ISLAM-TRADE

Trade In Early Days

• Commerce had been an important part of Islamic society from the beginning.
• Muhammad himself had been a merchant, and commented that honest merchants would stand with martyrs to the faith on the Day of Judgment.

Islamic Merchants

Trade Routes

• Elaborate trade networks linked the Islamic world by the time of the Abbasid Caliphate and formed a truly hemispheric economy.
• After overrunning Sassanid Empire, Islamic merchants traded over the revived Silk Roads, trading from China to the Mediterranean.

Trade Routes

• The Umayyad and Abbasid rulers made use of existing road networks which provided routes for military forces and administrative officials traveling throughout the Islamic world.
• The roads were also useful for merchants, missionaries, and pilgrims. The roads were so efficient that by the eleventh century, Muslim rulers in Egypt regularly imported ice from Syria to Cairo.

Trade Routes

Camel Transportation

• Five camel loads of ice were delivered weekly to cool their food and drink. The primary means of transportation was the Camel, which could handle desert heat and carry relatively large loads.
• Along with camel transport, caravanserais, inns for caravan merchants and areas for animals to be rested, fed and watered, developed along the roads.

Camels and Trade

Navigation Skills

• Improved navigation learned from conquered areas enabled Arab and Persian mariners to build a substantial maritime trading enterprise.

Influences From Trade

• From the Chinese, the learned the use of the Compass; from Asian and Indian merchants, they learned the use of Lateen (triangular) sails which increase maneuverability.
• From the Mediterranean, they learned the use of the astrolabe, which enabled them to calculate latitude.

Maritime Trading

• Islamic merchants grew incredibly wealthy from maritime trading ventures.

Maritime Trade

Bibliography

• Author: Department of Arts of Africa, Oceania, and the Americas. "Trade and the Spread of Islam in Africa | Essay | Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History | The Metropolitan Museum of Art." The Met's Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Sept. 2016.