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Letters of Medieval Jewish Traders
... This value is also shown in treatises written at the time such as al-Resāla al-ṣenāʿiya (Treatise on Arts and Professions) by Mir Fendereski which mentions artistic professions from blacksmithing to philosophy but does not mention ceramics (Rizvi 2005). Textual sources (Kitab fi macrifat al-hiyal al-handasiya by Ibn al-Razzaz (al-Jazari, 1204; Translated by Hill 1974), the Geniza Archive (Goitein 1973), and Coptic papyri (Vorderstrasse 2005) show that metal vessels, especially those in gold and silver, are highly prized by the elite. Very few ceramics are mentioned in texts, except for a few porcelains which appear in the Geniza Archive (Goitein, 1973), and various Coptic papyri (Vorderstrasse, 2005). ...
... Textual sources (Kitab fi macrifat al-hiyal al-handasiya by Ibn al-Razzaz (al-Jazari, 1204; Translated by Hill 1974), the Geniza Archive (Goitein 1973), and Coptic papyri (Vorderstrasse 2005) show that metal vessels, especially those in gold and silver, are highly prized by the elite. Very few ceramics are mentioned in texts, except for a few porcelains which appear in the Geniza Archive (Goitein, 1973), and various Coptic papyri (Vorderstrasse, 2005). Gascoigne's (2013) study of cooking vessels shows the price of one pot in 1229 was 5/8 th a dirham, and 2 jugs for fat was 1.5 dirhams compared to 1/2 -5 dinars for a porcelain cup (Gascoigne 2013). ...
The thesis presents a stylistic and technological study on Western Asian ceramics dating from 1000–1500 CE. The production and consumption of ceramics is used as a proxy to explore how social practices at the local level were formulated within the broader framework of Islam. The Islamic world has been studied as a relatively cohesive whole, due to the perceived connectivity of religion. This top-down approach favors elites (economic or political), larger cities, and precious materials (silk, porcelain, metals, etc.). This bias is mirrored in archaeological research which tends to focus on large palaces/castles/mosques, capital and large cities, and prestige goods. This dissertation focuses on the full repertoire of ceramic assemblages, not just glazed wares, to emphasize the potters’ choices in creating the ceramics, as well as the consumers’ choices in acquiring and using the ceramics. Both choices (production and consumption) are influenced by a myriad of factors, including vessels’ function, environment, and socio-cultural contexts. For this dissertation, I have three main questions: (1) What is the range of ceramic technology and style across Western Asia in the Middle Islamic period? How can the study of ceramic technology elucidate the ceramic traditions existing at these sites/regions? What is the structure of ceramic craft organization in these areas? (2) How can the ceramic traditions in combination with social dimensions of ceramic production be used to connect sites, regions, and interregional areas? How does the consumption of ceramics indicate links between these areas? (3) What can the study of ceramic traditions in the Middle Islamic period tell us about the connections between rural areas and larger urban areas? This dissertation focuses on 12 ceramic assemblages from various sites across Western Asia, all dating from 1000 – 1500 CE. These ceramics are recovered from both survey and excavation of sites of different natures, including eight rural sites (Erbil Plain Archaeological Survey (seven sites), Firuzabad), three intermediate types of sites (Nippur, Hasanlu, Chal Tarkhan), and a capital city (Rayy). The majority of the assemblages are from rural sites, but a few are from non-rural sites to lend a comparative edge and help define what is and is not rural. The ceramics are analyzed using a combination of macroscopic observation, thin-section petrography, portable X-Ray fluorescence (pXRF), and Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FT-IR). These analyses are specifically selected to establish the potential provenience of the ceramics, reconstruct technical choices and social practices, and characterize production and consumption traditions. This area has been discussed as a homogenous whole (from 600 CE to present) under the assumption that the spread of Islam brought all areas under the larger cultural mainframe. However, this dissertation shows that there is heterogeneity in both ceramic consumption and production. The established overarching links do not seem to be influenced by the spread of Islam as the ceramic traditions identified (forms, fabrics, functions) also are present before the rise of Islam in these areas. This bottom-up approach marks significant contributions to Islamic Archaeology by shedding light on the diversity of dynamics that existed in local areas and among local populations and how these local dynamics play in the interconnected societies of Western Asia during the Middle Islamic period.
... Lead served a double role as a ballast and trading commodity. The carrying capacity of ships could be utilized by logical loading of mixed cargoes of heavy and light commodities, such as lead and cotton (Khalilieh, 2005: Goitein, 1973. If a ship carrying ingots was loaded in the proper way, lead was probably placed at its bottom. ...
en Shipwreck cargo of lead ingots, some marked, discovered off Tel Ashkelon, weighed about four tonnes. C14 analysis of charred wood from an ingot dated it to the 11th–13th centuries AD, Crusader times. Lead isotopic ratios provenanced the ingots to Mont‐Lozère, France. Various aspects of the lead trade are discussed, including: lead sources, extraction, casting, lead in the international maritime trade, weight units in medieval trade, prices, transportation, sale and storage, lead cargo and ballast, reconstruction of the wrecking event, salvage after the vessel was wrecked, Ashkelon as a trading coastal town in the 11th–13th centuries AD, and the possible destination of the cargo.
Abstracto
es Una carga de lingotes de plomo de un naufragio en Ascalón, Israel (Siglos XI – XIII d.C.)
Una carga de lingotes de plomo ‐ algunos marcados – descubierta en Tel Ascalón, pesó alrededor de cuatro toneladas. El análisis de carbono 14 de maderas carbonizadas halladas en un lingote arrojó una fecha de los siglos XI al XIII d.C., época de las Cruzadas. Las tasas isotópicas permitieron determinar que los lingotes provenían de Mont‐Lozère en Francia. Se discuten varios aspectos del comercio de plomo que incluyen: las fuentes de plomo, la extracción, el moldeado, el plomo en el comercio internacional marítimo, unidades de medida de peso en el comercio medieval, precios, transporte, venta y almacenamiento, carga de plomo y lastrado, reconstrucción del evento del naufragio, salvamento tras el naufragio, Ascalón como pueblo costero comercial en los siglos XI al XIII d.C. y el posible destino de la carga.
抽象
zh 以色列亚实基伦海域一艘沉船中公元11‐13世纪的铅锭
在亚实基伦遗丘附近海域发现的铅锭船货, 重约4吨, 其中一些带有标记。对附着在一块铅锭上的焦木的碳14分析确定其年代在十字军东征时代, 即公元11至13世纪。铅同位素比值证明了这些铅锭来源于法国的洛泽尔峰地区。本文探讨了铅贸易的诸多方面, 包括铅来源、提炼、铸造, 国际海运贸易中的铅、作为中世纪贸易的重量单位的铅及其价格、运输、销售和储存, 铅货和压舱物, 重建船只沉没过程及对沉船的打捞, 11至13世纪作为沿海贸易城镇的亚实基伦以及船货的可能目的地。
以色列亞實基倫海域一艘沉船中公元11‐13世紀的鉛錠
在亞實基倫遺丘附近海域發現的鉛錠船貨, 重約4噸, 其中一些帶有標記。對附著在一塊鉛錠上的焦木的碳14分析確定其年代在十字軍東征時代, 即公元11至13世紀。鉛同位素比值證明了這些鉛錠來源于法國的洛澤爾峰地區。本文探討了鉛貿易的諸多方面, 包括鉛來源、提煉、鑄造, 國際海運貿易中的鉛、作爲中世紀貿易的重量單位的鉛及其價格、運輸、銷售和儲存, 鉛貨和壓艙物, 重建船只沉沒過程及對沉船的打撈, 11至13世紀作爲沿海貿易城鎮的亞實基倫以及船貨的可能目的地。
ملخص
ar
... Reconstructions of trade routes are based on a combination of finds of material artefacts, literary, documentary and epigraphic reports, and all too often considerations of probability. In some precious few cases, like the rich cuneiform archives of the early second millennium BCE expatriate Assyrian merchant community in Anatolian Kanesh (Larsen, 2000) and the records of the Medieval Jewish merchant community recovered from Cairo Geniza (Goitein, 1974; Goitein & Friedman, 2008), we are in the fortunate situation of getting information on products, people and places over a prolonged period of time. In most cases, we need to make do with two of these categories at a single point of time. ...
Historians and archaeologists often take connectivity for granted, and fail to address the problems of documenting patterns of movement. This article highlights the methodological challenges of reconstructing trade routes in prehistory and early history. The argument is made that these challenges are best met through the application of modern models of connectivity, in combination with the conscious use of comparative approaches.
... (See Greif 1989 and Grief does not work out of a set of contracts but, rather, works out of a set of commercial correspondence derived from the Cairo Geniza. (See the documents compiled in Goitein 1967 and1973.) Greif uses these merchants' letters to identify a set of commercial practices that were distinct from the contracting practices explored here. ...
The paper explores how merchants enabled long-distance trade in the Mediterranean before and after the Black Death. The Black Death disrupted the flows of information about commercial prospects upon which merchants depended for deciding when, where, and in which commodities to trade. The disruption of information impinged how merchants contracted the services of trading agents. Using agents enabled merchants to distribute their investments and managerial energies across portfolios of ventures that networks of agents could conduct simultaneously in geographically dispersed markets. Yet agency introduced a problem of asymmetric information. Agents might cheat merchants by misreporting transactions - transactions that merchants could neither observe nor verify. In information-rich environments, merchants could effectively monitor agents and so could afford to finance the activities of their agents through contracts featuring risk-sharing. In information-poor environments such as the one attending plague, merchants could no longer monitor their agents and had to resort to simple debt contracts.
... We are thus able to provide a richer and more accurate picture of how that organization facilitated trade amongst widely-dispersed traders in the absence of a reliable legal system to enforce merchant contracts. Jewish Maghribi traders were engaged in long-distance trade all over the Muslim Mediterranean in the 10th to 12th centuries (Greif, 1989Greif, , 1993 Goitein, 1973). It was efficient to operate through overseas agents rather than having each merchant travel abroad with his goods. 1 Agency relations enabled some merchants to operate as sedentary traders, thus saving the cost and risk of sea journeys, and enabled traveling merchants to rely on agents to handle their affairs in their absence. ...
Migration flows are shaped by a complex combination of self-selection and out-selection mechanisms. In this paper, the authors analyze how existing diasporas (the stock of people born in a country and living in another one) affect the size and human-capital structure of current migration flows. The analysis exploits a bilateral data set on international migration by educational attainment from 195 countries to 30 developed countries in 1990 and 2000. Based on simple micro-foundations and controlling for various determinants of migration, the analysis finds that diasporas increase migration flows, lower the average educational level and lead to higher concentration of low-skill migrants. Interestingly, diasporas explain the majority of the variability of migration flows and selection. This suggests that, without changing the generosity of family reunion programs, education-based selection rules are likely to have a moderate impact. The results are highly robust to the econometric techniques, accounting for the large proportion of zeros and endogeneity problems.
... Furthermore, AlShiryāni – judging by his name – was a Muslim in which case the dispute was not one among Maghribi traders. Interestingly, although E&O frequently rely on the documents that Goitein (1973) A partner was obliged, if requested, to take a 'partner's oath' upon termination of the contract that he was not engaged in malfeasance or negligence with partnership assets (Goitein 1967, p. 172). A formal friend was not obliged to take such oath. ...
Edwards and Ogilvie (2008) dispute the empirical basis for the view (Greif, e.g., 1989, 1994, 2006) that multilateral reputation mechanism mitigated agency problems among the eleventh-century Maghribi traders. They assert that the relations among merchants and agents were law-based. This paper refutes this assertion using quantitative and documentary evidence thereby vindicating the position that the legal system had a marginal role in mitigating agency problems in long-distance trade in this historical era.** Edwards and Ogilvie constantly present legal actions in non-trade related legal cases as evidence for a reliance on the legal system for matters pertaining to long-distance trade. Their criticism of Greif’s documentary analysis also fails scrutiny. The claim that merchants' relations with their overseas agents were law-based is wrong. This paper is based on quantitative analyses of the corpuses containing the hundreds of documents on which the literature relies and a careful review of the documents and the literature Edwards and Ogilvie cite. Their assertion is shown to be based on unrepresentative and irrelevant examples, an inaccurate description of the literature, and a consistent misreading of the few sources they consulted. In particular, their examples for the use of the court are mainly taken from mandatory legal procedures associated with sorting out the assets and liabilities of deceased traders’ estates. Such examples do not support the claim that agency relations were law-based. The quantitative analysis reveals that empirical basis for the multilateral reputation view is stronger than originally perceived. This paper also sheds light on the roles of the legal system and reputation mechanism during this period.
Through the stories of four people who carried or traded cowrie shells, this article examines the connections between various parts of the world from a thousand years ago to the present. These connections spanned great distances, linking communities in West Africa and the Indian Ocean islands of the Maldives, and they bring to light the vast land and sea links that connected different regions of the African continent to the wider world in this period. We use cowrie shells to explore how objects participate in creating social relations, shaping senses of self and identity. When viewed in relation to the theme of connections, this offers a springboard for thinking about how things and their biographies fit within our lives today.
This study considers the textiles made, traded, and exchanged across Eurasia from late antiquity to the late Middle Ages with special attention to the socio-political and cultural aspects of this universal medium. It presents a wide range of textiles used in both domestic and religious settings, as dress and furnishings, and for elite and ordinary owners. The introduction presents historiographical background to the study of textiles and explains the conditions of their survival in archaeological contexts and museums. A section on the materials and techniques used to produce textiles if followed by those outlining textile production, industry, and trade across Eurasia. Further sections examine the uses for dress and furnishing textiles and the appearance of imported fabrics in European contexts, addressing textiles' functions and uses in medieval societies. Lastly, a concluding section on textile aesthetics connects fabrics to their broader visual and material context.
Located at the crossroads between the Western and Eastern Mediterranean, and a gateway to the Aegean and the Greek world, in its millennia of history the island of Crete has been a cultural bridge between Europe, Africa, and Asia. Birthplace of the Minoan civilisation, Homeric land of ‘one hundred cities’, capital of the Roman province of Cyrenaica, and a core region of the Byzantine Empire from the 5th to the early 9th centuries, between the 820s and 961 Crete became an integral component of the Mediterranean Islamic world, and a key ideological and military frontier (taghr) in the Aegean confrontation between Byzantium and the dar al-Islam.
Interregional long-distance trade in silk certainly existed in ancient and medieval times, but the transcontinental and regular «Great Silk Road», whether overland or even maritime, is a myth, a phantom. Its existence is not confirmed either by written sources or by archaeological data. A concept of the Silk Road implies at least knowledge of macro-routes and their final destination, as well as transcontinental connectivity. The latter, if it existed in antiquity and medieval times at all, was much more occasional than regular and intentional. As a rule, such trade involved many middlemen. The «Silk Road» and the trade in silk, even a trans-regional one, are quite different notions. The transcontinental overland trade existed in but a few short-lived historical periods; it was neither confined to silk nor was it even a road. The «silk roads» were only one of many long-distance continental and transcontinental trading itineraries that existed in the Old World in premodern times. It is also important to remember that transcontinental trade was limited only to high-value, low-volume goods. The exotic appeal of long-distance trade in luxuries combined with a striving for political correctness often results in distorted and exaggerated opinions on premodern commerce in general. Not only silk and other luxury and prestige goods, but also people, religions, languages, scientific knowledge, inventions, innovations, new technologies, know-how, chemicals, minerals, metals, plants, medicine, cultural transmissions and artistic styles and fashions, cuisine, and musical instruments moved along its numerous itineraries, but on the negative side, epidemic diseases and epizootics were also disseminated across Eurasia along with them. Finally, it is worth stressing again that the long-distance Eurasian trade not only directly or indirectly stimulated movements of people and created ethnic diasporas. Frequently it was just members of these diasporas who brought new knowledge and technological knowhow and contributed to their practical applications in the new milieus. That was the main achievement of Eurasian trade, with no continuity between the trade in silk in the ancient and medieval times.
Archaeological explorations of the meaning of ‘trade objects’, such as glass beads and cowrie shells, remain hampered by theoretical and methodological limitations in both their analyses and interpretations. In this paper, we develop a methodology for critically engaging in multi-scalar questions of the circulation, exchange, and value of cowrie shells in African archaeological contexts. Species, size, dorsal modifications, and depositional contexts were compared across five sites from South Africa dating between 750 and 1350 CE. These results were positioned within a review of cowries from archaeological sites in the region and compared to the documented distribution of cowries from wider African archaeological contexts. Monetaria annulus were the prevalent cowrie species in southern African archaeological contexts over the last 2000 years, with a notable absence of Monetaria moneta, prevalent at contemporaneous sites in West Africa, as well as a variety of endemic southern African species. Breakage patterns on the dorsal surface correspond to different modification techniques, such as chipping and grinding. Combined analyses of modification, use-wear, and depositional patterns show variation, revealing a diversity in the biographies of individual cowries. While a comparison of the distribution of cowries across the continent confirms the circulation of cowries through known trade routes, such as the trans-Saharan trade network and the European mercantile network, they also reveal new pathways for exchange that highlight the need for further exploration of intra African networks. Finally, the breadth of the results of this study demonstrates the value of a focus on a specific artefact to address a wide range of themes, from exchange to the archaeology of everyday life.
In this book, an international team of experts draws upon a rich range of Latin and Greek texts to explore the roles played by individuals at ports in activities and institutions that were central to the maritime commerce of the Roman Mediterranean. In particular, they focus upon some of the interpretative issues that arise in dealing with this kind of epigraphic evidence, the archaeological contexts of the texts, social institutions and social groups in ports, legal issues relating to harbours, case studies relating to specific ports, and mercantile connections and shippers. While much attention is inevitably focused upon the richer epigraphic collections of Ostia and Ephesos, the papers draw upon inscriptions from a very wide range of ports across the Mediterranean. The volume will be invaluable for all scholars and students of Roman history.
This article examines how, during the pre-Portuguese period, Muslim merchants dominated trading activities in South Western India, and played a significant role in polity, economy and society of the region. These Muslims traders obtained support from the local ruling families. With the emergence of the Portuguese, however, the dominant position of the Muslims changed significantly. Portuguese domination, particularly in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, contributed to the relative decline of Muslim economic and political authority in South Western India.
In the flourishing fields of World History and Global History, Maritime History has at best played an ancillary role. Although seas and oceans were not at the center of attention, they have received their monographs. Following Fernand Braudel's Méditerranée, historians interpreted the Mediterranean, Baltic, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, or Pacific as closed maritime systems, consisting of multiple microenvironments. This essay seeks to overcome these limited perspectives and to examine how the various seas and oceans were connected by the Vikings, the Cairo Genizah merchants, and the Italian trading companies of the Middle Ages.
Probe into literature indicates that there has been handful of studies on Beads of
Ancient Sri Lanka. While couple of studies surmise of bead production no study has been
confined to study bead making industry of Ancient Ruhuna. Therefore, the purpose of this
study is to examine if there was a bead making industry in Ancient Ruhuna. The study
attempts to elicit information from previous studies and findings of explorations and
excavations already taken place. The paper intends to add to our knowledge of ancient Sri
Lankan technology of bead making which is very little known and the study suggests
avenues for further study.
Cet article propose une étude des communautés juives du littoral de la Corne de l’Afrique du VIe au XIIe siècle au prisme de différentes grilles de lecture. Certes, les mécanismes de la christianisation du siècle différèrent des schémas d’adhésions au nouveau modèle social inspiré, dès le VIIe siècle, par l''Islam ; il est cependant possible d’identifier un certain nombre d’articulations. Les conséquences de ces changements politiques et religieux sur les communautés juives, entre le repli et l’abandon de l’espace public, et les influences possibles du caraïsme, cet autre judaïsme périphérique, peuvent aider à mieux percevoir le profil de ces groupes fixés sur les côtes de la Corne de l’Afrique.
“May Allah restore it to Islam.” This phrase is often encountered in medieval Arabic writings when referencing the island of Sicily after it had passed from Muslim into (Christian) Norman hands. Sicily had belonged to the dār al-Islām (the Islamic world) for over 200 years, during which the island developed strong political, commercial, and intellectual ties with its Muslim neighbors, especially North Africa.1 The Muslims knew well the many qualities of Sicily: the island was a fertile land producing huge quantities of grain and was located in a pivotal geographical position in the Mediterranean, which provided strong commercial and strategic advantages. At the end of the eleventh century, when the Normans took possession of Sicily, the Muslims considered the end of their rule over the island as a catastrophic loss. This Muslim perspective, though, is rarely taken into consideration in historical accounts of medieval Europe. The passage of the island into Christian hands has typically been presented as a positive—almost joyful—event, and the Normans have been portrayed as liberators in the narratives of medieval chroniclers such as William of Apulia, Geoffrey Malaterra, and Amatus of Montecassino.2
KeywordsMuslim PopulationIslamic WorldFertile LandMediterranean WorldMuslim LeaderThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
L'analyse de sources se rapportant à la période de domination fatimide sur Tyr révèle la complexité des rapports qui lièrent cette ville portuaire à la dynastie fatimide et le rôle singulier qu'elle joua entre 970-971 et 1124. De l'antique cité phénicienne, les auteurs arabes ne parlent guère au moment où, vers 970-971, les troupes fatimides prennent, port après port, le contrôle du littoral syro-palestinien. Tyr constituait une pièce de choix pour les nouveaux maîtres basés en Égypte et elle semblait destinée à jouer un rôle majeur dans le dispositif naval fatimide alors en pleine élaboration. Les Fatimides, dynastie chiite partie d'Ifrīqīyā avec l'objectif de chasser les Abbassides de Bagdad et de régner sur l'ensemble du monde musulman, avaient besoin de tenir fermement les ports de la côte syro-palestinienne pour en faire des points d'ancrage de leur avancée vers l'Orient. Leur ambition fut cependant déçue à mesure que les difficultés s'amoncelèrent devant eux. Les révoltes des tribus bédouines de Palestine et de Syrie, de même que l'incurie des gouverneurs, contribuèrent à contrecarrer leurs plans. La guerre civile qui manqua de renverser la dynastie au début des années 1070, les attaques byzantines, celles des Turcs seldjoukides et, enfin, le déclenchement de la première croisade, empêchèrent la réalisation de leur projet impérialiste. L'objectif devint, bien plus modestement, le maintien de la dynastie essentiellement en Égypte et sur le littoral du Bilād al-Šām, dont Tyr constituait un site majeur. Plusieurs types de sources rédigées durant la période fatimide permettent d'appréhender le rôle de cette cité portuaire, non seulement dans l'histoire de la dynastie égyptienne, mais plus largement dans l'histoire du Proche-Orient médiéval. Les documents arabes constituent assez logiquement la première source de documentation sur Tyr. Allant de l'ouvrage de géographie à la chronique historique, en passant par la relation de voyage, ces textes sont de nature très diverse 1. Certains peuvent avoir été 1. Ibn Ḥawqal (m. après 973) est originaire de Nisibe en Haute-Mésopotamie et passe au Proche-Orient dans les toutes premières années de la période fatimide. Al-Muqaddasī (ca 946-1000) est un géographe palestinien originaire de Jérusalem (Bayt al-Maqdis). Il est l'auteur de l'un des fleurons de la géographie arabe dite des Masālik wa l-mamālik (Routes et royaumes). A. Miquel, La géographie humaine du monde musulman jusqu'au milieu du XI e
From King Solomon to the Dalai Lama, from Marco Polo to Chaim Potok, from medieval Kabbalists to contemporary JuBus, there have been encounters between Buddhists and Jews for millennia. Ancient interactions are hinted at in sacred texts of both religions, and medieval links are often tantalizingly disguised. It has been only since the middle of the twentieth century – the era of the Holocaust and nuclear weapons – that the Buddhist–Jewish encounter has emerged from the shadows. Some JuBus go so far as to seek to combine the practices of Buddhism and Judaism, attempting to affirm both. Buddhists have taken Judaism's home-centeredness seriously, as this is one of the most divergent themes in the two religions, seriously.
Jewish Under Islamic Rule in the Middle Ages
Hussam Abdullah Almujalli
Abstract
Jews were welcome most time to live there under Islamic rule. The Prophet Muhammad gives Jews the political and cultural exactly as Muslims. They are also granted their freedom of religion. Thereafter, ‘Umar gives non-Muslim, including Jews their safety. The status of the Jews under Muslim rule is better than Goths during the Medieval Period. In Iberia, Muslims respect Jews. Abd al-Rahman III hired a Jewish man, Hasadai Ibn Shabrot. Samuel ibn Naghrillah is the most politically influential Jew in Muslims land in al-Andalus.
Full Text: PDF DOI: 10.15640/jisc.v2n4a4
The ability of traditional reputational mechanisms to facilitate wide scale self-enforcing exchange becomes severely limited as the number of agents, or their social distance, increases. While ex ante signaling mechanisms can be used to reduce social distance, the cost of ex ante signaling is inhibiting for traveling merchants; precisely those merchants engaging in wide scale trade. This paper extends this literature by showing how a traveling merchant can leverage the reputation of a sedentary merchant through a legal document that makes the sedentary merchant liable in their local court for any fraudulent exchanges conducted by the traveling merchant. Medieval Spain, where Christians, Jews and Muslims coexisted in close proximity under competing legal systems is used to demonstrate the operation of such a device.
During a time when religious animosities were reaching their peak in Medieval Europe leading up to the violent crusades, Christians, Jews, and Muslims residing in close proximity in Medieval Spain experienced a period of relative peace, prosperity, and cultural exchange. This historical episode, referred to as La Convivencia, or the coexistence, is a puzzle to many period historians. This paper argues that this anomalistic period arose due to the emergence of commerce, which generated cooperation and mitigated conflict among these heterogeneous groups, à la the Doux-Commerce Thesis of the Scottish Enlightenment. Commercial exchange between Christians, Jews, and Muslims was established through the use of safe-conducts, a promise of protection sold to foreign merchants. This paper details the operation of safe-conducts and the civilizing role that commerce played among Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Medieval Spain.
In contrast to almost all other Spanish cities and townships, nothing tangible survives in Granada that might be reminiscent of Judaism. There is no trace of an ancient synagogue on either side of the River Darro, neither on the hills nor on the plain. On the right bank, region of the oldest settlement, rises the hill of widest dimension, the ‘Albaicín’. On the left bank ascends the steeper hill ending in several summits: a pointed one atop the ‘Mauror’ slope is crowned by the ‘Torres Bermejas’ (Red Towers); the other, the majestic plateau ‘Sabika’, carries the Alhambra. to the west of the hills, the city on the plain spreads outwards into the valley, the ‘Vega’. No buildings in any of these areas reveal a Jewish past; Granada's urban nomenclature offers not the slightest hint of a former Jewish presence, and all current - and former - studies of Granada lack satisfactory information about the location of the historic Judaic quarter. There is no mention even of the last chief temple that must have existed until 1492, the year of the great exodus (decreed by Isabella and Ferdinand in this very city) of all the Jews from Spain. And yet, Granada, the town that has forgotten all about its Jews, is said to have once been known as ‘Garnāta-al-Yahūd’: Granada, city of the Jews, and later tradition has accepted this as a fact.I attempt in this study to show that, although some Jews lived there from Roman times, all of Granada never was a ‘city of Jews’. Second, taking as point of departure a remark in the new Encyclopedia Judaica (1971:852) that the Jewish quarter was “not located in a single place throughout the centuries of Muslim rule”. I shall show that the earlier Jewish quarters (preceding the Muslim conquest and lasting throughout the Zirid regime) were located on the Albaicín; third, it will be demonstrated that a Jewish quarter was established on the Mauror only in Nasrid times: and fourth, I shall explain why I think that the church of San Matías was built on the foundation of the last synagogue of Granada, a ‘Gima Abrahén’, which, erroneously, is believed to have been a mosque.
The paper examines the extant late-eighteenth-century accounting record books of Kantababu, a Bengali property owner and silk trader. These annual records, in part destroyed by white ants and other insects, do not make up a complete set for more than any two Bengali solar years. Yet from the available evidence it is possible to make a case that some elements of the accounting systems used by Kantababu and his clerks have similarities to medieval and later European methods and to eleventh-century methods used by Cairo merchants as evidenced by documents stored in the Genizah of the Old Cairo synagogue.
Scholars of North African Jewries have recently begun to study, rethink and challenge some of the field's terminology and conceptualisations of the Maghribi Jewish experience, including, for example, terms such as ‘Berber Jews’, ‘Arab Jews’ and even the most deeply entrenched ‘Sephardic Jews’. Such categories of analysis remain largely unexamined, despite the fact that they constitute an essential part of larger colonial and post-colonial discourses on the Islamic world and its diverse populations. In this article, I focus on one such category, ‘Saharan Jews’, and attempt to assess its meanings and articulations within the history and imagined identities of the Sahara. Using source materials including the reports of European colonial travellers, the communications of Mardochée Aby Serour to the Société de Geographie de Paris in 1870, French ethnological sources, local Arabic sources, select post-colonial writings, and blogosphere material, I debate the meaning of ‘Saharan Jews’, moving us from Sijilmasa to Timbuktu by way of the Saharan oases Tuat, Akka and other areas of Jewish settlement in the region. In these contexts, I pay particular attention to the construction of group identity through mechanisms like trade, minority–majority relations and local religious practices. As I evaluate the concept of ‘Saharan Jews’ for better understanding Jewish history in North and sub-Saharan Africa, I simultaneously call for a more nuanced approach to the social imagination of Jewish identities in post-colonial African societies.
The article aims to contribute to a wider knowledge of the Hilâl epic, a masterwork of popular Arabic literature that tells the story of a nomadic pastoral people from the Arabian deserts. The focus is on the ‘Taghrîba’ cycle, which relates the migration in the 11th century of these Sons of Hilâl to Ifrîqiyya, present-day Tunisia.
In this context reference is made to the political act of the Fatimid power that launched the Hilalians on the conquest of Ifrîqiyya, as well as to historians’ and linguists’ perception of it. But interest is centred more on the texts, which are copiously quoted, their poetic quality and their message – the expression of a tribal humanism, composed of grandeur and human dignity, particular to those desert people.
Previous studies concluded that a private‐order institution based on a multilateral reputation mechanism was particularly important in governing agency relations among the Maghribi traders who operated in the Muslim Mediterranean. The legal system and a bilateral reputation mechanism were particularly important among the Genoese traders. Initial cultural, social, and political factors led to this institutional distinction, while the incorporation of culture in the resulting institutions influenced subsequent institutional developments. In particular, the particularities of the late medieval European institutions contributed to the rise of the modern—impersonal—markets in Europe. The analysis also substantiates the contention that private‐order institutions can support sophisticated exchange and market‐promoting policies should take this into account, particularly in countries lacking an effective court system. An article by Edwards and Ogilvie challenges this analysis. It alleges that the Maghribis, like European traders, relied on court enforcement and a bilateral reputation mechanism in which a narrow social circle responded to opportunism. This article shows that Edwards and Ogilvie's analysis and conclusions are wrong. It refutes each of their empirical claims and presents additional pieces of evidence supporting the institutional distinction conjecture. The discussion is structured around the methodological challenge associated with comparative and historical institutional analysis.
A building of rural character was excavated at Khirbat al-Khurrumiya in the Upper Galilee, Israel. The pottery found there represents a household assemblage from a short occupation that can be dated to the eleventh century. The pottery types for this period in the southern Levant are not well known. This assemblage is important for helping to establish a typology of local wares from the Fatimid period.
The history of Arab papermaking is followed through the words of classical Arab writers and through the examples of paper that have survived. The characteristics. varying with time, are described and are related to paper conservation. The failure of the Arab paper industry through a number of factors, both internal and external, is traced. Résumé L'histoire de la fabrication du papier par les Arabes est connue à travers les écrits des auteurs classiques arabes et par les exemples de papier qui nous sont parvenus. Les caractéristiques, variant au cours du temps, sont décrites et rnises en relation avec la conservation du papier. La chute de l'industrie papetiàre arabe est retracée à travers un certain nombre de facteurs tan1 internes qu'externes. Zusammenfassung Die Geschichte der arabischen Papierherstellung wird anhand von Schriften klassischer arabischer Autoren und anhand von Papiermustern, die überdauert hahen. verfolgt. In ihrer zeitlichen Abfolge variierende Charakteristika werden beschrieben und aul die Papierkonservierung bezogen. Den verschiedenen internen und externen Faktoren, die zum Scheitern der arabischen Papierindustrie geführt haben, wird auf den Grund gegangen.
Early inscriptions written in Indian languages and scripts abound in Southeast Asia. Literacy in the very early states of Southeast Asia — aside from the portion of north Vietnam annexed by China — began with the importing, by local rulers, of modified cults of Buddhism or Hinduism, and the attendant adoption of Sanskrit or Pali language for the writing of religious texts. Later, in the seventh century, a broader range of texts began to appear on permanent materials, written in indigenous languages. Given the importance of religion in spearheading the development of indigenous literacy in Southeast Asia, it is not surprising that the north Indian languages of Sanskrit and Pali have had considerable long-term impact upon the linguistic and intellectual cultures of Southeast Asia.
Tantura B is by far the first early Islamic shipwreck to be discovered off the Palestinian coast. Scientific evidence indicates that this vessel sank some time between the mid-8th and the mid-9th centuries. Neither archaeological remains nor historical sources can ascertain its exact function and origin due to the lack of circumstantial documentary evidence. However, it has been argued that the vessel could be either a coaster, capable of entering rivers or estuaries, or a support vessel operating in the Arab fleet, i.e., it may have had been used for either military or civil purposes, or both.© 2005 The Nautical Archaeology Society
How did European merchants finance the Commercial Revolution? The principal narrative highlights a role for commenda contracts in enabling merchants to share risks and mobilize investment for long-distance trade. This study illuminates tradeoffs merchants and their agents encountered in choosing between equity-like schemes (commenda) and debt financing. The study works out of a dataset of 1,823 maritime contracts that span 2,676 unique contracting dyads (principal-agent pairs). The study demonstrates that it was debt, not commenda, that financed trade on the frontiers of the trade economy. It further demonstrates that most trade was conducted through one-shot relationships, not repeated relationships. The results delimit the roles of both formal and informal enforcement mechanisms in enabling long-distance trade.
Most economists doubt the operability of functional, overlapping, competing jurisdictions (FOCJ) among large groups of homogenous agents; few could be found that would hold that FOCJ would work among large groups of socially distant agents. Yet, it is under precisely those circumstances that FOCJ would offer the most benefit, allowing socially distant agents to use their own legal courts, judged according to their own law, to minimize confrontations with other groups. This paper argues that FOCJ can be used to facilitate exchange and foster quality institutions and cordially relations among large groups of socially distant agents. Medieval Spain, where Christians, Jews and Muslims resided in close proximity from approximately 711-1492 is used to provide evidence of such a system in practice.
The ability of traditional reputational mechanisms to facilitate wide scale self-enforcing exchange becomes severely limited as the number of agents, or their social distance, increases. While ex-ante signaling mechanisms can be used to reduce social distance, the cost of ex-ante signaling is inhibitive for traveling merchants; precisely those merchants engaging in wide scale trade. This paper extends the literature on self-enforcing exchange by positing a mechanism that enables a traveling merchant to leverage the reputation of a sedentary local member of a community in order to engage in exchange with the rest of the members of that local community. Medieval Spain, where Christians, Jews, and Muslims lived in close proximity under a system of overlapping competing legal jurisdictions, is used to demonstrate the operation of such a device.
Social scientists draw important lessons for modern development from the medieval Maghribi traders who, it has been argued, lacked effective legal mechanisms for contract enforcement and instead relied on informal sanctions based on collective ostracism within an exclusive coalition. We show that this claim is untenable. Not a single empirical example adduced as evidence of the putative coalition shows that a coalition actually existed. The Maghribi traders made use of the formal legal system in order to enforce agency agreements in long-distance trade. A subset of the traders did form a web of trusted business associates that contributed to informal contract enforcement, but this was very different from the hypothesized coalition, in neither being exclusive nor having a clearly defined membership. The Maghribi traders combined reputation-based sanctions with legal mechanisms, in ways that resemble the practices of medieval European merchants. We find no evidence that the Maghribi traders had more ‘collectivist’ cultural beliefs than their European counterparts.
Genetic diversity and F statistics analysis, using 9 and 5 blood group loci, respectively, were carried out on 16 Jewish populations from 5 geographic regions: East Europe, Central Europe, South Europe, Middle East and North Africa. The proportion of total diversity found within populations was 98.9% while that between populations, within geographic groups and between groups altogether was only 1.1%. The average heterozygosity between geographic groups ranged from 0.3867 to 0.4150. There were no significant differences between geographic groups of populations in heterozygosity or in its variance. Average estimates of inbreeding were as follows: Fis = 0.0419, Fst = 0.0084 and Fit = 0.0498. Because the heterogeneity and relative proportion of diversity were less between Jewish populations than between non-Jewish ones, we conclude that genetic similarity between Jews is higher than between Gentiles. The findings are in agreement with our previously obtained calculations of genetic distances (Kobyliansky, Micle, Goldschmidt-Nathan, Arensburg and Nathan 1982).
For individuals to enter mutually beneficial exchange relationships they have to recognise them as such and they have to be able to commit to fulfil their contractual obligations. The ways in which a society s institutions mitigate this fundamental problem of exchange determine its efficiency and distribution. This article calls attention to the need, ability, and promise of studying the historical evolution of institutions that mitigated the fundamental problem of exchange. It elaborates on the essence of this problem and the related institutions, and demonstrates the ability and importance of studying them by drawing on various studies of historical institutions. Our understanding of the different economic performances and evolutions of various societies over time can be greatly enhanced by studying how they mitigated the fundamental problem of exchange.
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