Global History

Lecture:

(Slide 1) In the late 1270s, two Christian monks Bar Sawma and Markos, voyaged into the heart of Islam. They were not Europeans. They were Uighurs, a Turkish people of central Asia, many of whom had converted to Christianity centuries earlier. They had been sent by Mongol ruler Kubilai Khan as he prepared to become the first emperor of China Yuan dynasty. The monks were supposed to worship at the temple in Jerusalem, but Khan had other motives, too. He was eager to conquer Jerusalem so he dispatched the monks as agents to make alliances with Christian kings in the area and gather intelligence.

By 1280, conflict and conquest had transformed many parts of the world, but more important was trade. Indeed, Bar Sawma and Markos lingered at the trading hub of Kashgar in western China, where caravan routes converged in a market for jade, exotic spices, and precious silks. At Baghdad, the monks parted ways. Markos went on to Constantinople, Rome, and Paris before returning to China. Voyages like this exemplified the crisscrossing of people, money, and goods along the trade routes and sea-lanes that connected the world’s regions. Just as religious conflict was a hallmark of this age, so was a surge in trade, migration, and global exchange.

(Slide 2) This period brought to a climax many centuries of human development, and it ushered in a new, very long cycle of cultural interaction from which these themes emerged:

1. Trade shifted from land-based routes to sea-based routes

2. Intensified trade and linguistic and religious integration generated world’s four major cultural “spheres”: China, India, Islamic worlds, and Europe.

3. Rise of Mongol Empire led to Mongols ruling over much land in world’s major cultural spheres.

(Slides 3 & 4) Commercial Connections

Revolutions at Sea

By the 10th century, sea routes were eclipsing land networks for long-distance trade because of improved navigational aids, refinements in shipbuilding, better mapmaking, and new legal arrangements and accounting practices. Arab dhows (ships with triangle-shaped sails, which maximize Monsoon trade winds on Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean) could transport 5 tons of cargo. New navigational instruments spurred this boom, especially the needle compass (originally a Chinese invention). Thus, shipping became less dangerous. And many profited. The Fatimid caliphate in Egypt supported armed convoys of ships escorted commercial fleets in a system called karim (a loose confederation of shippers banding together to protect convoys). This regularized ocean traffic. All of this led to demise of overland routes, including the famed Silk Road

Commercial Contacts

The opening of sea lanes led to major innovations in world agriculture. New strains of cereals (from the New World) led to cultivation in vast areas of land that had been too cold and arid, previously.

Global Commercial Hubs

Long-distance trade spawned growth of commercial cities called entrepots (transshipment centers, located between borders or in ports, where traders exchanged commodities and replenished supplies). In the late 10th c., the Egyptian port cities of Alexandria and Cairo, the Chinese city of Quanzhou, the Malaysian city of Melaka, and the Indian peninsular port city of Quilon all became major anchorages of maritime trade. They were run by dynastic families that wanted to generate wealth for their regimes.

Cairo and Alexandria were the Mediterranean’s main maritime commercial centres. Both were home to Muslim and Jewish trading firms. Silk yarn and textiles were the most popular commodities, much of which was acquired from China. Besides these items, the cities also traded oils, glassware, metals, perfumes and gemstones, chemicals for dyeing or tanning and legal and religious scholarship in a variety of languages. The Islamic legal system promoted a favorable business environment and formed partnerships between those who had capital to lend and those who needed money. Capital owners entrusted money with agents who, after completing the work, returned the investment and a share of the profits to owners. In China, Quanzhou was as busy as Cairo and Alexandria. The Song government set up offices in return for a portion of the taxes obtained from the sale of goods. All foreign traders were guests of the governor and many stayed on to manage their affairs. Traders could be powerbrokers in their own right. The Pu family owned several hundred ships and for generations made donations for public projects and to build religious buildings. In Melaka, traders sold tropical produce and handicraft items from the Malayan islands. The city was very cosmopolitan hosting a number of diverse groups of merchants and sailors. In the Indian city of Quilon dhows arrived with goods from the Red Sea and Africa, as well as China and other east Asian countries. Muslims were the largest foreign group in Quilon and had their own neighborhoods. They shipped horses from the Arabian peninsula for Indian royal houses.

(Slides 5 & 6) Sub-Saharan Africa comes together

During this period (1000-1300) Sub-Saharan Africa became integrated into the world economy. Africans and outsiders overcame the sea, river and desert barriers that had blocked sub-Saharan people from participating in long-distance trade.

West Africa and the Mande-Speaking Peoples

Once the camel bridged the Sahara Desert, the flow of commodities and ideas linked sub-Saharan Africa to the Muslim world of North Africa and Southwest Asia (today’s Middle East). Mande-speaking peoples emerged as the primary agents for integration within and beyond West Africa. The Mande came from an area earlier ruled by the kingdom of Ghana and later the Mali (see below). The Mande spread their cultural, commercial, and political weight across Saharan Africa. By broadening their reach to the Atlantic coast they had access to various items from the Mediterranean. They also dominated the Saharan Desert trade of gold, salt, and other expensive and valuable goods.

The Empire of Mali

Mali was the Mande successor state to the kingdom of Ghana. The Mali were horse warriors and Sundiata their most important king (14th century). He conquered with cavalry units and made the horse a prestige symbol of state power. The Mali empire brought West Africa into the global trading world and made its rulers and elites powerful, much of which became supported by slave labor and gold mining. The Mali empire boasted two large cities: Jenne and Timbuktu. Famed for scholarship, cosmopolitan culture, and religious architecture, both cities thrived during this period.

East Africa and the Indian Ocean

Africa’s eastern and southern regions were also integrated into long-distance trading systems. Monsoon winds more or less stopped at the East African coast so the Indian Ocean trade system naturally stopped there, too. Swahili peoples living across the coast became brokers for trade coming and going from the Arabian peninsula. The most valued commodity in this system was gold. Shona-speaking people grew rich from mining the gold and built the city of Great Zimbabwe to showcase their wealth. And on Madagascar seafarers created a cosmopolitan island state that was a popular stopover for traders crossing the Indian Ocean.

The Trans-Saharan and Indian Ocean Slave Trade

African slaves were as valuable as African gold in shipments to the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean markets. Once Islam spread into Africa and sailing techniques improved, the slave trade across the Sahara Desert and Indian Ocean boomed. Some slaves were prisoners of war; others were considered criminals and sold into slavery as punishment. Duties varied. Some were pressed into military service; others worked as crew on ships or dockworkers. Women were often domestic servants and still others concubine to political figures and rich business elites. In lower Iraq, slaves worked on agricultural estates.

(Slides 7 & 8) Islam in a Time of Political Fragmentation

Islam underwent a burst of expansion, prosperity, and cultural diversification that wept through the rest of Afro-Eurasia. But while prosperity fostered greater integration elsewhere, the Islamic world remained politically fractured.

Becoming the “Middle East”

Commercial networks sustained by Muslim merchants carried Islam far and wide. Decisive in the spread of Islam was a popular, emotional form of the religion, highly mystical and communal, called Sufism. The term Sufi comes from the Arabic word for wool (suf), which many of the early mystics wrapped themselves into mark their penitence. They also performed ecstatic rituals like repeating the name of God over and over again or whirling in a dervish lodge in order to come closer to God. Complementing its missionary zeal was an intellectual and artistic dynamism. The Sufi poet Jalal al-Din Rumi was a famous whirling dervish who gathered quite a following. And as Islam gathered more converts it accommodated Persian literature, Turkish ruling habits, Arabic-language contributions to law and literature, and science. The Middle East became united through this religious tradition.

Afro-Eurasian Merchants

Merchants were proof that Islam had provided an imagined political unity (projected by the Abbasid caliphate), the spread of Arabic, Islamic law and commercial networks that flourished. Long-distance trade surged under a common but sophisticated legal framework. Traders could take claims to court and would self-police partnerships, letters of credit, and currencies to keep business going.

Diversity and Uniformity in Islam

From the outset, Muslim rulers and clerics had to deal with large non-Muslim populations, even as these groups were converting to Islam. Rulers through the dhimma system accorded non-Muslims religious toleration as long as the non-Muslims accepted Islam’s political dominion and agree to pay a special tax. While tolerant, Islam was an expansionist, universalizing faith. Proselytizing was core to Islamic sacred religious traditions and on the frontiers of the empire, Islamic rulers met resistance.

Political Integration and Disintegration

The Sunni and Shi’a split grew more divisive between 950 and 1050 ce. Shi’ism looked to be uniting the Islamic world in this period. Fatimid Shiites had authority over Egypt and North Africa, as well as Baghdad. But in the 1300s the Turkish steppe people embraced Sunni Islam and began their expansion across the Middle East forming the Ottoman Empire by the 15th c. In the 1300s, however, Islam was split.

What was Islam?

Islam was spread by traders and attracted urban and rural peoples alike. And while some worried about the purity of Islam, its expansion across vast areas of the world necessarily led to cultural adaptation that fragmented any hopes for a central, unified form of the religion.

(Slides 9 & 10) India as a “Cultural Mosaic”

As in the case of Islam, India’s growing interconnections and increasing prosperity produced little political integration. Under the canopy of Hinduism, India remained a cultural mosaic: diverse and cross-culturally vibrant.

Rajas and Sultans

India was big (80 million people) and diverse. Turkish forces from the north brought Islam but the religion never gained a majority. Indian was splintered among chiefs called rajas. These leaders got support by giving elites land. They made uncultivated land arable; they built temples, converted the indigenous to Hinduism. This spread Hinduism into the rural areas.

Invasions and Consolidations

When Turkish warlords began entering India, the rajas had neither the will nor resources to resist. The Turks introduced their own customs while accepting local social structures, such as the caste system. The Turks built grand mosques and intermarried. The most powerful and enduring of the Turkish Muslim regimes was the Delhi Sultanate (1206—1526), whose rulers strengthened cultural diversity and tolerance. The Delhi Sultanate employed artisans and architects to build palaces and mosques while taking a relatively relaxed approach to rule along the coast.

What was India?

India was the most diverse and perhaps the most tolerant of the Afro-Eurasian regional powers. Turkish invaders were assimilated into Hindu culture and likewise Hindus embraced much of Turkish steppe culture. Diversity and cultural mixing became most visible in the multiple languages spoken in India. And like the dhimma system in Islam, India allowed Christians and Jews to worship as they saw fit in exchange for taxes and other communal tributes.

(Slides 11 & 12) Song China: Insiders versus Outsiders

The preeminent world power in 1000 ce was still China. After the end of the Tang dynasty (907 ce), North and South China splintered into regional kingdoms. A general, Zhao Kuangyin, ended the fragmentation by overthrowing his own emperor and reunifying China under the Song dynasty (as it became known). Economic and political successes grew, although nomadic invaders from north continued to hurt the Song’s secure reign. The Song lost control of the north in 1127 ce and moved to the south for another century and a half.

China’s Economic Progress

China also participated in Afro-Eurasian trade. Their merchants were as successful as those of India and Muslim lands, but they also had a dynamic rural based that grew enough rice to feed their 120 million population. Manufacturing also flourished and by the 11th century was making a product-gunpowder-that would be decisive on the battlefield.

Money and Inflation

Expanding commerce transformed the role of money and its wide circulation. The Song government was annually minting nearly 2 million strings of currency each containing 1000 copper coins, but the supply of metal currency could not match demand so merchant guilds (protection units) developed first letters of exchange: cash. Before long, printed money eclipsed coins.

New Elites

The Song established a central bureaucracy of scholar-officials chosen through competitive civil service examinations. This led to shift in power from hereditary elites to a professional class.

Negotiating with Neighbors

As the Song flourished, nomads on the outskirts eyed Chinese successes. In the north, many nomadic societies adopted Chinese dynastic habits and created their own courts. The Song could also not compete militarily. The Song continually suffered under steppe weaponry and tactics. What the Song did, instead, was give “gifts” and generous trade agreements.

What was China?

Paradoxically, increased exchange between Song insiders and northern outsiders hardened the lines that divided them. Insiders were convinced of their superior culture. Outsiders believed themselves to be the true “Chinese” (Han) people. The insiders called the outsiders “barbarians” and treated them as such.

(Slides 13 & 14) The Mongol Transformation of Afro-Eurasia

The world’s sea lanes grew crowded with ships; ports buzzed with activity. Commercial networks were clearly one way to integrate the world. But just as long-distance trade connected people, so could conquerors – as we have seen throughout the history of the world. Now, transformative conquerors came from the Inner Eurasian steppes, the same place that centuries earlier had unleashed horse-riding warriors such as the Xiongnu.

The Mongols not only conquered but also intensified trade and cultural exchange. By consolidating a latticework of states across northern and central Asia, they created an empire that straddled east and west. It was not as stable and durable. It had no shared faith, but they brought far-flung parts of the world together.

Who were the Mongols?

The Mongols were a combination of forest and prairie peoples. They were nomadic and lived on the steppes of central Eurasia. They were always on the march and created a society dependent on their military to protect them.

Military skills

Mongol archers were uniquely skilled and their small but sturdy horses bore saddles with high supports allowing the warriors to maneuver. These expert horsemen often remained in the saddle all day and night, sleeping while their horses continued on.

Kinship Networks and Social Roles

The Mongol tribes solidified their rule by extending kinship networks, building an empire out of an expanding confederation of familial tribes. Chinggis Khan, for instance, had more than 500 wives, most of them daughters of tribes he conquered. Women in Mongol society were responsible for child-rearing, shearing and milking livestock, and processing pelts. But they also took part in battles. Mongol wives had the right to own property and divorce but could also be bought and sold.

Conquest and Empire

The nomads’ need for grazing lands contributed to their desire to conquer the splendors of distant fertile belts and rich cities. As they acquired new lands, they increasingly craved control of richer agricultural and urban areas nearby to increase their wealth and power through tribute. Trade disputes also likely spurred their expeditions. The Mongols depended on settled peoples for grain and manufactured goods, and their first expansionist forays followed caravan routes.

The expansionist thrust began in 1206. Chinggis Khan launched a series of conquests across the Great Wall of China to the south. Mongol raiders under his leadership and successors built a permanent empire by incorporating conquered people into their ways.

Mongols in China

The Mongol army invaded China in the early 13th c. The Mongols used boats and fought along rivers and canals in the semi-tropical south. Kubilai Khan seized southern china in 1260. The last Song capital Hangzhou fell in 1276. The Mongols incorporated what was left of the Song dynasty under their rule and created the Yuan dynasty with a new capital at Dadu (today’s Beijing). The Mongols became a strong elite that ruled over a Han majority.

Mongol Reverberations in Southeast Asia

In southeast Asia, the Mongols invaded and conquered Burma and Yunnan. In the 1270s they swept through today’s Cambodia and almost invaded Japan and Korea but his navies failed.

The Fall of Baghdad

In the 13th c. Mongols streamed out of the steppes crossing the whole of Asia and ruling over China, Tibet, and parts of India. Looking to conquer the Middle East, the Mongols took Baghdad in 1258. As the Mongols made their way through Syria, Palestine, and Arabia, they were stopped by the Egyptian army. The Mongols introduced a number of technologies and scientific knowledge. They also promoted interconnectedness.

(Slide 15) Conclusion

Between 1000 and 1300, Afro-Eurasia was forming large cultural spheres, using trade and migration to span longer distances. Trade helped outline the world, although sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas were never integrated.

Main Themes:

1. Trade routes shift from land to sea, transforming coastal cities into global trading hubs and elevating afro-Eurasian trade to unprecedented levels.

2. Intensified trade, linguistic, and religious integration generate the foundational cultural spheres that we recognize today: China, India, Islam, and Europe.

3. The rise of the Mongol Empire integrates the world’s foundational cultural spheres.

The Islamic World:

1. Islam undergoes a burst of expansion, prosperity, and cultural diversification but remains politically fractured.

2. Arab merchants and sufi mystics spread Islam over great distances and make it more appealing to other cultures, helping to transform Islam into a foundational world.

3. Islam travels across the Sahara Desert; the powerful gold- and slave-supplying empire of Mali arises in West Africa

China:

1. The Song dynasty reunites China after three centuries of fragmented rulershp, reaching into the past to reestablish a sense of “true” Chinese identity as the Han, through a widespread print culture and denigration of outsiders.

2. Breakthroughs in iron metallurgy allow agricultural expansion to support 120 million people and undergird Han commercial success.

3. China undergoes the world’s first manufacturing revolution: gunpowder, porcelain, and handicrafts are produced on a large scale for widespread consumption.

India

1. India remains a mosaic under the canopy of Hinduism despite cultural interconnections and increasing prosperity.

2. The invasion of Turkish Muslims leads to the Delhi Sultanate, which rules over India for three centuries, strengthening cultural diversity and tolerance.

Please let me know if you have questions.