Describe how trade and interaction created challenges to Islamic society.
By Megan Brownrigg
Food Crops
- Agricultural economies were foundations of all Islamic empires
- Agricultural production was used to finance armies and bureaucracies
Tobacco
- 1600- English merchants introduced tobacco, saying it was useful for medicinal purposes
- Popularity of coffee drinking and pipe smoking increased- coffeehouses came about
- Popularity of coffeehouses provoked moralists that protested that the coffeehouses were just places to distract men from religious duties
- Religious leaders complained that tobacco was illegal and it was bad to frequent a coffeehouse with it
- Sultan Murad the fourth outlawed coffee and tobacco and executed anyone who continued to partake
- However, both coffee and tobacco won widespread acceptance
- Coffeehouse became a prominent social institution in Islamic empires
Trade
- Ruled lands that participated in long distance trade
- Ruled lands that participated in global trade networks
- Bursa was a hub of a caravan route that brought raw silk from Persia to fund the Italian market
- Granted special trading concessions to merchants from England and France to secure alliances against enemies in Spain and central Europe
- The English East India Company, the French East India Company, and the Dutch VOC all traded with the Safavids
- Empires traded with new locations with new ideas; ideas were spread; Islamic society might have not agreed with these ideas; challenges and conflict could have been created
This is a photo of tobacco and coffee, as tobacco and coffee caused lots of controversy in the Islamic faith and they weren't liked by the religious leaders. However, the coffee and tobacco over won and became a social institution.