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2.4  Paucity of Material and Sources

Early history particularly that of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East is scarce, often repetitive and comes from a variety of texts. The textual Arabic scholar D. S. Margoliouth while at Oxford wrote a number of lectures on Arabic Historians which were compiled and published in 1930. These lectures explain why so little was written and provide an insight into how history was dealt with up to the fourth century of Islam or about ad 1000. Two paragraphs in his lecture The Beginnings of Arabic History is worth quoting in full:

 

The theories then which stood in the way of written literature arising were (1) the maxim that Islam cancelled all that was before it, (2) the doctrine that there should be no written book except the Qur’an, (3) that the profession of ?uffaz rendered books superfluous, (4) that written documents were untrustworthy.

 

The texts which deal with current events are largely allusive, avoiding the mention of proper names: the persons to whom they were revealed would know exactly what was signified.^[1]

 

With the passage of time a knowledge of historical events would have been necessary and indeed the Qur’an contains ancient history but readers would be grateful for any additional information. It becomes evident that history on these lines is not the same as we would expect today. It may go some way to explaining why material was scarce and why the few sources we have so often contain similar material.

al-Idrisi wrote in 1153-4 about the island of Qeys “the houses are built of the trunks of palms” and Abu 'l-Fida^[2] some 125 years later gives the same description. This might be considered a coincidence if it were not “that the inhabitants spend large sums of money on their houses”. In this chapter many of the various sources spanning many centuries are quoted in full so that the similarities will be self evident to the reader.

Although Margoliouth deals with Arabic historians, the repitition and similarity of the stories appears to exist with other writers although this may be as in the case of John Mandeville writing of his travels more a matter of borrowing from someone elses’ work. The issue is confused further with for example a proposition that questions whether Marco Polo actually visited China because no mention is made of ladies feet, Great Walls or proferred cups of tea.^[3] I lived and worked in the Musandam between 1974 and 1979. Twenty years on I need my diaries and notes to refresh my memories about matters but these do not include specific observations even if I was one of the first Europeans to explore the area. In 1997 a translation by David Selbourne of an old Italian manuscript about the travels of Jacob d’Ancona to China was published.^[4] His journey preceeded that of Marco Polo’s by some four years. d’Ancona writes extensively about himself and the Jewish faith and the Jewish communities he encountered on his way giving far less information than say Marco Polo. (An extract from the translation detailing his stay in Hormuz is given later in this chapter.) Unfortunately as no-one else has access to the manuscript, so the provenance and authenticity of the manuscript can easily be questioned even rejected out of hand.