4.1.2 Islamic Trade Networks

Islam had arisen in a region defined by trade and travel. Many prominent early Muslims, including Muhammad himself, were traders or members of trading families. And thanks to the institutional continuity specified under sharia, Islamic religious law, trade soon became closely regulated, the taxes levied on imported goods were systematized, and markets were inspected and administered in the same way throughout the Islamic world. By the sixteenth century, the flags of Islam flew from Spain and Morocco in the west to the gates of China in the east. However, these territories were not unified under one political leader. Instead, what brought them together into one collective ummah despite their political, ethnic, and linguistic differences was a network based on trade and travel, which carried Islam farther than its armies ever could.

Trade routes crisscrossed the larger Islamic world, connecting far-flung regions. By sea, Muslim merchants traded from India and Southeast Asia (especially the country of Indonesia) to East Africa, Egypt, and the Arabian Peninsula. Muslims in central Asia and China traded overland with merchants in Iran, East and North Africa, and the Balkans. Caravans crossing the Sahara extended trade into West Africa. Along these trade routes traveled merchants, missionaries, scholars, and many others. Their movement facilitated not only the expansion of Islam but also the spread of languages like Arabic and Persian, which became the languages of commerce, scholarship, and literary expression. It also allowed for the flow and exchange of new technologies, ideas, precious metals, writing and numerical systems, and a great variety of agricultural products once available only in small corners of the world (Figure 4.6).

Dhimmi and other non-Muslim populations were frequently encouraged to participate in trade because of their specializations and contacts in distant areas. Armenian Christians, for example, were heavily involved in the silk trade, and their presence was welcomed in major trade centers. Jewish communities were linked by a trade network they had established between Europe, North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Being exempt from the financial provisions of sharia, which forbade charging interest on loans, Jewish people rose to prominence as moneylenders and bankers, usually serving both Muslim and Christian clients. (Jewish law forbade them to loan money at interest to other Jewish people.) And Muslims traveled and traded widely, guided by Muhammad’s often-cited hadith, or saying, “Seek knowledge, even unto China.”

Islamic communities sprang up along the Silk Roads, the land routes between the Middle East and China, and in other places where Muslim merchants traveled, such as East Africa, West Africa, and India. When merchants established themselves in non-Muslim communities, they often intermarried with the local population, and the children resulting from these marriages were usually raised as Muslims. Members of the existing merchant community often converted to Islam to forge closer relationships with Muslim traders. Once a Muslim community had been established, religious scholars often followed to found mosques, schools, and charitable organizations. In this way, Islam spread throughout Asia, Africa, and the Balkans.

When merchants arrived in a new city, they usually selected a prayer leader, often a member of the ulama who also served as a judge. A Muslim market inspector vouched for the accuracy of weights and measures, verified business contracts between Muslim merchants, certified the sizes of loads being shipped out, and ensured that businesses adhered to sharia. The consistency with which Muslim merchants and traders operated was a key advantage of contracting with them to transport goods long distances. Another benefit was the widespread use of letters of credit, which were recognized in other Islamic lands and allowed merchants to travel without carrying large amounts of gold.

Trade earned profits for participating states in two ways. The first was by bringing in direct income from importing and selling goods, including spices, ivory, salt, silks, and other luxury items, as well as enslaved people. Given their central location at the crossroads of Europe, Africa, and Asia, Muslim merchants frequently acted as intermediaries who purchased goods from one area and sold them to merchants from another. The second financial benefit of trade was the receipt of taxes that states levied on goods being transported through their territory.

Given the profit potential of the goods traded, robbers and bandits were a constant threat. Governments thus sponsored inns called caravansaries at regular intervals on major trade routes, usually one day’s journey apart, where traders could rest and store their goods securely (Figure 4.7). Wealthy individuals might also build caravansaries, providing shelter for travelers as an act of piety. Weak states that could not guarantee security for traders and travelers often found trade routes shifting out of their territory if they became too risky.

In addition to the shipment of material goods like agricultural products, precious metals, and spices, the transportation of enslaved people was also facilitated along Islamic trading routes. Since sharia forbids Muslims from enslaving other Muslims, it became common practice to enslave non-Muslims from regions within reach of Islamic slavers. Common sources included North and sub-Saharan Africa, central and eastern Europe, India, and Indonesia. Enslaved people being moved around the Islamic world were traded for a great variety of goods like cloth, pottery, glassware, and precious metals. Muslim traders also acted as intermediaries, passing enslaved people from Africa to merchants in central Asia and Europe, and they were the primary traders engaged in transporting enslaved people across the Sahara Desert (Figure 4.8).

Within the Islamic world, women outnumbered men among the enslaved two to one. Men were primarily employed in domestic work or service within the estates of the rich, laboring on irrigation projects and in mines or taking care of animals. Most women were kept in wealthy households, where they became domestic servants such as nursemaids or were kept for sexual purposes. Although enslaved people did have legal recourse if mistreated or abused, it was difficult for them to access the courts without the aid of a sympathetic free person. There was no social stigma to prevent a slave owner from recognizing his children with an enslaved woman; the children were born free, and the mother gained her freedom upon the death of her owner.

Muhammad encouraged the freeing of enslaved people, and many Muslims did so. Enslaved men and women were also allowed to purchase their own freedom. This, together with the fact that the children of enslaved women and their owners were born free, meant that it was difficult to maintain a permanently enslaved population in the Islamic world or to make the enslaved population self-reproducing. Those who sought to use enslaved workers thus frequently needed to replenish their labor force by making new purchases, ensuring that the trade in enslaved people remained important in the Islamic world until the nineteenth century.