• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

By Root 656 0

Goitein has shown, they were major participants in Indian Ocean trade. So also in the Gulf, where in the tenth century in the briefly important port of Sohar there was a large Jewish community. However, the main traders here were Ibadi Muslims from Oman, who ventured to ports all around the Arabian Sea.108 At its height Siraf had some fabulously wealthy merchants. In the early twelfth century Abul Qasim Ramisht, who traded as far as China, was very wealthy. The silver plate his family ate out of reputedly weighed about one ton.109 Later in our period in the Gulf, Hurmuz was one of the great cosmopolitan cities with a great variety of traders: some Europeans and Hindus, Muslims from various areas, but the majority of them local, that is Persians. In Gujarat the interior trade, and the domestic markets, were largely controlled by Hindus and Jains, and they also engaged in oceanic trade to an extent. However, more important were a bewildering variety of Muslims: local people, Persians, still some Arabs, others from Bengal. Both here and in Calicut it seems that the long-distance trade was handled mostly by 'foreign' Muslims, who were able to draw on far-flung family connections, while local converts were more likely to engage in coastal and inland trade. Around the corner, on the Coromandel coast, we find a larger role for Hindu traders, especially klings, who were south Indian Hindus more correctly called Marakkayars. Some members of the community had converted to Islam, and were known as chulias.110 Bengal, however, had an important Persian merchant community. Melaka, as the greatest market, had the greatest variety of merchants: all sorts of Muslims, and Hindus from both Coromandel and Gujarat, plus local people from the Malay world, most of them now Muslim, and of course Chinese traders.

What was the position of these merchant communities in these great markets? Ibn Battuta again will provide an entrée to the topic. He left several detailed accounts which show the typical situation. In 1330 he arrived at Mogadishu:

It is the custom of the people of this town that, when a vessel reaches the anchorage, the sumbuqs, which are small boats, come out to it. In each sumbuq there are a number of young men of the town, each one of whom brings a covered platter containing food and presents it to one of the merchants on the ship, saying 'This is my guest,' and each of the others does the same. The merchant, on disembarking, goes only to the house of his host among the young men, except those who have made frequent journeys to the town and have gained some acquaintance with its inhabitants; these lodge where they please. When he takes up residence with his host, the latter sells his goods for him and buys for him; and if anyone buys anything from him at too low a price or sells to him in the absence of his host, that sale is held invalid by them. This practice is a profitable one for them.111

A little later he arrived in Zafari, that is Khafar or Dofar, in southwest Oman:

The population of Zafari are engaged in trading, and have no livelihood except from this. It is their custom that when a vessel arrives from India or elsewhere, the sultan's slaves go down to the shore, and come out to the ship in a sumbuq, carrying with them a complete set of robes for the owner of the vessel or his agent, and also for the rubban, who is the captain, and for the kirai who is the ship's writer. Three horses are brought for them, on which they mount [and proceed] with drums and trumpets playing before them from the seashore to the sultan's residence, where they make their salutations to the vizier and amir jandar. Hospitality is supplied to all who are in the vessel for three nights, and when the three nights are up they eat in the sultan's residence. These people do this in order to gain the goodwill of the shipowners....112

And finally some years later in the Maldives:

It is a custom of theirs when a vessel arrives at their island that kanadir, that is to say small boats, go out to meet them, loaded with people from the island carrying