Political
Tropical Lands and
Peoples military reprisals to put down rebellion, pillage and high taxes to sustain the ruling elite in luxury and power; over time, sultans incorporate Hindus into administration positions
-Vijayanagar
Empire (1336-1565)
→ marry Hindu wives and appoint
Brahmins to high government posts
New Islamic
Empires
Mansa Kankan
Musa (r.1312-1337)
→ ruler of Mali ; pilgrimage to Mecca served to demonstrate to wealth of his empire
(1324); builds
Quranic schools and mosques; safe travel
-India → looting and destruction of temples, enslavement, and massacres
-Sultan Iltutmish (r.
1211-1236) starts
Delhi Sultanate → brutal conquerors to benign rulers; passes leadership to his daughter, Raziya; take rich trading state of Gujarat (1298);
Sultan Muhammad ibn Tughluq → expansion and religious toleration; as minority, Turkish rulers use harsh
Indian Ocean Trade Social and Cultural
Change
-Swahili Coast
→ thirty-forty separate city states (1500);
Kilwa supplies gold from Great
Zimbabwe
-Aden → rains provide drinking water and grain for export; Yosef and
Solomonic Ethiopia
-Gujarat → export cotton textiles, indigo, beads, carpets; leatherworkings
Malacca
→ meeting place for traders around
Eurasian world; 84 languages spoken amongst merchants
(1500)

Economic
Religious
Social
-shifting cultivation
→ extensive agriculture form in sub Saharan Africa
-Africa exports gold
Mali → agricultural base and lucrative regional and trans-
Saharan trade routes; controlled Niger gold fields and copper trade
-spread of Islam into sub-Saharan Africa came through a gradual and peaceful process of conversion
Mali → foster the spread of Islam among elite
-
Delhi Sultanate →
Muslim
Mali → safe travel
-Indian Ocean trade in luxury goods → precious metals and jewels, rare spices, fine textiles, pepper, timber, horses
-trade divided into two legs → Middle
East across Arabian
Sea to India and from India across
Bay of Bengal to
Southeast Asia
-Eastern Africa supplied gold,
Arabian ports shipped horses and goods from the
Middle East,
Mediterranean and eastern Europe
-trade of different regional networks tied together through commercial interests rather than political
-Islam → trade routes; common moral and law code attracts local merchants; overtakes
Buddhism in India
(monks flee to Nepal and Tibet); dominant faith of maritime
Southeast Asia
(1500)
-Islam → marriage (4 wives and concubines)
-conquests and commerce brings new wealth → ↑ slavery; sultans in Delhi; 2.5 million slaves cross
Sahara and Red Sea
(1200-1500); prices of female concubines
-Hindu sati (optional); arranged marriages; lighter penalties for women; status determined by male master; food preparation
-Women in tropics → brewers, farming, clay pots, clothing; dressing in Mali?; important culinary skills, child rearing and heavy farm work

Intellectual
Artistic
N-Geography
Delhi Sultanate
(1206-1526) and
Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
→ extensive irrigations systems
-iron (tropics) → hoes, axes. knives, spears
-copper
-copper (Africa) → statues and heads
-Ibn Battuta
→ journal has become valuable historical resource; travels through Central Asia,
India, China,
Southeast Asia,
Spain, sub-Saharan
West Africa; 75,000 miles in 29 years
-tropics
→ equator,
Tropic of Cancer,
Tropic of Capricorn
-tropics include
Africa, southern
Arabia, India and
Southeast Asia;
-human migrations spread many useful plants around tropics like bananas, yams, coffee
-monsoons
-Meenakshi Temple
dhow → characteristic ship on the Arabian Sea
junk → the largest, most technologically advanced ship on
Indian Ocean; dominate travel in the Bay of Bengal and the South China
Sea
-mosque in Islamic society → center of learning and spread of literacy in Africa
Urdu → spread of
Islam to India that combined Hindi and
Persian
-Timbuktu
→ intellectual capital of western Africa; 150
Quranic school; books most profitable item in trade
-(1423) mosque at
Gujarati → Hindu-
Muslim architecture
-Church of St.
George, Ethiopia