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to take others on to India. He finally got to a city in Malabar, 'but riots and bloodshed occurred, and whoever was in the town fled.' He and his companions loaded their cargo of iron and textiles during the night and fled to Fakaner, also in Malabar, and from there to Quilon, or Kulam, in the extreme south. From there they set off for Aden, but the captain was already ill. After ten days they ran into difficulties off the northern Laccadives. Then 'the captain had a stroke and died. We threw his body overboard into the sea. So the boat remained without a commander... and we had no charts.' The terrified passengers insisted on returning to Kulam. There they were well treated and set off again for Aden. They got there early in the season, so he sold his iron and spices very well. However, he wanted to take pepper back to Cairo, and it was very dear in Aden, so he decided to go back to India to buy it. In this ship he took to India he chartered space to hold 150 bahars for the return voyage back to Aden.138

We have discussed extensively the extent to which the rulers of the port cities intervened to advantage themselves or their trade. We have already noticed some rulers or agents of larger political structures intervening from time to time, and we can conclude with a more general discussion of wider political factors which affected trade by sea. We will look particularly at the matter of the effects of the rise and decline of landed empires on sea trade. In this the influence of a recent trend in European history will be evident. This aims to bring the state back in to explain at least in part economic exchange and development: it is not just a matter of the unseen hand of the market.139

Historians have been particularly interested in the fact that on two occasions during our period great empires provided security and a market for luxuries in different parts of the Indian Ocean world. The huge trade between China and the Abbasid empire has been linked to the rise and florescence of the Abbasid state after 750, and a similar situation with the T'ang dynasty in China from 618–907. The Fatimids in Egypt, the Colas in South India, and the Song in China produced the same effect in the eleventh and twelfth centuries.

There certainly seems to be some connection between flourishing trade and stable empires, albeit one hard to quantify. Such empires usually got most of their revenue from the land, not the sea, and prevailing norms were usually hostile, or at least indifferent, to sea trade and merchants, as we pointed out at the beginning of this chapter (see pages 62–3). Yet merchants did provide customs revenues, and perhaps more important brought curiosities and preciosities to the court. More generally, a strong, stable empire obviously has advantages for economic activity in general, including sea trade. Some states were actually quite interventionist. Srivijaya controlled the straits of Melaka for some time. In the early eleventh century the Cola state in south India responded to this with devastating raids. Thirteen ports in the Malay peninsula, Sumatra and the Nicobar Islands were attacked by Rajendra Cola.

The decline of empires usually produces much confusion, and this may be detrimental to trade, though on the other hand as an empire declines it will release hoarded wealth with which to defend itself, thereby increasing liquidity. Some notable episodes in the decline of these empires no doubt did impact on trade. In its last few decades the T'ang dynasty was less stable, and Guangzhou was sacked and foreign merchants massacred in 878 by a rebel army. At this same time, in 868–83, the Zanj slaves in lower Mesopotamia rebelled, and this is considered to have contributed to Abbasid decline. Later, the coup de grâce for the Abbasids, that is the sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1258, may have disrupted trade, though this claim is open to doubt. The other great example of politics intervening in the ocean in our period is the cessation of Zheng He's voyages in the 1430s as a result of a change in Ming policy. The