Priestman, 2015: Indian Ocean Exchange Networks during the Early Centuries of Islam: Economic Staple or Irrelevance? (original) (raw)
Related papers
Sea-Trade and Muslim Merchants: A Study of South India (c. 1000- c.1500)
IOSR Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 2014
It is erroneous to think that Islam expanded in India only through sword or spirituality. Indian sea trade remained an important constituent of this expansion. Rulers of south India were beset with great challenges around eleventh century when the Hindu scriptures abhorred sea trade and the Christian and Jew communities were unable to control the huge volume of Indian sea trade. As a result, Muslims from western Asia were invited and encouraged to settle down in the coastal areas. These merchants married with local women and new class of Indian Muslims namely Mapillas and Lubbais emerged. These Indian Muslims were even differentiated from the foreigners (pardesis) in contemporary records. It is therefore wrong to study these Indian Muslims as Diasporas or foreigners. The expansion of Islam in Africa, Asia and Europe helped these communities to link their trading networks to distant areas, expanding the revenue basis of south Indian rulers. Indian Muslims in south India denotes important constituent of foreign (sea) trade policy until European introduced state sponsored piratical activities to control the Indian sea trade after 1498 AD.
Trade and Geography in the Origins and Spread of Islam
2012
This research examines the economic origins and spread of Islam in the Old World and uncovers two empirical regularities. First, Muslim countries and ethnic groups exhibit highly unequal regional agricultural endowments. Second, Muslim adherence is systematically higher along the pre-Islamic trade routes. We discuss the possible mechanisms that may give rise to the observed pattern and provide a simple theoretical argument that highlights the interplay between an unequal geography and proximity to lucrative trade routes. We argue that these elements exacerbated inequalities across diverse tribal societies producing a conflictual environment that had the potential to disrupt trade flows. Any credible movement attempting to centralize these heterogeneous populations had to offer moral and economic rules addressing the underlying economic inequalities. Islam was such a movement. In line with this conjecture, we utilize anthropological information on precolonial traits of African ethnicities and show that Muslim groups have distinct economic, political, and societal arrangements featuring a subsistence pattern skewed towards animal husbandry, more equitable inheritance rules, and more politically centralized societies with a strong belief in a moralizing God.
2013
This thesis examines the Early Roman ‘India trade’ in the Indian Ocean during the Late Pre-Islamic period through a holistic overview of excavated trading sites with an emphasis on ceramic studies. It attempts to look at the economic relations between the southeast Arabian seaboard and India, and enquires into the development and nature of the trade. This has been executed through the documentation of forms and detailed fabric analysis and quantification of Indian pottery assemblages from three sites in the UAE (Mleiha, Ed-Dur and Kush) and three sites from South Arabia and Oman (Khor Rori, Qana and Suhar). This research seeks to develop a more reliable definition of the types of wares based on an evaluation of morphology and fabric. The results are compared with select parallels of Indian pottery from a number of trading settlements particularly in western and southern India, combining both coastal and hinterland sites. The thesis also includes a technical sourcing investigation into the origin of the Indian wares occurring in the Arabian and Indian contexts using XRF analysis. Finally this thesis attempts a desk-based assessment of published data concerning ceramics from excavated sites from the Red Sea region, African ports and Arabia, particularly the sites with archaeological and historical evidence indicating trade with Peninsular India. The thesis thus constitutes a wider regional case study of Indian ceramic data as a reliable indicator of Indian Ocean trade in the Late Pre-Islamic period.
Sea-Trade and Muslim Merchants: A Study of South India
It is erroneous to think that Islam expanded in India only through sword or spirituality. Indian sea trade remained an important constituent of this expansion. Rulers of south India were beset with great challenges around eleventh century when the Hindu scriptures abhorred sea trade and the Christian and Jew communities were unable to control the huge volume of Indian sea trade. As a result, Muslims from western Asia were invited and encouraged to settle down in the coastal areas. These merchants married with local women and new class of Indian Muslims namely Mapillas and Lubbais emerged. These Indian Muslims were even differentiated from the foreigners (pardesis) in contemporary records. It is therefore wrong to study these Indian Muslims as Diasporas or foreigners. The expansion of Islam in Africa, Asia and Europe helped these communities to link their trading networks to distant areas, expanding the revenue basis of south Indian rulers. Indian Muslims in south India denotes important constituent of foreign (sea) trade policy until European introduced state sponsored piratical activities to control the Indian sea trade after 1498 AD.
The Indian trade between the Gulf and the Red Sea
Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean
This essay evaluates the relative importance of the maritime trade between the Roman Empire and India along two routes that were in use: one started and ended on the Egyptian shore of the Red Sea, the other at the head of the Gulf. Both continued on land along caravan tracks to the Nile valley or through the Syrian desert to Palmyra. The latter land route, longer and presumably more cost-consuming, was used only during the 1st to 3rd centuries AD. The land link with the Far East, the so-called Silk Road, does not seem to have been regularly used. A document from Palmyra allows to estimate the value of the trade along the Syrian route as much smaller than that of the Red Sea traffic. It could have been mainly of local, Syrian importance, and lasted only as long as political circumstances allowed.
Africa and the Indian Ocean Past in High Definition, Aarhus, Denmark, 7th December 2018
Certain key assumptions surrounding the discussion of Indian Ocean maritime exchange have been so widely and frequently repeated that they have entered the realm of common knowledge. Yet it is also clear that the terms of reference applied often appear rather narrow. A basic assumption has been made that maritime exchange occurred frequently, in large volumes and over long distances, and that it constituted a substantial source of revenue that state structures benefited from on a significant scale. A clear narrative has also been established around perceived stages in the growth and intensification of long-distance exchange in which textual and archaeological finds such as the 9th century Belitung wreck and the accounts of seafaring adventure in sources such as the Akhbar al-sin wa’l-hind neatly coalesce. The point of departure here is not so much to say that the prevailing reconstruction needs to reconsidered, but simply to emphasise that it needs to be tested from an evidential perspective. One of the important means of doing so is via quantitative analysis of long-terms changes in patterns of ceramic exchange. The examination of this unedited record of economic behaviour from coastal settlements in East Africa and the Persian Gulf is starting to reveal important information not only concerning differences in the intensity of ceramic exchange between site, but also in the operation of intersecting networks functioning on a local, regional and trans-regional scale. Via this analysis we can begin to unpick some of the underlying organisational characteristics of Indian Ocean exchange.
Oman and Islamic Maritime Networks 632-1507
Oman A Maritime History, 2017
This chapter discusses Oman’s role in the rise of maritime activity during the Early through Middle Islamic periods (630-1507 CE), as it became integrated into a larger series of emerging maritime networks in the Indian Ocean and West Pacific. In particular, it emphasizes the shifting a series of relationships with East Africa, South Asia, Iraq and the Iranian mainland, highlighting the increasing cultural diversity of the Islamic Indian Ocean littoral societies reflected in Oman. Trade prospered as direct trade with China and India flourished, and Oman became increasingly integrated into both East African, Southwest Asian and Indian economies. It also examines the diverse political landscape as Islamic maritime societies became a dominant force in the Indian Ocean, and polities shifted from Caliphal tributary states and Imamates to merchant city states.