Spice Trade - Arab Trade and Medieval Europe

Arab Trade and Medieval Europe

Rome played a part in the spice trade during the 5th century, but this role, unlike the Arabian one, did not last through the Middle Ages. The rise of Islam closed off the overland caravan routes through Egypt and the Suez, and Arab merchants particularly from Egypt eventually took over conveying goods via the Levant to Europe.

The Spice trade had brought great riches to the Abbasid Caliphate, and even inspired famous legends such as that of Sinbad the Sailor. These early sailors and merchants would often set sail from the port city of Basra and eventually after many voyages they would return to sell their goods including spices in Baghdad. The fame of many spices such as nutmeg and cinnamon are attributed to these early Spice merchants.

The Indian commercial connection with South East Asia proved vital to the merchants of Arabia and Persia during the 7th and 8th centuries. Arab traders—mainly descendants of sailors from Yemen and Oman—dominated maritime routes throughout the Indian Ocean, tapping source regions in the Far East - linking to the secret "spice islands" (Maluku Islands and Banda Islands). The islands of Molucca also find mention in several records: a Javanese chronicle (1365) mentions the Moluccas and Maloko; and navigational works of the 14th and 15th centuries contain the first unequivocal Arab reference to Moluccas. Sulaima al-Mahr writes: "East of Timor are the islands of Bandam and they are the islands where nutmeg and mace are found. The islands of cloves are called Maluku ....."

Moluccan products were then shipped to trading emporiums in India, passing through ports like Kozhikode, and through Sri Lanka. from there they were shipped westward across the ports of Arabia to the Near East, to Ormus in Persian Gulf and Jeddah in the Red Sea and sometimes shipped to East Africa, where they would be used for many purposes, including burial rites. The Abbasids used Alexandria, Damietta, Aden and Siraf as entry ports to India and China. Merchants arriving from India in the port city of Aden paid tribute in form of musk, camphor, ambergris and sandalwood to Ibn Ziyad, the sultan of Yemen.

Indian spice exports find mention in the works of Ibn Khurdadhbeh (850), al-Ghafiqi (1150), Ishak bin Imaran (907) and Al Kalkashandi (14th century). Chinese traveler Hsuan Tsang mentions the town of Puri where "merchants depart for distant countries."

From there, overland routes led to the Mediterranean coasts. From the 8th until the 15th century, the Republic of Venice and neighboring maritime republics held the monopoly of European trade with the Middle East. The silk and spice trade, involving spices, incense, herbs, drugs and opium, made these Mediterranean city-states phenomenally rich. Spices were among the most expensive and in-demand products of the Middle Ages, used in medicine. They were all imported from Asia and Africa. Venetian merchants distributed then the goods through Europe until the rise of the Ottoman Empire, that eventually led to the fall of Constantinople in 1453, barring Europeans from important combined land-sea routes.

Read more about this topic:  Spice Trade

Famous quotes containing the words arab, trade, medieval and/or europe:

    I saw the Arab map.
    It resembled a mare shuffling on,
    dragging its history like saddlebags,
    nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.
    Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)

    Conversation is a traffick; and if you enter into it, without some stock of knowledge, to ballance the account perpetually betwixt you,—the trade drops at once: and this is the reason ... why travellers have so little [good] conversation with natives,—owing to their [the natives’] suspicion ... that there is nothing to be extracted from the conversation ... worth the trouble of their bad language.
    Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)

    Our medieval historians who prefer to rely as much as possible on official documents because the chronicles are unreliable, fall thereby into an occasionally dangerous error. The documents tell us little about the difference in tone which separates us from those times; they let us forget the fervent pathos of medieval life.
    Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)

    In times like ours, where the growing complexity of life leaves us barely the time to read the newspapers, where the map of Europe has endured profound rearrangements and is perhaps on the brink of enduring yet others, where so many threatening and new problems appear everywhere, you will admit it may be demanded of a writer that he be more than a fine wit who makes us forget in idle and byzantine discussions on the merits of pure form ...
    Marcel Proust (1871–1922)