A Memorandum for Historians on the Innocence of IBN MAJID

Ahmed Ibn Majid might be one of the most detested names in India. In the classic, first hand historical sources, especially classical history texts on Mappila history, which is one of our focal areas as publisher, Ibn Majid is the man who guided Vasco da Gama from Africa to India. The name is resonating with colonialism and invasion, from whose legacy and memory post-colonial India at least pretends to free itself.Sultan bin Muhammad al Qasimi, the eminent ruler of Sharjah, proves with sufficient evidence that the guide of Vasco da Gama was not Ahmed Ibn Majid, but a Gujarati who believed in a form of Christianity. The belief and geography of the person who was complicit in colonialism might not be relevant, though the innocence of Ahmed Ibn Majid in this context would deconstruct the argument for a Muslim connivance in the colonial project.