Transcontinental Trade and the Arab World

The transcontinental trade consisting of Europe, Asia, and East and North Africa has shaped the global economy and civilisational connections over a very long period of time. It predates the transatlantic trade route and is older than the famed Silk Route itself. 

Illustration by The Geostrata

The trade between the East and the West for the most part took place between India and China, and the Mediterranean world, which can be seen in its rich heritage and cultural exchanges with the empires in India and China such as the Mughals and the Tangs respectively. 

On one hand, the Delhi Sultans, who shared a common Turkic and Afghan ancestry were inclined toward the Arab civilisation dominated by Islam and had a bearing on their administrative framework, intellectual evolution, and cultural synthesis with the presence of Arab scholars and Sufi saints, a common sighting in the durbars of Delhi and Lahore. 

The diplomatic exchanges were coloured with exquisite gifts and items of luxury such as Arabian horses, perfumes, silk and cashmere textiles, rare and magnificent Indian jewels, crafts and gold. 

The relations further evolved during the Mughal rule in India wherein being Sunni muslims themselves, the Mughal rulers viewed the holy cities of Mecca and Medina with great religious reverence and facilitated Hajj further solidifying religious ties, in addition to presenting rare and exquisite items of luxury native only to India. 

Their administration, architecture, and cuisine were well influenced by Arabian culture and is evident in rich Arabian calligraphy inscribed on Mughal monuments. The Arab world, due to its close proximity to both regions and a unique geography which brought together the three trading civilisations played a crucial role in its evolution and prosperity.

Located at the trijunction of the three continents, Asia, Europe, and Africa, the Arabs primarily acted as middlemen to the merchants of these civilisations, and earned enormous profits due to their dominance in the regional trade architecture. 

This article seeks to identify and analyse different factors which played an important role in elevating the status of the Arab civilisation from regional to global trade magnates in an era marked with decline of the Western civilisation known as the Dark Ages. It will further look into some of the key conduits which shaped world history, and exacerbated the ensuing scientific, literary, and intellectual evolution.

As KN Chaudhuri rightfully puts it, “Through their extensive maritime networks, the Arabs were not just traders but also cultural emissaries who bridged the gap between the East and West, fostering a rich tapestry of interactions.”

However, from the above, it should not be perceived that the Arab trade networks through the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea were the only gateways into the Mediterranean world, or the Asian. Contemporaneously, the Central Asian overland routes were more preferable to the ancient world including the Greeks, Persians, and Indians. 

But a question arises, almost naturally, what were the factors which made the Arab world a bridge connecting diverse, rich and historically dependent civilisations?

Well, obviously there can’t be one or two. Several factors such as those discussed below can be pinpointed in the long timeline of history of trade. 

GEOGRAPHICAL FACTORS:

Before we take up the mantle for assessing several of the factors, we must make it clear, what do we mean by the Arab world? The Arab world contains the nations of the Middle East and North Africa except Iran and Türkiye. 

Geographically, the Arab world acts as a trijunction between Asia, Europe, and Africa. Its access to both the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea make it extremely important in transnational trade in the region. 

In order to access the Indian Ocean, the Persian Gulf specifically played a vital role which has been eternalised in the lines of Masoudi, “From the Indian Sea, extends another Gulf which is the Pars (Persian) Sea as it leads to the cities of Ublah, Khashab and Abadan” which he writes in his books Moravvej Al-Zahab and Maaden Al-Jawher.

The Persian Gulf was a main conduit in facilitating trade between India and China and the Mediterranean world. The most important ports in the Persian Gulf include the Ubla, Siraf, Hormuz, and Basra where the Indian and the Chinese ships would anchor, filled with items of luxury such as jewels and other exquisite goods.

The importance of these ports can be understood just by mentioning that the Abbasids accrued as much as 20000 Dinars from the ships anchored in the port of Basra. While on the other side of the Arabian peninsula, we had the ports of Alexandra, Aden, Jeddah, Tyre, and Sidon in the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea which facilitated trade between East and West. 

Overland trade networks were vast but full of wilderness, insecure roads, and slow, hence more importance was accrued upon the maritime networks.

POLITICAL FACTORS:

Within 20 years after the death of Prophet Muhammad, the Arab armies went on an invasion of the Sassanid Persia and Christian Eastern Roman Empire, and conquered Persia, Syria, Egypt, and parts of Byzantine Anatolia. As a result of these victories, the Arabs became masters of much of modern day Middle East, and thus acquired the responsibilites and interests of those they conquered.

With these conquests, the Arabs gained access to strategically located ports such as Ubla, Basra, Siraf, Jeddah, Qolhat, and Sohar in addition to the access to the Mediterranean Sea, Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. 

Thus commenced an era of political integration of all the three maritime extensions of the transcontinental trade which spiked the amount of cultural, and commodity exchange in these ports. Most importantly, it was the state-sponsored incentivisation of the Arab merchants who in return dominated the eastern trade for the next 7 centuries. 

Moreover, just like the empires before them such as the Achaemenid, Byzantine, or Hellenistic, the Arabs too adopted a similar style of regional administrative practices. 

However, a major change which the Arabs brought with them in governance was the concept of one state language which would replace the vernaculars and be the language of all official and non-official correspondence. 

This hugely impacted the trading activities in the Islamic empire wherein one could speak the same language throughout the lengths and breadths of the empire and gain hassle free access to government services in addition to protection enjoyed from bandits and dacoits. 

Furthermore, the commercial law was linked to religious morality in Islam and was pursued by the state itself by keeping piracy in check and expansion of urban and port infrastructure which further boosted trade activities. 

ECONOMIC FACTORS:

By the second half of the 7th century AD, the Arabs had toppled both Sassanians and the Byzantines in Asia, and gained large swathes of territory and populace. Consequently, trade became an important part of the economic life of the newly formed Islamic Empire. 

Their absolute control and administration over Iran, Syria, Anatolia, Iraq, Egypt, and the Arabian peninsula provided huge impetus to Arab merchants to utilise the access to coastal regions of the empire so much so that they even established a trade monopoly over all trade inbound from the East, that is, India and China. 

As the territorial boundaries expanded, the urban population of the empire grew rapidly and with the growth of urban centres, general consumption also spiked and in turn pushed the Arab merchants to expand their trading activities. 

The Arab trade expanded out of the Middle East and now reached the backwaters of Kerala, creeks of Gujarat, beaches of Java, Bali and the Malay peninsula; the state’s control of the seas and the freedom of navigation in the high seas added to the Arab adventurism.

Shri Kirti Narayan Chaudhuri articulates 3 parallel developments largely responsible for the growth of economic production and consumption in the Islamic Empire, “First, the Islamization of the conquered people created a partially homogenous religion, moral and juridical system. 

Secondly, the Arabization of the army and the administration helped to break down ethnic and national barriers by recruiting local entrants or by the incorporation of the warlike steppe people. Finally, the Semitization process was completed through the adoption of Arabic as the universal language of communication, education, literary expression and government.”

In summary, the social and economic security provided by the strong central government increased the purchasing power of the people, stabilising the economic structure which in turn resulted in an increase in demands for luxuries and other commodities which were rare and economically vulnerable hitherto. 

SOCIAL FACTORS:

The expansion of the Islamic Empire came with its own realities. The rulers, in order to rule efficiently over the subjugated ethnicities and religious minorities had to show religious restraint in their policies. 

This in turn was reflected in their trade policies and the general temperament of the populace. The merchants who traded with non-Islamic lands such as India and China were more focussed on their trade than on the ideological inclinations of the elite. 

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However, this was not an imposed temperament, but came quite naturally which inculcated an environment of free flowing ideas from all directions, and deepened cultural exchange. The aforementioned is further corroborated by the fact that numerous non-islamic traders and merchants lived in the Arab world and showcases the level of cooperation between the business communities.

The principles of sharia provided an articulate legal framework on the conduct of business and other activities which further deepened trust and reliability among traders from different regions mitigating the risks associated with long-distance trade.

Moreover, with the flourishing trade, academia and research too received significant patronisation. Most of which was indulged in exchange and transfer of ancient knowledge systems and innovating their own. Several times the merchants funded these initiatives apart from the rulers, and included niche subjects like astronomy, medicine, and philosophy.

INTELLECTUAL FACTORS:

With the military conquest of the middle east, came with a very important driver of the intellectual exchange and accommodative spirit for reasoning and logic, political integration. 

Because the entire region was governed by the Islamic Empire, Islam spread across freely, and this culminated with inter-cultural exchanges and since it is the religious duty for all Muslims to search for knowledge and enlightenment, their religious and ideological temperament accomodated non-Islamic knowledge systems such as the Greek, Sassanian, Roman, and Indian.

During the Abbasid-era, and especially during the reign of two enlightened caliphs, that is, caliph Al-Manṣūr and his grandson Al-Ma'mun, the translation movement took a drastic turn when it was sponsored by the state itself.

All upper classes of the Abbasid society too were involved in the translation business including courtiers, military leaders, administrative officials, merchants, and even the leading scholars who made a fortune out of their research. 

Immeasurable patronisation was granted to translators and their research. The patronisation flourished in the backdrop of its inherent benefits in medicine, agriculture, finance, and engineering and part as a social symbol of their (social elites) high stature and standing in society.

Now, the translation age did not spring out of nowhere. It had its reasons, rather genuine ones. With Arabic becoming the official language of the empire, and the Abbasid obsession with Persian culture, there was an urgency to translate all Pahlavi texts to Arabic. 

As Khalili presents the recorded expression of a translator from the Abbasid period who, when asked why he searched for Persian books to translate, is supposed to have replied: “we [the Arabs] have all the words, but they [the Persians] have all the ideas.” 

The individual impact of these factors paints a very nuanced picture and it seems it gets confined to the regional cultural and intellectual premises, but when we zoom out of the linear dimension is when we realise the true impact these factors had on world history. 

Be it the invention of the Mariner’s Compass, the developments in algebra by al-Khwarizmi, or the breakthroughs in optics by Ibn al-Haytham which even laid down base for future works of Roger Bacon and Johannes Kepler, none of these advancements would’ve been possible if it weren’t for the factors as discussed before. 

And it won’t be an exaggeration to conclude that the fusion of the eastern and western knowledge systems not only gave a rich synthesis of the two, but culminated in originating new breakthroughs in disciplines such as mathematics, architecture, arts, agriculture, engineering, astronomy, philosophy, and sciences while also transforming regional and global maritime trade networks and commerce at the idea of a technocratic world order as a part of it. 

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BY DIGVIJAY SINGH

CENTRE FOR HISTORY AND CULTURE

TEAM GEOSTRATA

info@thegeostrata.com