Caliphs and Merchants

Fanny Bessard is a historian of early and classical Islam with expertise in Arabic historiography, as well as a practicing archaeologist with a decade of field experience in the Near East and Central Asia. Before joining the University of Oxford she held a Newton International Fellowship at SOAS (2013-15), a Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of St Andrews (2015-16), and a Lectureship in the Department of Historical Studies at the University of Bristol (2016-19). Her main research interests lie in the social and economic transformations of the Near East from 700 to 1000.

Frontmatter
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Notes on Transcription and Dates
Maps
0: Introduction
1: The Historical Context
1. Conquests
2. Ideology
3. Agriculture
4. Trade
PART I. PATRONAGE AND POWER
2: A Stamp of Authority
1. A Caliphal officium
2. Sowing and reaping
3. Exercise and assertion of power
3: New Perspectives on Urban Economic Planning
1. Growth of communal working areas in the Levant (700-750)
2. Process of exclusion of economic clusters under early 'Abb=asid rule
3. Raba.d in Central Asia
4. Isolation of domesticity
4.1. Productive and public use to domestic shelter
4.2. An emphasis on intimacy
3a: Conclusion
PART II. REVISITING THE LEGACIES
4: Artisans to Producers
1. The progression of change
1.1. Persistence of Roman practices after 700
1.2. Downfall of 'home' production after 800
2. Approaches to key industries
2.1. Pottery
2.2. Glass-making
2.3. Textile industry
3. Food processing industries
3.1. Oil and wine industries
3.2. Watermills
5: Reshaping Market-Places
1. From the ergast=erion to the s=uq
2. Covered market-places
2.1. Funduq
2.2. D=ar, nh=an, and qays=ariyya
5a: Conclusion
PART III. INSTITUTIONAL AND RELIGIOUS GENERATORS
6: Money Supply and Currency
1. Out with the old
2. Coinage in common
3. Balancing supply and demand
7: Islamifying the Economy
1. Commercial rituals and Islamic worship
2. Mosques and measures
3. The mu.htasib
7a: Conclusion
PART IV. ECONOMY AND SOCIAL CHANGES
8: The Evolution of Labour Patterns
1. Conditions of labour
1.1. Servile labour
1.2. Free labour
1.3. Wage labour
2. Changing patterns of institutional identity
3. Status and composition of the labour force
3.1. Disdained and tolerated professions
3.2. Changing division of labour
3.3. Female artisans
9: Twilight of the Clerical and Landowning Elite, Rise of Tu%g%g=ar
1. Retailers and traders before 800
2. Ascendance of tu%g%g=ar from 800
2.1. Financial
2.2. Identity
2.3. Cultural
3. Tu%g%g=ar's political and religious careers
4. Tu%g%g=ar and authority
4.1. The defense of trading interests
4.2. Tu%g%g=ar and economic expansion
9a: Conclusion
10: Conclusion
Endmatter
Appendix
References
Index