts of the monsoon and other
seasonal winds, typhoons and other topics for professional navigators. He drew from his own experience and that of his father, also a famous navigator, and the lore of generations of Indian Ocean sailors.
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