Rdg_03a2

Unit 03: Era of Exchange & Encounter

Ch.10

The development of trade in Asia and the Middle East

"In the Abbasid period, the great center [of commerce and trade] for the whole of the East was
Baghdad, to be replaced after the eleventh century by Cairo, while the distant countries of the Muslim
West also had their own activities, though in smaller scale. From Iraq and Persia their ships sailed to the
Yemen and on to East Africa, where they went behind Zanzibar and the Comoro Islands. Sailing
eastwards, they reached India and eventually Malaysia and China (Canton).
The Hindus and Chinese, for their part, occasionally visited the Muslim ports, or, more often,
came to Ceylon or Malaysia to meet merchants from the West. After the disturbances in China that led to
the massacre of the merchant colony in Canton at the end of the ninth century, these intermediatemeeting places became customary for a time although direct links with China were gradually reestablished. Merchandise brought to Iraq was largely absorbed by the court and the wealthy local
aristocracy; a certain proportion however was sent on by caravan to the ports of Syria or Egypt, destined
for the Christian and Muslim countries of the Mediterranean; some goods were also sent by land or sea
from Syria direct to Constantinople, and from there re-distributed to Eastern Europe and Byzantine Italy."
From:
P. M. Holt, Ann K S Lambton and Bernard Lewis, eds., The Cambridge History of Islam Vol. 2, London, Cambridge at the
University Press, 1970, p.323.