Page 28 - DILMUN 11

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Famous Merchants Of

The Arabian Gulf In
The Middle Ages

Monik Kervran

Mainlaining a tradition which reached back sev­ But it was in the role of a merchant that he then set
eral millennia, the merchants of the Gulf con­ out for India, taking with him merchandise to the
tinued to be active in long distance trade after the value of 30,000 dinars. Unfortunately his vessel
rise of Islam. Indeed their commercial activity was was wrecked and he \yas the sole survivor. He
to undergo an unprecedented expansion due to returned home and ended his days in Cordoba.
particularly favorable conditions which came As far as the merchants based in the Gulf area
!
about as the result of the establishment of an arc concerned our two earliest references are
Islamic empire and the islamisation of the Near found in an Arab chronicle written at the begin­
East. These favorable conditions included the ning of the third century of the Hijra (9th Century I i
strong economic situation of the 8th to 10th cen­ A.D.) by Abu Sufyan Mahbub b. al-Rahil, who
turies, the possibility of travelling from Morocco to lived in Oman during the reign of the Ibhadi Imam
India without encountering a border, and the exis­ al-Muhanna'b Djaifar. In his work this chronicler
tence of a common language and religion which alludes to the lives of two merchants of Oman, who
gradually came to dominate the whole region. lived in the preceeding century. The first, Abu
Furthermore,- the doctrine of Islam itself both rec­ ‘Ubayda ‘Abdallah b. al-Qasim, known as “al-
ognised and encouraged the idea of trade as being Saghir ’ (the small) was originally from a small
among the activities which allowed a man to live Omani market town called Bsya or Nsya. He was
and a community to prosper. A hanbali treatise not only of the most learned Ibhadi Sheikhs of his
states that work takes precedence over attendance period but also a remarkable merchant; he mostly
at the mosque, and that during the pilgrimage to conducted trade with China, a country which it
Mecca, one is permitted to carry on trade. Even appears he visited himself, probably before 758
the profit which was the purpose of trade, was A.D. One anecdote told about him refers to his i >i
recognised by Islam, the accumulation of wealth association with other merchants in the aloes wood
being considered as a form of divine blessing. trade. Shocked by the commercial practices of his
partners who disparaged goods in order to obtain
Finally, there was the ultimate justification for
trade that the Prophet himself had been a mer­ them at a lower price from the seller but then
afterwards praised the quality of the same goods in
chant for the first half of his life; and that several of
his companions continued to be traders for the order to sell them at the highest price he broke off
remainder of their careers. Thus, the climate of his partnership. The second half of his life was
spent in Mecca, where he married a wealthy i
opinion was favorable to the notion of commerce,
women.
and the first centuries of Islam were to provide
About the second Omani merchant, whom the
examples of merchants whose personalities best
chronicler Abu Sufyan mentions, we know very
represent their society.
These men were always travellers, often men of little. He lived in Basra in the late 8th/early 9th »
political interests and sometimes scholars as well. century A.D., and he was related lo two Ibhadi
Imams, located in that city, al-Rabi‘b Habib and
For example, one of the earliest merchants known
to Arab writers was a descendant of the first Wa’il b. Ayyub al-Hadraml This rich trader, cal­
Ummayyad Caliph, a man by the name of led al-Nazar b. Maymun, also made a voyage to
Muhammad Ibn Mu ‘awiyad Marwani. Born in China, setting out most likely from Basra.
Cordoba, he began his Koranic studies and it These texts illustrate the remarkable scope of
would seem that it was to further these studies that the long distance trading voyages of the period and
he left his home in A.D. 908 and travelled to the active role played by the businessmen of the
Egypt, Mecca, Baghdad, Kufa, Basra, and Obulla. Gulf, especially the Omanis, who came to com- I

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