Geography of the Indian Ocean System

Geographically, the navigation of the Indian Ocean system is divided into the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea.  A consensus is that there was a transfer system in which Arab and Persian mariners dominated the passage of the Arabian Sea, but Indian and Chinese mariners more frequently transited Melaka (Malacca) (Pearson, 2010, p. 322). Transshipment frequently occurred in Sri Lanka, as well as at other points East and West.  This system seemed to have displaced an early system of direct long distance shipping from the Gulf to China that had been achieved in the 10^th century (Pearson, 2010).   This suggests that historians need to look for accounts and documents on the nature of this segmented trade, the local labor and social conditions in these port towns.   The Mapilla community on the Malabar coast (Southern India) is an especially useful locale for the study of interchange, conversion and marriage of Hindu and Muslim merchants and subsequent cultural development (Shokoohy, 2013).