Connecting societies

If you were born in the thirteenth century, your entire life would probably have been lived within a small area. Most people back then, like farmers, stayed close to one place. But people who did travel long distances helped spread new ideas. How did communities react when they learned of those new 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 focus on states, cities, villages. We compare them to each other as if they were separate. Then, as we begin to acknowledge how these societies were interconnected, we focus on trade of goods. But this article will focus on the movement of ideas—namely technologies and belief systems. Ideas moved through the same networks as goods.

Diffusion of science and technology

One of the big stories in this period is the movement of technologies. Over time, new technologies like gunpowder and modern mathematics changed world history.

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. Two Afro-Eurasian regions, China and the Islamic world, made especially dramatic contributions to technology.

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

In China, more people became scholars under the Song Dynasty. People developed new inventions like the magnifying glass, the compass, and gunpowder. By 1206, the Mongols had conquered China and then 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. They also transformed Europe, challenging elites in power.

Spread and transformation of major religions

Religions also moved along major trade routes. Sometimes, a religion arrived in a new area and was adopted by the local people because it offered advantages, like trade connections. Often, different religions blended together to create a new, local system of belief. This is a process known as syncretism.

In Southeast Asia, a wide variety of major belief systems spread. Hinduism and Buddhism first emerged in India. Both religions had longstanding connections in Southeast Asia. They were often interconnected throughout history. For example, the great twelfth century Khmer temple at Angkor Wat began as a temple to the Hindu god Vishnu and was later transformed into a Buddhist temple. Its design shows the influence of art and ideas from both religions. In other places, Hindu and Buddhist temples were near each other.

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.

Islam was also becoming much more widespread in the region. Islam was at first a religion of merchants, but it soon spread more widely. By the thirteenth century many trading ports had majority Muslim population.

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. Trade facilitated the spread of Islam, and Sufi brotherhoods were particularly important. These brotherhoods introduced Islam beliefs to farming-based communities in West Africa. Sufi beliefs could co-exist with local culture and religious figures.

In South Asia, a Sufi version of Islam also attracted many people. 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. 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. 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.