Dhow

The traditional lateen-sailed vessel of the Indian Ocean, constructed without nails using stitched planks of teak bound with coconut fibre rope, and used for trade across the vast triangle of East Africa, Arabia, India, and Southeast Asia for millennia. Ibn Battuta travelled extensively on dhows throughout his Indian Ocean journeys, and the catastrophic shipwreck of his dhow off the Coromandel coast of India cost him his possessions, his diplomatic credentials, and nearly his life, redirecting his journey toward the Maldives and completely transforming the next chapter of his travels. The dhow trade networks were the physical infrastructure through which Islam spread across the Indian Ocean — carried by merchants, scholars, and judges moving between ports in these distinctive vessels.

As understood in the classical tradition of Ibn Battuta and the scholars of his school.