Merchants and Faith: Muslim Commerce and Culture in the Indian Ocean (review)

The Indian Ocean basin is increasingly recognized as an important unit in world history. The growing body of scholarly literature on this subject provides a basis for better understanding of more traditional subjects, such as European imperial expansion. It also shows that using less traditional units of analysis can provide significant insights into new topics, which can only be developed within the new conceptual framework. The study of the history of peoples and societies in the Indian Ocean basin is a demanding one that crosses many of the established academic boundaries of disciplines and area studies. In Merchants and Faith: Muslim Commerce and Culture in the Indian Ocean, Patricia Risso provides an important addition to the scholarship on Indian Ocean history; her work reflects both the advantages and the problems of this important developing field.

Risso undertakes the enormous task of examining "the intersection of Islamic and Indian Ocean histories," with special attention to "the relationships between littoral Asia and land-based empires," the role of Western Europeans in the region, and what difference it made if a merchant was a Muslim (p. 1). The primary focus of this ambitious program is the "Muslim merchant" and Islam. Risso's general conclusions are that "Islam made possible a commercial hegemony in the Indian Ocean region. Muslim networks became so successful that they pushed aside older patterns of trade....[but] Islam helped to shape events rather than determine them" (pp. 6-7).

A brief introduction framing the study is followed by a chapter on Muslim expansion in Asia from the seventh through the twelfth century and another on Muslim merchants and Asian commerce in the "middle era" (c. 1050-1500). There are two chapters on the period 1500-1800, covering the Asian Muslim trade and the developing competition among Asian and European commercial powers. The final chapter provides some interpretive conclusions about "the Muslim era in the Indian Ocean."

An important strength of this volume is its clear presentation of an immense body of information. Risso provides effective summaries of the background information necessary for understanding such complex topics as the policy context of Ottoman naval efforts in the Indian Ocean, Egyptian Mamluk commercial policies, or the Mughal and Ming imperial interest (or lack of interest) in maritime affairs. The histories of the great empires, both Muslim and Chinese, and later European, provide the framework for the analysis. This enables Risso to balance discussion of maritime commerce with treatment of the rival overland trade activities in an informative way.

Two important conceptual issues are raised by the approach taken in this book. The first concerns the definition of the basic unit itself, the Indian Ocean basin. Readers of Journal of World History may be somewhat disappointed that Risso does not provide as clear a conceptualization of this region as many recent articles in the journal have presented. Risso paints a very interesting and important picture of commerce in the region—one that goes beyond the simple drawing of lines on a map between ports—with a representation consisting of "overlapping circles or loops encompassing trade regions" (p. 4). With regard to Muslim activities specifically, she describes the establishment of "fluctuating, often interlinking networks—not a single network—over the Indian Ocean regions" (p. 104). This complex conceptualization is suggestive and interesting, but it is not very clearly developed and tends to be obscured by the model based on the importance of the land-based empires.

The second issue, which would have benefited from fuller development, is the idea of the networks of Muslims in the broader patterns of maritime trade. Despite the importance given to these networks in the concluding chapter, their actual nature and modes of operation are presented in very general terms. Risso mentions, for example, that Sufi brotherhoods may have played a very important role...