Indian Antiquary Vol 04

Author(s): Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 59

FEBRUARY, 1875.]
ACCOUNT OF KALHÂT, IN S. E. ARABIA.
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are to this day the Beni Shaabaîn,-a small mosques that you could see anywhere, the walls but distinct clan, and probably the remnant of of which are covered with enamelled tiles of some great tribe. Omân, however, having been Kashan. The city is inhabited by merchants, from early times a province of Yemen, the people who draw their support from Indian import would, like the Yemenites, be called Sabaans trade. Although they are Arabs, they don't from their religion, which, indeed, they retained speak Arabic correctly. After every phrase they until the introduction of Islam. In earlier have a habit of adding the particle no. Thus times, before the opening of the navigation of they will say You are enting, no! You are the Red Sea route in the time of the Pharaohs walking, no! You are doing this or that, no!' of the nineteenth dynasty and in the infancy of Most of them are schismatics, but they cannot maritime commerce, Kalhat was not improbably openly practise their tenets, for they are under the seat of a Phoenician factory or trading the rule of Sultan Kutbuddin Tehemten station, as Oman was one of the principal routes Mâlik of Hormuz, who is orthodox." by which the productions of the East were 1 The notices of Kalhat, however, by native obtained by those enterprising merchants who, anthors are in general very mcagre, and add little established all along the South Arabian and to our knowledge of it. The fullest account Omân coasts and in the Persian Gulf, had an of the place I have met with is in the itinerary almost entire monopoly of the Indian trade; of Ibn El Moja wir, who wrote in A.. and Kalhật, being the nearest port to India in 625 (A.D. 1228), and which I here translate:Arabia, would be peculiarly well suited for their "The first who established themselves on the purpose.
shore at Kalhat were some poor fishermen, who From the time of Pliny to that of Marco earned their bread through the bounty of God, Polo, a period of nearly thirteen centuries, we and as their stay increased they found the local have, I believe, no mention of Kalhật by any ity suited them, and people collected there and European author, and we are dependent on Arab multiplied. Now there was a Sheikh from among and Persian authorities for what we can gather the Sheikhs of the Arabs who was at the head regarding it. One of the first of these is Ibn of this community of fishermen, and his name Kelbi, who died in A.H. 200 [A.D. 821-23), and was Mâlik bin Fahm, and as he stood on the who, as quoted in an historical work discovered
shore he became possessed with the desire of by Colonel E. C. Ross and translated by him in augmenting the place and the number of inhahis Annals of Oman,* relates, in connection bitants. When, therefore, ships were observed with the emigration of the Yemen tribes in sailing past, he used to tell his people "kul consequence of the bursting of the great dam of hật,' meaning, call to the people to put in here, Mareb, that the Azdites, under the leadership and from this the place was called Kalh â t. It of Mâlik bin Fahm el Azdî, having arrived was related to me by Ahmad bin 'Ali bin Abdulin Oman, settled at Kalhât, whence they suc- la el Wasiti that it was called in ancient times ceeded in expelling the Persians from the country Hatkål. I asked why it was so called, and he and establishing themselves therein. Marco Polo said that when the tribe (meaning probably the devotes a chapter to the city and gulf of Kalhật, Ibadhia schismatics) fled from the battle of in which he styles it a great and noble city, Nahrwan, they kept calling to their slaves subject to the Mâlik of Hormuz. He says that hút,' that is, bring the provisions). Now "the haven is very large and good, frequented by the provisions had been brought with them from numerous ships with goods from India, and that El Irak, and as the food decreased, one of them from this city the spices and other merchandize said to his slave lat' and the slave replied are distributed among the cities and towns of kal,' that is, there is but little left. Hence the interior." Ibn Batuta visited this port in the place was named Hâtkal, and in process of A.D. 1328, about thirty years or so subsequent to time the name changed with the revolution of Messer Marco, and thus describes the placet:- affairs to Kalhat, and the population increased. "The city of Kalhật stands on the shore; it has Subsequently a stone wall was erected, and ships fine bazaars and one of the most beautiful
arrived there from every port, bringing merchan
• Jour. A3. Soc. Beng. vol. XLIII. (1874) pt. i. p. 112.
+ Yule's Marco Polo, vol. II. p. 382.