Dhow ( ar, داو, translit=dāwa; mr, script=Latn, dāw) is the generic name of a number of traditional sailing vessels with one or more masts with settee or sometimes lateen sails, used in the

Red Sea The Red Sea ( ar, البحر الأحمر - بحر القلزم, translit=Modern: al-Baḥr al-ʾAḥmar, Medieval: Baḥr al-Qulzum; or ; Coptic: ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϩⲁϩ ''Phiom Enhah'' or ⲫⲓⲟⲙ ⲛ̀ϣⲁⲣⲓ ''Phiom ǹšari''; ...

and

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

region. Typically sporting long thin hulls, dhows are trading vessels primarily used to carry heavy items, such as fruit, fresh water, or other heavy merchandise, along the coasts of

Eastern Arabia Eastern Arabia, historically known as al-Baḥrayn ( ar, البحرين) until the 18th century, is a region stretched from Basra to Khasab along the Persian Gulf coast and included parts of modern-day Bahrain, Kuwait, Eastern Saudi Arabia, Unite ...

, East Africa, Yemen and

coast The coast, also known as the coastline or seashore, is defined as the area where land meets the ocean, or as a line that forms the boundary between the land and the coastline. The Earth has around of coastline. Coasts are important zones in n ...

South Asia South Asia is the southern subregion of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The region consists of the countries of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.;;;;; ...

(Pakistan, India, Bangladesh). Larger dhows have crews of approximately thirty, smaller ones typically around twelve.

History

The exact origins of the dhow are lost to history. Some claim that the sambuk, a type of dhow, may be derived from the Portuguese

caravel The caravel ( Portuguese: , ) is a small maneuverable sailing ship used in the 15th century by the Portuguese to explore along the West African coast and into the Atlantic Ocean. The lateen sails gave it speed and the capacity for sailing ...

. The dhow was the ship of trade used by the

Swahili Swahili may refer to: * Swahili language, a Bantu language official in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda and widely spoken in the African Great Lakes * Swahili people, an ethnic group in East Africa * Swahili culture Swahili culture is the culture of ...

. It was a dhow that transported a giraffe to Chinese Emperor

Yong Le The Yongle Emperor (; pronounced ; 2 May 1360 – 12 August 1424), personal name Zhu Di (), was the third Emperor of the Ming dynasty, reigning from 1402 to 1424. Zhu Di was the fourth son of the Hongwu Emperor, the founder of the Ming dyna ...

's court, in 1414. Another source suggests the ship that carried the giraffe to China was part of a large Chinese fleet led by

Zheng He Zheng He (; 1371–1433 or 1435) was a Chinese mariner, explorer, diplomat, fleet admiral, and court eunuch during China's early Ming dynasty. He was originally born as Ma He in a Muslim family and later adopted the surname Zheng conferre ...

. Ships that are similar to the dhow are mentioned or described in the

1001 Nights ''One Thousand and One Nights'' ( ar, أَلْفُ لَيْلَةٍ وَلَيْلَةٌ, italic=yes, ) is a collection of Middle Eastern folk tales compiled in Arabic during the Islamic Golden Age. It is often known in English as the ''Arabian ...

including various ports where they harboured. The dhow is also associated with the

pearl A pearl is a hard, glistening object produced within the soft tissue (specifically the mantle) of a living shelled mollusk or another animal, such as fossil conulariids. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is composed of calcium ca ...

trade. The Yemeni

Hadhrami people The Hadhrami ( ar, حضرمي, ḥaḍramī, singular) or Hadharem ( ar, حضارم, ḥaḍāram, plural) are an Arab ethnic group indigenous to the Hadhramaut region in South Arabia around Eastern Yemen, western Oman, and southern Saudi Arab ...

, as well as Omanis, for centuries came to

Beypore Beypore or Beypur (formerly Beypoor) is an ancient port town and a locality town in Kozhikode district in the state of Kerala, India. It is located opposite to Chaliyam, the estuary where the river Chaliyar empties into Arabian Sea. Beypore i ...

, in

Kerala Kerala ( ; ) is a state on the Malabar Coast of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, following the passage of the States Reorganisation Act, by combining Malayalam-speaking regions of the erstwhile regions of Cochin, Malabar, South C ...

, India for their dhows. This was because of the good timber in the Kerala forests, the availability of good

coir Coir (), also called coconut fibre, is a natural fibre extracted from the outer husk of coconut and used in products such as floor mats, doormats, brushes, and mattresses. Coir is the fibrous material found between the hard, internal shell an ...

rope, and the skilled shipwrights. In former times, the sheathing planks of a dhow's hull were held together by coconut rope. Beypore dhows are known as ' Uru' in

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

, the local language of Kerala. Settlers from Yemen, known as 'Baramis', or 'Daramis' which could be derived from the word 'Hardamis' are still active in making urus in Kerala. Dhows were extensively used for the

Indian Ocean slave trade The Indian Ocean slave trade, sometimes known as the East African slave trade or Arab slave trade, was multi-directional slave trade and has changed over time. Africans were sent as slaves to the Middle East, to Indian Ocean islands (including Ma ...

, which the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by Kingdom of England, English and Kingdom of Scotland, Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were foug ...

attempted to suppress. In his 1873 book, Captain G. L. Sulivan described "four different kinds of coasting dhows, as shown in the engravings, viz. the Bateele, the Badane, Bugala or genuine Dhow, and the Matapa boat".

Since the 20th century

In the 1920s, British writers identified Al Hudaydah as the centre for dhow building. Those built in Al Hudaydah were smaller in size, and used for travel along the coasts. They were constructed of

acacia ''Acacia'', commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially, it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australasia. The genus n ...

found in Yemen. They are distinguishable for their smaller triangular sails on movable bases to harvest the irregular winds of the Red Sea. Captain Alan Villiers (1903–1982) documented the days of sailing trade in the Indian Ocean by sailing on dhows between 1938 and 1939 taking numerous photographs and publishing books on the subject of dhow navigation. Even to the present day, dhows make commercial journeys between the

Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bo ...

and East Africa using sails as their only means of

propulsion Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...

. Their cargo is mostly dates and fish to East Africa and

mangrove A mangrove is a shrub or tree that grows in coastal saline or brackish water. The term is also used for tropical coastal vegetation consisting of such species. Mangroves are taxonomically diverse, as a result of convergent evolution in several ...

timber to the lands in the

. They often sail south with the

monsoon A monsoon () is traditionally a seasonal reversing wind accompanied by corresponding changes in precipitation but is now used to describe seasonal changes in atmospheric circulation and precipitation associated with annual latitudinal osci ...

in winter or early spring, and back again to Arabia in late spring or early summer.

Navigation

For celestial navigation, dhow sailors have traditionally used the kamal, an observation device that determines

latitude In geography, latitude is a coordinate that specifies the north– south position of a point on the surface of the Earth or another celestial body. Latitude is given as an angle that ranges from –90° at the south pole to 90° at the north po ...

by finding the angle of the Pole Star above the

horizon The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether ...

Types

* ''

Baghlah A baghlah, bagala, bugala or baggala ( ar, بغلة) is a large deep-sea dhow, a traditional Arabic sailing vessel. The name "baghla" means "mule" in the Arabic language. Description The baghlah dhows had a curved prow with a stem-head, an orna ...

'' () – from the

Arabic language Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

word for " mule". A heavy ship, the traditional deep-sea dhow. *'' Baqarah'' or () – from the Arabic word for "cow". Old type of small dhow similar to the Battil. * '' Barijah'' – small dhow. * '' Battil'' () – featured long stems topped by large, club-shaped stem heads. * '' Badan'' – a smaller vessel requiring a shallow draft. * '' Boum'' () or ''dhangi'' – a large-sized dhow with a stern that is tapering in shape and a more symmetrical overall structure. The Arab boum has a very high prow, which is trimmed in the Indian version. * ''

Ghanjah A ghanjah or ganja ( ar, غنجه), also known as kotiya in India, is a large wooden trading dhow, a traditional Arabic sailing vessel. Description The ghanjah dhows had a curved prow with a characteristic trefoil ornament carved on top of the ...

'' () or ''kotiya'' – a large vessel, similar to the Baghlah, with a curved stem and a sloping, ornately carved transom. * '' Jahazi'' or (). A fishing or trading dhow with a broad hull similar to the , common in Lamu Island and the coast of Oman. It is also used in Bahrain for the pearl industry. The word comes from ''jahāz'' (), a Persian word for "ship". * '' Jaliboot'' or ''jelbut'' (). A small to medium-sized dhow. It is the modern version of the shu'ai with a shorter prow stem piece. Most are fitted with engines. * '' Patamar'', a type of Indian dhow. *'' Sambuk'' or ''sambuq'' () – the largest type of dhow seen in the Persian Gulf today. It has a characteristic keel design, with a sharp curve right below the top of the prow. It has been one of the most successful dhows in history. The word is cognate with the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

''sambúkē'', ultimately from

Middle Persian Middle Persian or Pahlavi, also known by its endonym Pārsīk or Pārsīg () in its later form, is a Western Middle Iranian language which became the literary language of the Sasanian Empire. For some time after the Sasanian collapse, Middle Per ...

. * ''

Shu'ai A Shu’ai, Shu’i or Shuw'i ( ar, شوعي) is a small or medium-sized dhow, a traditional Arabic sailing vessel. This type of dhow is built low with a high quarter deck and has one or two masts with lateen sails.Agius, Dionisius (2008) A gen ...

'' (). Medium-sized dhow. Formerly the most common dhow in the Persian Gulf used for fishing as well as for coastal trade. * '' Zaruq'' – small dhow, slightly larger than a barijah * Dhoni – Maldivian traditional multi-purpose sail vessel. The term "dhow" is sometimes also applied to certain smaller lateen-sail rigged boats traditionally used in the

, the eastern

Mediterranean The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on th ...

and the Persian Gulf area, as well as in the Indian Ocean from Madagascar to the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line bet ...

. These include the feluccas used in Egypt, Sudan and Iraq, and the dhoni used in the Maldives, as well as the , and .. All these vessels have common elements with the dhow. On the Swahili Coast, in countries such as Kenya, the

word used for dhow is "jahazi".

Gallery

File:Dhow01.JPG, Dhow seen off the coast of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania File:Another Dhow.JPG, Dhow seen in the Indian Ocean File:DhowDesertQatar.jpg, A dhow in the desert in Qatar File:Sd2-baggala.JPG, A painting of a

, traditional deep sea dhow. File:Ayajh6.jpg, Construction and repair of dhows in Sur, Oman File:Inhambane-dhow.JPG, Dhow ferrying passengers near

Inhambane Inhambane, also known as Terra de Boa Gente (''Land of Good People''), is a city located in southern Mozambique, lying on Inhambane Bay, 470 km northeast of Maputo. It is the capital of the Inhambane Province and according to the 2017 census ...

, Mozambique. File:Dhow Indian Ocean.jpg, A small dhow in Zanzibar File:Stamp Aden 1937 0.5a.jpg, 1937 stamp of Aden depicting a dhow. File:MarinetimeMKuwaitAlshami.jpg, Boom in the

Maritime Museum A maritime museum (sometimes nautical museum) is a museum specializing in the display of objects relating to ships and travel on large bodies of water. A subcategory of maritime museums are naval museums, which focus on navies and the militar ...

in Kuwait City commemorating the founding of Kuwait as a sea port for merchants. File:KGVI rupees 10 note cdd front reverse.jpg, Patamar on a 10

Indian rupee The Indian rupee (symbol: ₹; code: INR) is the official currency in the republic of India. The rupee is subdivided into 100 '' paise'' (singular: ''paisa''), though as of 2022, coins of denomination of 1 rupee are the lowest value in use wher ...

note File:Sambuk.jpg, Model of a Sambuk File:Dau auf dem Schatt al-Arab.png, Dhow on the

Shatt al-Arab The Shatt al-Arab ( ar, شط العرب, lit=River of the Arabs; fa, اروندرود, Arvand Rud, lit=Swift River) is a river of some in length that is formed at the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers in the town of al-Qurnah in ...

(1958)

References

Bibliography

* .

External links

* . Stadium based on the design of the Dhow. * . * . * . * . * . * . {{Authority control Arabic words and phrases Sailing rigs and rigging Boat types Tall ships