The coastline is a line of shrines. The Haji Ali dargah at Mumbai stands on an islet reached by a causeway that the tide covers twice a day, so that access to it is governed by the sea; the tomb complexes of the Hadrami sayyid families, whose ocean-wide network Engseng Ho has traced from the Hadramawt across to Gujarat, Malabar and beyond, run down the same coast. Sufi orders spread with the trade, and sailors and fishermen made vows at these tombs before a voyage.
Hindu practice on the coast is bound to the sea in its own way. Offerings are made to Samudra, the ocean, and to Varuna, the god of waters and of oaths; immersion of images at the end of festivals takes place from these beaches; and the shrine of Hinglaj Mata in the Balochistan desert near the coast, counted among the Shakti Peethas, is the westernmost major Hindu pilgrimage and is reached by Hindus from Pakistan and India across arid country behind the shore.
Christianity has its own claims here. The Saint Thomas tradition brings the apostle to the Malabar coast, and Goa on the same coast holds the body of Francis Xavier in the Basilica of Bom Jesus, exposed to public veneration at intervals of about a decade. The modern sea carries oil tankers, a seasonal fishing ban timed to the monsoon, and hajj traffic that now goes almost entirely by air.