Dionisius Agius, a reader in Arabic and the Medieval Mediterranean at the University of Leeds, has directed his expertise in linguistics and the writings of medieval geographers writing in Arabic to a study of seafaring in the Arabian/Persian Gulf and Oman. Drawing on a wide range of literary sources and more than ten years of fieldwork in the region, Agius has sought in this book “to establish an historical and linguistic link between the present traditional seagoing vessels and coastal boats of the Gulf and Oman, and those of the medieval Islamic period” (p. xv).