Man interesting read off of BBC's news page posted Oct 18 2008. So much so I wanted to diary it for the record, and get your minds off the stress of these elections for a minute, and think about what the world was like after new evidence has been discovered in the Indian Ocean.
Simon Worrall explains why a recent discovery on the seabed of the Indian Ocean will revolutionise our understanding of two ancient civilisations.
Follow me to the Ancient world.
From BBC News Service: http://news.bbc.co.uk/...
Since time immemorial, this funnel-shaped passage linking the Java Sea and the Indian Ocean has been one of the two main shipping routes. The Malacca Straits is the other, from China to the West.
A British sea captain, shipwrecked here in 1817, called it "the most dangerous area between China and London".
That got me thinking about the history of the regions, as Im South Asian, as well as being Muslim, what lies beneath is something surprising indeed. So I read further, and what the discovery entailed.
They had stumbled on the oldest, most important, marine archaeological discovery ever made in South East Asia, an Arab dhow - or ship - built of teak, coconut wood and hibiscus fibre, packed with a treasure that Indiana Jones could only dream of.
There were 63,000 pieces of gold, silver and ceramics from the fabled Tang dynasty, which flourished between the seventh and 10th centuries.
Thats not all folks, most of these come from the Hunan provinces of the China, which back in the day till even today holds a minority ethnic group of Hui and Uyghar Muslims. In actuality if you look at a map of Modern China, much of Southeast, Central, Western, And Northern China have significant populations of muslims, much more than the United States, figures range in estimate China's Islamic Population to be around 20-100 Million in number, and all over the country. Theres a reason this is, but let me get back on point.
But it is not just about bling. The Belitung wreck is a time capsule that has revolutionised our understanding of two ancient civilisations that fill the airwaves today - China and the Middle East. The serial nature of the cargo - 1,000 miniature funeral urns and 800 identical inkpots - shows that China was mass-producing goods for export several centuries earlier than previously thought.
The Arab dhow, the first of its kind ever found, proves something equally startling - that mariners from the Persian Gulf were trading on a scale, and over distances, unmatched by human beings until Vasco da Gama set sail for India at the end of the 15th Century. Sinbad the Sailor was for real.
One of the Changsha bowls bore a date stamp, "the 16th Day of the seventh Month of the second Year of the Baoli reign", or AD 826. Carbon-14 analysis of some star anise found in the wreck confirmed this as the probable date of the dhow's departure from China.
Most scholars believe it set sail from Canton, or Guangzhou, as it is today, the largest of the five ports servicing the Maritime Silk Route.
Wow, it got my eyes popping by this point but it gets better.
Its most likely destination was a place familiar to us for other reasons, the Iraqi port of Basra, as it is called today.
In the 9th Century, Basra was one of the wealthiest cities in the world, with a prosperous merchant class hungry for Chinese luxury goods.
Among the most sensational artefacts found in the wreck are three dishes decorated with cobalt from Iran which represent the oldest blue and white ware ever found, setting back by several hundred years the invention of what would become known all over the world simply as "china."
Now onto my point, my mother, my theology classes back in the day, even my amateurish interest in History, were all pointing in the right direction. Back when I was a Kid, in Islamic theology class, our Prophet Said unto us, (paraphrasing) "If you wish to gain knowledge and understanding you must first travel to the eastern lands and learn from the masters who posess the knowledge you so hungrily seek. You must travel to the ends of the world, and find your answers. God can only show you the path, you must take the steps." My mother, was taught this when she was a kid, and agreed these were in essence my Prophets words, I studied the silk road, and found so many things that linked the far east with the mid east, I find through my own assumption, that these lands, held more influence than any other empire in the world, hell it even influenced the mongols to convert to Islam. I realized that my ancestors valued knowledge like no other civilation at the time, even more than the Greeks, Romans, or Persians. If they ever chose to combine their forces, and it seems like they had that ability based on just the amazing population of chinese muslims that still live there, we all would see a very different world right now.
I said this about my religion before, we are very secular, and quite affluent when seeking knowledge, its considered one of the "gifts from god", and we cherrish it to no end. If you look past the barking dogs of Islam, you see the we are not all that bad, in fact, you should be proud, that Islam has had so much influence even to this very day. (I aint proselityzing so no, stop with any neg comments on that) From Mathematics, to Chemistry, to Biology, to Life Sciences, Health & Hygene, Infrastructure, and Governmental Institutions, we Muslims have a significant influence in the modern world, and thats makes me just as proud as this story.
Hope I brought you some knowledge, and got your mind off politics for a couple minutes, thanks for reading.