TheRedSea under theCaliphalDynasties, c. 639–1171

Abstract

Students of world history will be familiar with the Red Sea as a strategic communications corridor linking the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean. This paper examines the Red Sea region between the seventh and twelfth centuries, when it was ruled by a succession of Islamic caliphal dynasties, namely, the Umayyads, ʿAbbāsids, and Fāṭimids. It first sets out a sketch of the political history of the Red Sea and its constituent hinterland polities, including particularly Egypt, Sudan, al-Ḥijāz, and Yemen, drawing attention to episodes and processes in which the Red Sea was significant. A section on Africa and Arabia explores the Red Sea as a zone of economic and social interaction; another section deals with the historic shift of Indian Ocean trade from the ʿAbbāsid Persian Gulf to the Fāṭimid Red Sea. Finally, the impact of the Red Sea on its constituent hinterland polities and the wider sweep of Islamic history is considered.

Islamic Glass in the Making

“…The last glass weight of an Egypt 2 composition dates to the first year of the governorship of Ahmad ibn Tūlūn (868 CE), marking the end not only of natron glass production and the end of Abbasid rule in Egypt, but also the beginning of a 100-year interlude from the time of which virtually no Egyptian glass weight or stamp is known to exist (Ollivier 2019). Glass weights re-emerge after the Fatimid conquest of al-Fustat in 969 CE, when Egypt became the centre of the Fatimid caliphate until the end of the dynasty in 1171 CE (Power 2018;Sanders 1998). Substantial social, cultural, political and, in fact, technological transformation had taken place in the meantime.…”

Red Sea Entanglement: Initial Latin European Intellectual Development Regarding Nubia and Ethiopia during the Twelfth Century

“…Prior to their arrival, the Red Sea had been the venue for interregional trade between the Sahara, northern Mediterranean, East Africa, and Asia for millennia. Significantly for the circulation of regional knowledge, settlement patterns are indicative of the independent political nature of the Red Sea trade during the eleventh to thirteenth centuries, which emphasise that Red Sea communities were first and foremost preoccupied with access to trade rather than with any other ties, thus being potential sources of independent information to tap into (Power 2012;also Margariti 2008). It would be wrong to view the Red Sea as being surrounded by mono-cultural or political blocks which inhibited interaction.…”

“…Previously, trade had been prosperous in Arabia, but the establishment of new dynasties coincided with the mid-ninth-century Sudanese 'gold rush,' which heightened the decline of Arabian mines and focused attention on those littering the border of Egypt and Nubia. The key African Red Sea ports of Sawākin, ʿAidhāb, and Bāḍiʿ, specifically, appear to have developed as a result of the gold trade, which was the primary reason for their overtaking of the ports of Antiquity (e.g., Power 2008;Breen 2013). Further south, from the eleventh century onwards, the Dahlak archipelago (north-east of Aksum, see figure 1) increasingly became an independent nexus for trade coming through the Red Sea from its Indian Ocean entrance (e.g., Margariti 2010).…”