CHAPTER II
COMMERCIAL RELATIONS OF INDIA IN THE MIDDLE AGES
OR
THE RISE OF ISLAM AND THE EXPANSION OF WESTERN EUROPE
The birth of Islam is synchronous with the consolidation of Papal power in Rome under Gregory the Great. It was the era of theocracies and the east was once more spreading a wave of religion that had almost succeeded in Mohomedanizing the entire continent of Europe. Not to speak of Africa and Asia and like many big things ; it had its origin in the small.
Long before Muhamad’s birth, Arabia was inhabited by different tribes and enjoyed the prosperity of being the commercial go-between between the East and the West. This early prosperity of the Arabs is attested to by the ruins of rich and splendid cities lined from Petra to Damascus; but according to Strabo, this source of prosperity to the Arabs early dried up when the Romans opened direct trade to India. The products of India and Arabia passed to Myos Hormos on the western shore of the Red Sea and camels to Thebes and thence sailed down to Alexandria through the Nile. As a result of this, the Arabs were reduced to be “the true sons of the desert”.
Economically there is no country so poor as Arabia. Arabia, the sandy, stony and happy as Gibbon calls it. Owing to the scarcity of arable land and water, the Arabs could not become a settled people. They continued to be nomads and tribal, having no unity in religion or politics. Owing to their disunion, the Arabs were overrun by foreign invaders many a time. The Abyssinians, the Persians, the Sultans of Egypt and the Turks, all in their turn subjugated the kingdom of Yemen, many a Sythian tyrrant had demanded the allegiance of the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and Arabia in part became the province of the Roman empire.