Connecting societies

If you were born in the thirteenth century, your entire life would probably have been lived within a few square miles. Farmers stayed in one place, while cattle and sheep herders travelled only as far as their seasonal searches for food and water took them. However, the world itself was on the move. A few people traveled long distances, carrying ideas that could transform the lives of whoever they met along the way. How did communities react when they learned of those ideas? Did they adopt them, reject them, or mix them up with their own traditions and cultures?

When we study Afro-Eurasia in this period, history courses tend to focus on states, cities, villages. We compare them to each other as if they were entirely separate. Then, as we acknowledge how these societies were interconnected, we usually focus on trade of goods like silk and silver. But you won’t need a shopping cart for this article. The focus will be on the movement of ideas—namely technologies and belief systems. Ideas were a nonphysical cargo moving through the same networks as physical goods.

Diffusion of science and technology

One of the big stories in this period is the movement of important technologies. These include technologies that could be engineered and produced, like paper and gunpowder. It is also ideas and knowledge, like mathematics.

Every region of the world contributed new and innovative technology in this period. However, regions like the Americas and Australasia were isolated from Afro-Eurasia and formed their own networks of exchange. Two Afro- Eurasian regions, China and the Islamic world, made especially large contributions to technology.

The Islamic world of the thirteenth century stretched from North Africa to India. It was important to the development of modern mathematics. As the Islamic world was involved in much trade, merchants needed to calculate costs and profits. Muslim practices, including its calendar and the importance of praying in the direction of Mecca, inspired mathematical innovation. Muslim mathematicians developed math that used astronomy, divided up the circle, and used fractions. Arab scholars developed a book of calculations (al-Jabr) that became the basis of modern algebra. These ideas then traveled to neighboring regions, including Europe. The European scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries probably would not have been possible without these mathematical concepts.

In China, more people were able to become scholars under the Song Dynasty. The resulting boom in engineering contributed to inventions like the magnifying glass, the compass, and gunpowder. By 1206, the Mongols had conquered China and ruled it as the Yuan Dynasty. The Mongols built a huge system of exchange. Trade goods moved from east to west, and so did technologies like gunpowder and paper-making.

By the late thirteenth century, gunpowder was being used in many parts of Afro-Eurasia. Gunpowder was not very powerful at first, but by the 1380s it was being used for cannons. Cannons allowed the Ottoman Empire to conquer Constantinople and expand Islam into Europe. They also transformed European society, bringing down castle walls and challenging nobles’ power.

Spread and transformation of major religions

Religions also moved along major trade routes. Sometimes a traveler from one place would visit a location with a different religion and bring ideas back. Other times, religion arrived in a new area and was adopted by the local people because it offered advantages, like trade relationships. Often, different religions blended together to create a local, unique system of belief, a process known as syncretism.

In Southeast Asia, a wide variety of major belief systems spread. Hinduism and Buddhism first emerged in India, and both religions had longstanding connections in Southeast Asia. They were often intermingled by people in the region. The great twelfth century Khmer temple at Angkor Wat began as a temple to the Hindu god Vishnu, then was transformed into a Buddhist temple two centuries later. Its design shows the influence of both religions. In some other places, Hindu and Buddhist temples were often near each other. Across Southeast Asia, kings gave gifts to both religions.

Buddhism began to dominate in Southeast Asia. Hinduism became more central in South Asia. A monastic form of Buddhism known as Theravada became popular in Southeast Asia.¹ Monasteries became influential in politics and people’s lives.

At the same time, Islam was also becoming much more widespread in the region. There is evidence of Muslims in the region as early as the eleventh century, coming from India. Islam was at first a religion of merchants, but it soon spread more widely. By the thirteenth century many trading ports had a majority Muslim population. However, the trading cities often included many people of different religions.

Islam was also spreading in Africa. Long established in North Africa and across the Sahara Desert, it was becoming important in the interior of West Africa and along the East African coast—wherever there was trade with the Islamic world. Sufi brotherhoods were important in the spread of Islam through these regions. These brotherhoods emphasized a relationship to God that appealed to many agricultural West African communities. They also helped create political strength and solve problems. The beliefs of the Sufi brotherhood allowed flexibility to accommodate local culture and religious figures.

In South Asia, a Sufi version of Islam attracted many people who were used to a mystical form of Hinduism. It also spread through conquest that created major states like the Delhi Sultanate. These states had to rule many Hindus. They usually tolerated the practice of both religions, but Hinduism and Islam remained separate. Christianity also spread by conquest in this era, particularly to the Baltic area of Europe. In the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, crusades slowly drove older beliefs out of these regions. As a result, the people of these areas gradually became culturally closer to the people to their west.

Conclusion

The spread of technology, religion, and other ideas is always complex and has had varied results throughout history. When different areas became connected by trade, they influenced each other. Some of the agents of this change were the individuals who made these voyages, while other agents of change were many people they met along the way. Those non-travelers still encountered new ideas and beliefs, and they had to decide what to do with them. Should they accept the new idea and change the way they thought or lived? Should they reject it, or mix it with what they already had? These decisions would heavily impact the interconnected societies of Afro-Eurasia.

1 In a monastic religion, monks and nuns devote themselves to a religious life that they live out in monasteries, away from most other society.