Merchants, Mamluks, and murder : the political economy of trade in eighteenth century Basra /
Thabit A.J. Abdullah.
- Albany : State University of New York Press, c2001.
- xviii, 180 p. ; 24 cm.
- SUNY series in the social and economic history of the Middle East .
- SUNY series in the social and economic history of the Middle East. .
Includes bibliographical references (p. 121-170) and index.
Al-Basrah Al-Fayha -- History up to 1700 -- Hasan Pasha and the Mamluks -- Location and Climate -- The City -- The People -- Administration and Power -- The Shifting Fortunes of Trade -- Exports -- Customs Duties -- The Ships and Their Sailors -- Basra's Overall Trade Patterns -- Rise: 1724-1756 -- Boom: 1766-1774 -- Decline: 1775-1793 -- Networks of Trade -- The Maritime Trade with India -- The Coffee Trade and the Role of the Omanis -- The Regional Trade with the Gulf -- The Trade with Southern Persia -- The Riverine Trade with Baghdad -- The Caravan Trade with Aleppo -- The Merchants (Tujjar) and Trade -- The Risks of Trade -- Investment and Wealth -- Credit and Contracts -- Merchant Communities -- The Jewish Merchants -- The Armenian Merchants -- The Chalabis of Basra -- The Merchants and Power -- The Mamluks and Trade -- The Chalabis and the Government -- The Cases of Muhammad Agha and Hajji Yusuf -- The Jews and the Mamluk Administration -- The Armenians and the English -- The Case of the Murdered Jew Revisited -- The Rebellions of Shaykh Thuwayni and Mustafa Agha -- Manesty's Victory and the Beginnings of British Dominance.
"Using the case of the murder of a Jewish merchant in 1791 as the backdrop to this study of Ottoman Basra's long-distance trade in the eighteenth century, Thabit A. J. Abdullah takes a novel comparative approach to Middle Eastern and Indian Ocean historiography. He examines three broad inter-related issues, all of which have a direct bearing on the case of the Jewish merchant. First, the overall nature of Basra's trade is examined; second, the book looks at the city's large wholescale merchants, the tujjar; and the third issue deals with the gradual development in Basra of the "soft areas" in Asian economies through which European articulation, followed by incorporation into the capitalist world economy took place."--BOOK JACKET.