ABSTRACT
The maritime activity of Persia, indeed, has never been so well exhibited in dockyards as on the open sea, and, during the tenth century especially, Persia was being driven to the sea even more successfully than she had been drawn to it. The coastal Arab compared to the Persian navigator was ‘but young in deed,’ the disappearance of the Persian flag, after the rise of Islam, was not accompanied by a simultaneous disappearance of Persian shipping. According to Duarte Barbosa, the Moors of Cambay are white, and of many countries: both Turks and Mamelukes, Arabs, Persians, Khorasanys, Turkomans, and from the great kingdom of Dily, and others born in the country itself. There were Persian colonists and traders in the port of Calicut. The maritime activity of Persia, however, was not confined merely to the western coast of the Indian Peninsula. There was an important colony of Persian merchants in Bengala, the homonymous capital of the province of Bengal.
