Muslim conversion "Connection"
According to SEANN’s special time traveling team, Muslim conversion has escalated in the Indian Ocean Trade Network.
Several port cities along the Indian Ocean Basin are becoming increasingly Islamic, which in turn, is enhancing trading between such cities.
According to Dr. Junior Garcia, one of SEANN’s most experienced time-traveling journalists, “Most merchants observed on our last expedition to the post-classical Indian Ocean had undeniable similarities. They were mostly Muslim. This explains why there was facilitated trade between the merchants. There was a strong sense of unity and commmunity throughout region which made the entire Indian Ocean cohesive unit of trade and communication”.
“SEANN’s attempt of “experiencing history” through these time-traveling quests is a unique opportunity”, said Dr. Junior. “At this time, the Indian Ocean Trade represented the world’s largest sea based system of communication and exchange. Such network would have been impossible without Islam, which was increasingly appealing to merchants. In fact, during their stay at Mecca, our team met a Muslim merchant by the name of Abdullah Abdi, who expressed how the Quran openly accepts merchants. The team investigated the claims and found the following excerpt from the Qur'an which backed the merchants' remarks: "It is HE (God) who makes the ship sail on the sea so that you may seek of HIS bounty" (Qur'an 17:66).
It is evident that the diversity of ideas made Islamic unity such a pivotal part for the homogeneity of this trade network. But, Islam was not the only religion that had an impact on other regions. Different cultures and societies were receptive to change as they were exposed to a huge influx of merchants from different places. For instance, Angkor Wat, a Cambodian Temple, was hugely influenced by Buddhism from India.
In addition to Islam Merchant Abdullah Abdi, SEANN’S traveling team had the unique opportunity of meeting Ibn Battuta as he was approaching the city of Zeila, a port of the Christian kingdom of Ethiopia with a large Muslim community. Ibn Battuta noted how the Muslim communities in port cities were different than those in the inner Islamic Empire, which was somewhat shocking to him. They were more diffused compared to the cities he had visited
. On an unrelated note, he also told the team how he considered the city of Zeila "the dirtiest, most disagreeable, and most stinking town in the world. The reason for its stink is the quantity of fish and the blood of the camels they butcher in its alleyways." To avoid the smell, Battuta spent the nights on his ship, even though the water was rough.
After returning from this expedition, SEANN had the opportunity of asking scholar Russ Dun, an expert in Islamic Studies, why Ibn Battuta was so impressed by these Muslim communities in port cities. He described Ibn Battuta's first venture into the warm waters south of Yemen:
"Looking out upon the Arabian Sea, Ibn Battuta was about to enter a world region where the relationship of Islamic cosmopolitanism to society as a whole was significantly different from what he had hitherto experienced. Up to that point he had traveled [mostly by land] through the Irano-Semitic heartland of Islam, where the cosmopolitan class set itself apart from the rest of society in terms of its standards...The lands bordering the Indian Ocean, by contrast, displayed a greater diversity of language and culture than did the Irano-Semitic core, and the majority of people inhabiting these lands adhered to traditions that were neither Irano-Semitic nor Muslim"
Russ Dunn makes a crucial point here about the corrupting nature of the sea, the cosmopolitanism and hybridity that comes from constant ocean travel, and the contact with other cultures. Nevertheless, although there was some level of cultural diffusion, the Islamic Empire acted as a unifying unit that connected this network of distinct ideas.
