Ahmad ibn Majid

Timeline

1. c. 1432–1460Julfar · Persian GulfIbn Majid grew up in a family renowned for navigation and learned monsoon and star navigation aboard ship as a youth. Julfar was one of the departure ports for Persian Gulf–Indian Ocean trade, giving him the practical setting for compiling his sailing guides.
2. c. 1460–1490western Indian Ocean routes · Indian OceanIn his prime he wrote numerous navigational works in verse and prose, including sailing guides for Sofala. The Kitab al-Fawa'id, compiled around the end of the 15th century, summarized star altitudes, monsoon seasons, and dangerous coasts and was an important compendium of Indian Ocean navigational knowledge before the Portuguese arrival.
3. c. 1490–1500Malindi · Swahili coastIn 1498 da Gama's fleet hired a pilot at Malindi for the crossing to Calicut. About half a century later an Arab chronicle identified this man as Ibn Majid. Modern research notes that the Portuguese accounts describe a Gujarati pilot; if Ibn Majid was born around 1432 he would have been elderly, and his own sailing guides suggest he was probably not in East Africa at the time. The meeting should be marked as disputed.