The importance of energy resources in the modern world is difficult to overestimate. The energy supply of many countries around the world depends on gas and oil. The largest number of proven oil reserves are in Saudi Arabia, Canada, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Venezuela and Russia. According to intelligence data on the content of natural gas reserves, the Middle East and CIS countries also stand out. With the naked eye can be noticed the leading role of Muslim countries in supplying the world with energy resources.
In attempting to protect their own interests, exporters form unions. The most famous is the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which includes 13 countries, the vast majority of which belong to the Muslim world. But real ties aren’t limited to resources and includes other forms of economic cooperation. For example, in 2013-2020, the dynamics of Russia’s trade turnover with countries such as Turkey, Egypt, the UAE, Iran and Saudi Arabia are calculated in billions of dollars and shows growth trends.
This suggests that today the Islamic world is also an important transit civilization. With the transit of various products, not only economic, but also socio-cultural exchange occurs between nations, countries, states, regions, and even entire civilizations. In the first centuries of its existence, the Islamic world became a kind of “intermediate continent” between different parts of the world. Originating in the Arabian Desert, Islamic civilization expanded through the nations inhabiting the Middle East.
The spread of Islam among the Arabian nomads - the Bedouins, due to their numbers and combat potential, made them “the matter of Islam,” according to the second righteous caliph Umar. But the overpopulated desert around the Bedouins, who lived by raising camels, drove out the excess of nomads from its borders. From the reign of the righteous caliph Umar in 634-644, began the fast movement of the Bedouins along the roads leading to the West: The Sinai Bridge and the narrow ribbon of the Nile didn’t prove to be an obstacle on the way to the Sahara and the Maghreb countries, right up to Spain. The Sahara Desert turned out to be a natural continuation of the Arabian Desert on the other side of the Red Sea.
Islamic civilization controlled the roads that connected Europe with the Far East and West Africa for almost a millennium. Camel caravans carried huge loads. Overland trade ways along the Silk Road connected ancient cities that were the heart of the Muslim economy and trade. Along the entire route there were caravanserais - resting places that served as shelter and parking for travelers who helped carry out grandiose trade from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean.
Cities and towns were flooded with products from all over the world. Fairs, shops, and bazaars were full of products produced in different centers of the trade way. Thanks to the vast space that Islamic civilization covered, the export of goods knew no limits. Exactly because of Islam started the spreading of paper and compass, Arabic numerals and gunpowder, medicinal plants and diseases - cholera and plague came to Europe from India and China. Arab geographers, who often traveled with trade caravans, saved fairly accurate descriptions of the cities and culture of the nations who lived along the way of the caravan.
The caravan trade connecting South-Eastern Europe, the Caucasus and Iran with Mongolia and China acquired huge importance during the reign of the Samanids (875-999). Trade through Central Asia with China fully justified its name “Silk Road”, cause the main Chinese product was silk. It was necessary not only for women, but also for men - silk underwear saved them from lice. In exchange for it, expensive Samarkand glass, which at that time had no analogues in the East, was exported from Central Asia.
Europe, Asia and Africa imported a large number of products from Muslim countries, including silk wares, carpets, glazed glass, processed leather of various types, pottery, illuminated manuscripts, Damascus swords, as well as Muslim knitwear and even soap. It is curious that this trade left its traces in many European languages, in which still exist the words such as “bazaar”, “shop”, “caravan”, “tariff”, borrowed from the languages of Muslim nations.
If initially the caravans were elite and transported mainly luxury products, then under the Samanids reign the most important goods in trade became essential products: food, raw materials, livestock, leather, sugar cane, cotton, birch bark, medicinal plants and others. Among the products exported to the East, amber, woolen skirts, iron, lead, and mercury occupied an important place. The caravans were of different sizes: from several dozen to several hundred pack units.
One of the largest caravans in time was the caravan sent in 922 from the ruler of the Abassid Caliphate, al- Muqtadir, to the king of the ancient Bulgars. It contained three thousand pack units - horses and camels - and five thousand people. The caravan traveled a difficult way from Baghdad to Bukhara, and then from Bukhara to Volga Bulgaria. Of course, this was not an ordinary event - in addition to the trade purpose, this caravan also represented diplomatic and political interests of medieval state.
In the religiously united territory of the Caliphate, trade was regulated by well-developed legislation. Islam places great importance on markets as an important economic mechanism. According to Shariah, there should be no obstacles to obtaining information about supply and demand. The Quran also prohibits discriminatory transactions. Already at that time there were trading houses - associations of merchants, who jointly equipped and sent caravans.
Islamic cities were not only centers of transit trade, but also citadels of mind, thanks to the nearby mosques, madrassas and universities. The language of the Quran, which became the basis of the “literary” Arabic language, common to all Muslim countries, contributed to the development of a unified culture. The successes of Muslim culture were especially clearly manifested in science, as evidenced by achievements in algebra, geometry, physics, chemistry and pharmacology. Thanks to the Arabs, the Europe learned many of the achievements of ancient culture.
After the discovery of America, the main trade ways became those connecting the Old and New Worlds, and Muslim trade ceased to be as important as before the Age of Discovery. However, today Islam is practiced by a quarter of the world's population, and the religion is the fastest growing in the world. This situation became a result of the activity of Islamic civilization as an “intermediate continent”, connecting not only East and West, but also North and South. Another form of movement of Islamic civilization was the pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, uniting Muslims from all over the world.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
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