Silk Road of the Sea: Arab, Persian, and Chinese Exploration of the Indian Ocean

Arabs and Persians, in the centuries immediately following the founding of Islam (seventh century CE), began exploring the Indian Ocean along the coast, linking Arab lands and Persia (today’s Iran) with Southeast Asia and southern China. The early impetus behind this exploration was to spread the Islamic religion to new lands, but later, trade became a more important purpose. The Arabs used boats called dhows, which were symmetrical in shape—both the bow and the stern had the same angled form—and used angled lateen sails. The planks of the boats were also sewn together, rather than nailed, making them more pliable if the boat hit a coral reef. The Arabs and Persians navigated by the stars but later acquired the compass through contact with the Chinese, who invented it in the tenth century CE.

Chinese exploration of the Indian Ocean is largely the work of one man: Admiral Zheng He (1371-433 CE). Zheng He commanded seven exploratory expeditions in the fifteenth century CE, traveling a total of almost 30,000 miles. These voyages brought China into greater contact with the Indian Ocean world, but ultimately resulted in a turning away from ocean exploration.

Zheng He was an unlikely character to lead seven oceanic expeditions. He was born to a Muslim Mongol family but was captured by Chinese soldiers as a child. As was a common practice with such male captives, Zheng was castrated and became a eunuch. He became a servant to the Chinese emperor, later a soldier, military advisor, and ultimately an admiral and expedition leader. He was tasked with establishing oceanic trade routes to the lands west of China, as land routes to the west had been made more difficult because of Mongol invasions that threatened trade caravans. Zheng’s seven expeditions used hundreds of giant ships (larger versions of Chinese ships called junks'), each with up to twelve sails and carrying around 1,000 crew members, which allowed him to travel with more than 20,000 men. Such an imposing force was designed to instill a sense of awe in the people outside of China and to impress them with the power and majesty of the Chinese emperor.

Trade was the primary purpose of Zheng’s seven expeditions, though much new information was also brought back to China. Perhaps most famously, one of the expeditions returned with a giraffe from Africa, an animal that had never been seen before in China. Zheng’s voyages extensively covered India and the Northern Indian Ocean, and also reached Arabia and the east coast of Africa, about as far as present-day Kenya. It is also possible that one of the voyages reached the northern coast of Australia.

After Zheng’s seventh voyage, a new Chinese emperor decided to ban any further exploration, and the ships were destroyed to ensure that no future voyages took place. Increased conflict with the Mongols to the north, as well as the lack of any truly valuable products brought to China from the Indian Ocean region, made exploration of lesser interest to the emperor. Unlike the Mediterranean Sea, the Indian Ocean had much larger distances between places, no enclosing shores, and a relative absence of islands, meaning that sea trade was of more limited importance.