During the spread of Islam in the Middle Ages, Oman's maritime and mercantile profile reached its greatest apogee. And yet Oman's maritime achievements derived from meager natural gifts. One can still read this sparseness in the details of the modern boats of Oman, where wood is used skimpily in recognition of its scarcity. Equally remarkable is the way in which nature's parsimony has served as both a constraint on and an encouragement to the imagination of Arab shipwrights. No matter what shape or size, these boats are sensuous, especially when ornamented, as many still are, with tassels, cowry shells and goat skins.
Seamen are notoriously conservative, and boat builders even more so.
Because many contemporary Omani vessels preserve design characteristics from the past, they function as unique artifacts. Sinbad the Sailor, as recounted in The Thousand and One Nights , survived terrible perils on all of his seven voyages with a combination of resourcefulness, luck, and determination, almost always returning to Baghdad laden with fortune. Though trading excursions always posed great risk, Sinbad found the potential rewards and adventures they offered irresistible. I was again prevailed upon by my passion for traffic and curiosity to see new things. Some of these boats reportedly had cargo capacities of several hundred tons and were manned by crews that numbered in the hundreds.