The development of ideas, beliefs, and religions illustrates how groups in society view themselves, and the interactions of societies and their beliefs often have political, social, and cultural implications

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Explain the effects of the growth of networks of exchange after 1200.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

K.C.-3.1.III.B.--In key places along important trade routes, merchants set up diasporic communities where they introduced their own cultural traditions into the indigenous cultures and, in turn, indigenous cultures influenced merchant cultures.

K.C.3.2.II.A.iii.--Interregional contacts and conflicts between states and empires encouraged significant technological and cultural transfers, including during Chinese maritime activity led by Ming Admiral Zheng He.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES

Diasporic communities:

§ Arab and Persian communities in East Africa

§ Chinese merchant communities in Southeast Asia

§ Malay communities in the Indian Ocean basin

The environment shapes human societies, and as populations grow and change, these populations in turn shape their environments.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Explain the role of environmental factors in the development of networks of exchange in the period from c. 1200 to c. 1450.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

K.C.-3.1.II.A.i.--The expansion and intensification of long distance trade routes often depended on environmental knowledge, including advanced knowledge of the monsoon winds.

As societies develop, they affect and are affected by the ways that they produce, exchange, and consume goods and services.

LEARNING OBJECTIVE

Explain the causes of the growth of networks of exchange after 1200.

HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENTS

K.C.-3.1.I.A.ii.--Improved transportation technologies and commercial practices led to an increased volume of trade and expanded the geographical range of existing trade routes, including the Indian Ocean, promoting the growth of powerful new trading cities.

K.C.3.1.I.C.ii.--The growth of interregional trade in luxury goods was encouraged by significant innovations in previously existing transportation and commercial technologies, including the use of the compass, the astrolabe, and larger ship designs.

K.C.3.1.I.A.iii--The Indian Ocean trading network fostered the growth of states.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES

Growth of states:

§ City-states of the Swahili Coast

§ Gujarat

§ Sultanate of Malacca

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES

Diasporic communities:

§ Arab and Persian communities in East Africa

• east Africa contributed gold, ivory, and slaves

• southwest Asia incense, horses, and dates

§ Chinese merchant communities in Southeast Asia

• China produced silk, porcelain, and lacquerware

• southeast Asian lands provided fine spices

§ Malay communities in the Indian Ocean basin

• Indian artisans had enjoyed a reputation for the manufacture of fine cotton textiles, which they produced in small quantities for wealthy consumers.

• Muslim merchants, many of them Indians, established trading communities in the important port cities of the region.

• use of the compass

  • • Early uses were for divination as early as Chinese Han dynasty since about 206 BCE

    • China may have been the first civilization to develop a magnetic compass that could be used for navigation. Chinese scientists may have developed navigational compasses as early as the 11th or 12th century. Western Europeans soon followed at the end of the 12th century.

    • China: The earliest explicit recorded use of a magnetic compass for maritime navigation is found in Zhu Yu’s book Pingchow Table Talks (萍洲可談; Pingzhou Ketan) and dates from 1111 to 1117: The ship's pilots are acquainted with the configuration of the coasts; at night they steer by the stars , and in the daytime by the sun. In dark weather they look at the south pointing needle

    • Europe: Alexander Neckam reported the use of a magnetic compass for the region of the English Channel in the texts De utensilibus and De naturis rerum, written between 1187 and 1202, after he returned to England from France

    • The earliest Arabic reference to a compass, in the form of magnetic needle in a bowl of water, comes from a work by Baylak al-Qibjāqī, written in 1282 while in Cairo. Al-Qibjāqī described a needle-and-bowl compass used for navigation on a voyage he took from Syria to Alexandria in 1242.

• the astrolabe

  • • Invented during the Hellenistic era between 220-150 BCE

    • Developed further during the medieval Muslim era to aid in navigation and determine the direction of the Qibla, in Mecca.

    • A simplified astrolabe, known as a balesilha, was used by sailors to get an accurate reading of latitude while out to sea. The use of the balesilha was promoted by Prince Henry (the Navigator) (1394–1460) while out navigating for Portugal.

• larger ship designs

  • • the dhows-- (fitted with lateen sails) favored by Indian, Persian, and Arab sailors averaged about one hundred tons burden in 1000 and four hundred tons in 1500.

    • junks --After the naval and commercial expansion of the Song dynasty, large Chinese and southeast Asian junks also sailed the Indian Ocean: some of them could carry one thousand tons of cargo.

• advanced knowledge of the monsoon winds.

  • • summer monsoon -- goods to ship east

    • winter monsoon -- goods to ship west

    • mariners increasingly entrusted their crafts and cargoes to the reasonably predictable monsoons

    • it was impossible to make a round trip across the entire Indian Ocean without spending months at distant ports waiting for the winds to change, so merchants usually conducted their trade in stages.

ILLUSTRATIVE EXAMPLES

Growth of states:

§ City-states of the Swahili Coast

• Swahili is an Arabic term meaning “coasters,” referring to those who engaged in trade along the east African coast

• Swahili society attracted increasing attention from Islamic merchants. From the interior regions of east Africa, the Swahili obtained gold, slaves, ivory, and exotic local products such as tortoise shells and leopard skins, which they traded for pottery, glass, and textiles that Muslim merchants brought from Persia, India, and China.

• Mogadishu, Lamu, Malindi, Mombasa, Zanzibar, Kilwa, Mozambique, and Sofala. Each of those sites developed into a powerful city-state governed by a king who supervised trade and organized public life in the region

• the ruling elites and the wealthy merchants of east Africa converted to the Islamic faith.

• Islam served as a fresh source of legitimacy for their rule, since they gained recognition from Islamic states in southwest Asia, and their conversion opened the door to political alliances with Muslim rulers in other lands. Even though the conversion of elite classes did not bring about the immediate spread of Islam throughout their societies, it enabled Islam to establish a presence in east Africa under the sponsorship of some particularly influential patrons

§ Gujarat

• region maintained centralized imperial rule after collapse of the Gupta dynasty in central western India.

• King Harsha (reigned 606–648 C.E.) temporarily restored unified rule in most of northern India and sought to revive imperial authority.

  • • Harsha exchanged a series of embassies with his contemporary, Emperor Tang Taizong of China

    • Harsha enjoyed a reputation for piety, liberality, and even scholarship.

    • Harsha was himself a Buddhist, but he looked kindly on other faiths as well.

    • Harsha built hospitals and provided free medical care for his subjects.

    • Harsha also generously patronized scholars

• region came under Islamic control in the 1200s Arab merchants settling along the western coast strengthened trade relationships with Mamluk Egypt.

• Ibn Battuta wrote of his visit to the city of Cambay, "Cambay is one of the most beautiful cities as regards the artistic architecture of its houses and the construction of its mosques. The reason is that the majority of its inhabitants are foreign merchants, who continually build their beautiful houses and wonderful mosques – an achievement in which they endeavor to surpass each other."

§ Sultanate of Malacca

• During the fifteenth century the spread of Islam gained momentum in southeast Asia, largely because the powerful state of Melaka sponsored the faith throughout the region.

• Founded during the late fourteenth century by Paramesvara, a rebellious prince from Sumatra, Melaka took advantage of its strategic location in the Strait of Melaka, near modern Singapore, and soon became prominent in the trading world of southeast Asia.

• During its earliest days Melaka was more a lair of pirates than a legitimate state. By the mid-fifteenth century, however, Melaka had built a substantial navy that patrolled the waters of southeast Asia and protected the region’s sea-lanes.

• Melakan fleets compelled ships to call at the port of Melaka, where ruling authorities levied taxes on the value of their cargoes.

• Melaka became a powerful state through the control of maritime trade.

• the mid-fifteenth century the Melakan ruling class converted to Islam.

• It welcomed theologians, Sufis, and other Islamic authorities to Melaka and sponsored missionary campaigns to spread Islam throughout southeast Asia.

• By the end of the fifteenth century, mosques had begun to define the urban landscapes of Java, Sumatra, and the Malay peninsula, and Islam had made its first appearance in the spice-bearing islands of Maluku and in the southern islands of the Philippine archipelago