Islam and the expansion of trade

It was in the expansion of trade where Islam's impact was the greatest. One of the most significant aspects of the Islamic period in world history was the emergence of Islamic courts capable of imposing a common commercial and legal system that extended from Morocco in the West to Mongolia in the North East and Indonesia in the South East. Although this was not of significant benefit to countries such as India that enjoyed a substantial trade surplus, it was probably of great significance to the people of the Arabian or Central Asian deserts whose oases depended heavily on trade.

As the Hindu and Buddhist kingdoms of Asia were subjugated by Islam, and as Islam spread through Africa - it became a highly centralizing force that facilitated in the creation of a common legal system that allowed letters of credit issued in say Egypt or Tunisia to be honored in India or Indonesia. To create and sustain such an internationally consistent legal system, Islamic rulers had to undercut the local and traditional systems of governance that prevailed. This also meant that they often preferred to deal with foreigners who had no interest in preserving the older systems. It is also possible that the terms of trade were structured in ways that disadvantaged local artisans and peasants, but favored the rich traders and ruling elites in the newly established and aggressively expanding Islamic kingdoms.
As the old contractual obligations in society were weakened, Islam became the new binding force of these newly conquered societies. And in order to cement their rule, Islamic rulers initially promoted a system in which there was a revolving door between the clergy, the administrative nobility and the mercantile classes. Ibn Batuta is a classic example of this phenomenon. He served as an Imam in Delhi, as a judicial official in the Maldives, and as an envoy and trader in the Malabar. There was never a contradiction in any of his positions because each of these roles complemented the other. Islam created a compact under which political power, law and religion became fused in a manner so as to safeguard the interests of the mercantile class. This led world trade to expand to the maximum extent possible in the medieval world.
Agriculturally developed societies played a crucial role in this transformation. The interests of the mercantile community were such that they wished agricultural taxes to be high but trade duties to be low. By and large, Islamic rulers implemented exactly such a regime. This enabled the founding of new trading and manufacturing centers that emerged wherever Islam took hold. For the desert areas of the world, Islam came as a big boon - providing wealth from trade that would have been unimaginable considering the poverty of the natural landscape. For the world's largely self-sufficient and more advanced agricultural civilizations like India (or Egypt or Indonesia) - this growth in trade was probably of lesser significance and more of a mixed bag (as we shall see later).