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Ghurab or gurab is a type of merchant and warship from the Nusantara archipelago. The ship was a result of Mediterranean influences in the region, particularly introduced by the Arabs, Persians, and Ottoman Empire. For their war fleet, the Malays prefer to use shallow draught, oared longships similar to the galley, such as lancaran, penjajap, and kelulus. This is very different from the Javanese people who prefer long-range, deep-draught round ships such as jong and malangbang. The reason for this difference is that the Malays operated their ships in riverine water, sheltered straits zone, and archipelagic environment, while the Javanese are often active in the open and high sea. After contact with Iberian people, both the Javanese and Malay fleets began to use the ghurab and ghali more frequently.
The larger ghurab had 2 guns pointing forward (bow-chaser) and 15 on each side, with a total of 32 guns. The smaller ones carried 2 forward and 10 on each side (22 guns). The ghurab has a projecting stern. They may carry up to 3 masts. H. Warington Smyth, in 1902 described a large 2-masted trading gurap built of giam wood. The dimension is as follows: 300 ft (91.4 m) long, 30 ft (9.1 m) wide, 20 ft (6.1 m) depth, and 11 ft (3.4 m) freeboard. The capacity was 100 koyan (241.9 metric tons), with a 100 ft (30.5 m) mainmast, crewed by 30 men. The vessel is using Fore-and-aft rig sail made with cloth, with yard and gaff-topsail.
The Hikayat Hang Tuah, which has a background of the late 15th to the early 16th century and was composed no earlier than the 17th century, mentioned that two pencalang and two ghurab were used by Majapahit to send a letter and gifts to improve the relationship with Malacca. The ghurabs were said to be "in the style of the Arabs' (ship)".
Until the early 16th century, the main merchant and warship of the Javanese was the jong, but since the mid-16th century the maritime forces of the archipelago began to use new types of agile naval vessels that could be equipped with larger cannons: In various attacks on Portuguese Malacca after the defeat of Pati Unus, they no longer used jong but used lancaran, ghurab, and ghali.Manguin, Pierre-Yves (1993). 'The Vanishing Jong: Insular Southeast Asian Fleets in Trade and War (Fifteenth to Seventeenth Centuries)', in Anthony Reid (ed.), Southeast Asia in the Early Modern Era (Ithaca: Cornell University Press), 197–213.
In 1515, Bintan Island attacked Kampar and Portuguese Malacca with 24 lancaran and 6 large ones called gurab. Pigafetta's Italian-Malay vocabulary of 1521 (published 1524) mentioned Malay gurap as a galley ( a la galia). The Hikayat Aceh states that the Aceh Sultanate had 120 large ghurab in the 1570s. The state ghurab ( ghorab istana) of Aceh, Daya, and Pedir was said to carry 10 Cannon, 50 lela, and 120 Blunderbuss (excluding the istinggar). Smaller ones carried 5 meriam, 20 lela, and 50 cecorong.
In 1624, the war fleet of the Mataram Sultanate numbered 2000 vessels consisting of gurab and small perahu. On 22 August 1628, 59 goraps of Sultan Agung's navy appeared at Batavia, unloading provisions for the Siege of Batavia.
Genizah letters mention cargo ghurābs that sailed from the Maghreb, Sicily, and on the Nile, carrying carob and flax.
Abu Shama ca. 1266–1267, in Kitab al-rawdatayn fi akhbar al-dawlatayn, wrote about ghurāb:
"They sail by their masts (i.e. the sails); they (look like) quivers, but penetrate like arrows . . . It is no surprise that they are called ghurābs because they spread their wings like those of a dove"Sidi Ali in 1552, describes ghurābs as "great (rowing) vessels"; he also says that smaller ghurābs are "Galiot with oars".
Grab of Malabar region coast is a vessel that was generally of shallow draft, and broad in proportion to its length. Size could range between 150 and as much as 500 tons (bm).
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