SOAS Research Online

Abstract

The aim of this research is to identify and examine the role of perfumes and spices that came from the Indian Ocean trade into the Caliphate, and through there into the Mediterranean trade. This study is a direct challenge to history writing that suggests that globalization happened as a sudden phenomenon after the year 390 A.H./1000 A.D. instead of as a process that occurred gradually over several centuries. This research subscribes to the definition of globalisation as the continuous and ongoing linkages of distant societies in trade, knowledge, and the movement of ‘millions of people from Africa, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia’.1 But with the caveat that this happened prior to the year 1000 A.D. and includes East and South Asia. It is due to the graduality of this process of interconnectivity that meant that there were genuine connections between the Arab traders and those they met. This was what made areas outside of the Caliphate adopt Islamicate culture after a while. The movement of luxury products such a perfumes and spices provided enough incentive in value that communication links had to be made and maintained. The socio-political dynamics and adjustments that were needed to facilitate such links are also a part of this study into the effects of perfumes and spices in early medieval globalism.