Economics and Trade of the Dar al-Islam and beyond of the 7th to the 14th Centuries

As I think this blog has made somewhat clear, before the Western and Northern Europeans began to dominate world trade and economics, the Islamic world was virtually THE major player in world trade. 'Old' World trade had roughly been an Eastern hegemony even before the advent of Islam.

Much of the valuable stuff of what arrived in the West of inventions and crops seems to have been first seen in the Middle East and much of that was even earlier seen in China. Paper is a classic example arriving in Europe via Islamic Spain but there has also been a trend of major food crops also moving in the same East-West direction. Citrus fruits were probably first grown in the East (in India and possibly also in China) before first being grown in the Middle East and then becoming almost a by-word for a Spanish crop and cotton, silk, rice, tea and sugar cane production also appear to have followed a roughly similar East-to-West migration pattern. Egyptian is still an epithet that at least since the 19th Century has described fine cotton. Coffee seems to have originated in the Middle East itself. The irrigation methods that the Arabs also ultimately imparted to the West were probably a combination of methods indigenous to the arid Arabian Peninsula with an influence from the engineering prowess of the Roman aqueduct builders from whom the Arabs learned.

I have previously mentioned the central position of Arabia in the 6^th Century when it came to major trading Empires. Although large scale industry was first seen in the Industrial Revolution in the West, significant trade and basic industry such as food and textile production has been a feature of the Middle East since well before then.

Trades were often taxed from the earliest times and provided major sources of income to Empires and the new Islamic Caliphate was a beneficiary of a successful and flourishing trading class once the initial disruption of the Early Islamic conquests of the 7th Century had abated.

While the Islamic world was essentially politically united for only around the period from 650 to 750, the succeeding and geographically vast if not completely united ‘Abbasid Caliphate became united in the heart of its diversity of residents by virtue of travel, religion and later trade. This continued with the Fatimid and Umayyad caliphates once the 'Abbasids completely lost political control of their territories. Especially in this early period of political unity under the Umayyads and earlier, there were linguistic and religious diversities which were, somewhat ironically, broken down as the political unity broke down over the centuries.

The Arabs were at the centre of all the trading networks and were thus able to play a key role in the transmission of ideas and culture. In the central Arab lands, certain tribal heads constituted a class of major land holders in a position to set agricultural and trade imposts due to the central location of their lands on all the major trade routes and the new political domination that Islam brought the Arabs.

Commerce was conducted in sophisticated trading arrangements by the Arabs in stages over the vast distances and many changes of transportation method often involved. Coinage had developed before the advent of Islam. The earliest ‘Islamic’ coins appear to date from the 690s issued by an Umayyad Caliph, ‘Abd al-Malik. An indication of their world-wide use is that Eastern 'Islamic’ coins dated from the 9^th to 11^th Centuries have been found in places as far away as England and Spain.

The Arabic language spread with its commerce and its credit methods first employed by especially Yemenis in their long-distance trade with relatives acting as agents in India and South East Asia. The word ‘cheque’ is thought to have its origins in the Arabic, ‘sakk’ used at this time. The Jewish inhabitants of the newly formed Islamic world were also significant traders in the new environment taking advantage of having a wide Diaspora community (the Yemenis had such a diaspora as I mentioned above but for different reasons, of course).

With commerce came the importance of various major cities. The Middle East and China originated the idea of the city in the so-called Old World and throughout this period the cities of the Middle East were larger and more numerous than in the contemporary West (and yet they were often more compact perhaps for some historical reason such as a special requirement for security). The earliest examples of cities created by Muslims appear to have been un-walled perhaps reflecting the sense of security felt at first by new converts. Walling of cities was usual at the time in other parts of the world. By the time Baghdad was being established, however, many previously un-walled cities were being walled. Nevertheless they tended to grow beyond their walls. Twelfth century Cairo is thought to have been the largest city in the world in that century (in terms of both area and population). The plague became common in city conditions and quarantine measures are mentioned in Hadith demonstrating advanced science for the 6^th century. Homes in the cities of Islam had piped water. The fortunes of a city depended upon both politics and economics in this period as they arguably continue to do. I think I need to add to this section but for now that's it on economics and trade (and the extra bit on cities).

In the next post and those following, as promised, I will begin to explain what science this economically successful and culturally diverse but in a major sense united but politically divided realm of Islam was doing in this period (and perhaps why it stopped doing it (if I can work that out)).