Turks and Mongols
The political unity of the Middle East, created with the
Islamic conquests, was of a fairly short duration. An
essential element of the dissolution process that began from
the 900th century was again a nomadic people, the Turks who
first as slave soldiers, then as rulers created dynasties of
shorter or longer duration. The Turks imparted a military
dynamic to Islam that led to the conquest of Asia Minor
(1071) and over the following centuries to the establishment
of an Islamic empire (Ottoman Empire) in the ancient
Byzantine territory. The Turkish language spoken by the new
rulers took its place as the third major language of Islam
alongside Arabic and Persian.
It was also Turkish army leaders who led the raids
against India and the establishment of an Islamic empire,
the Delhi, in India from 1206. northwestern territories
where the connection to the Islamic core country in the
Middle East was strongest, and in Bengal, where the clearing
of rainforest to arable land was still on. First from
approx. In 1335, a Hindu reaction began with the
establishment of the South Indian kingdom of Vijayanagar.
Turkish domination remained in the 1200s. interrupted by
yet another wave of nomadic attacks from Central Asia, which
under Genghis Khan and his sons for a time created the
largest empire that Asia (and the world) has yet seen, the
Mongol Empire. After the death of Genghis Khan (1227), the
empire was divided between his sons who continued the
attacks to the east, south and west. The conquest of
northern China, initiated by Genghis Khan, was completed in
1234. The Russian rulers were incorporated in 1237-40.
Already in 1219-21, Turkestan and Persia were over, and in
1258 Baghdad fell, since 900-t. had been the central city in
Iraq. After 1259 the empire dissolved politically.
In several respects, the short-lived conqueror had
lasting significance. The roads through Central Asia were
open as never before. It was thus during this period that
Europe from explorers, first and foremost Marco Polo,
received secure intelligence on distant China, and it was
the open caravan roads that in the mid-1300s. brought the
plague, the black death, to both China, the Middle East and
Europe. It is also possible, although the theory is
disputed, that the Mongol storm was the cause of the decline
in the previously so good Middle Eastern economy due to the
devastation and genocide that were part of the Mongol
strategy.
However, as so often before, the conquerors were soon
influenced by the conquered areas. In the west, the Mongols
took Turkish language, Islamic religion and administrative
customs from the conquered territories. In the East, after
their conquest of 1279 throughout China, they founded a
dynasty, the Yuand Dynasty, which was soon deeply influenced
by Chinese culture, though the dynasty sought to make use of
non-Chinese military people and officials - such as Marco
Polo.
The world empire of the Mongols was the culmination and
beginning of the end of the millennium in which the nomads
repeatedly intervened in the lives of agricultural cultures.
The development of firearms and of new infantry tactics was
probably crucial in this context; the prepared nomads lost
the military-technical advantage created by their mastery of
the horse. Throughout the following centuries, however,
rulers and soldiers of Turkish origin continued to play a
prominent role in the Middle East (Iran and the Ottoman
Empire). Timur Lenk's attempt to re-establish the Mongol
Empire, 1370-1405, became of brief importance, but his
descendants founded the Great Mughal Empire in India in
1526.
At the same time, the caravan roads through Central Asia
began to lose the importance they had for communication
between the different world cultures. Only a few goods were
so expensive that they could bear the cost of years of land
transport, and silk had gradually become available from
production areas other than China, which has the largest
population according to
Countryaah.
The time of the vessels approx. 1500-1945
Relations over the sea had become increasingly important.
Already in the centuries surrounding the birth of Christ,
sailors had begun to cross the sea between Arabia and India
and between India and Southeast Asia in the rhythm of the
annual monsoons and in the direct line without clinging to
the shores. With the Islamization of the Middle East from
600-t. this sailing seems to have picked up sharply due to
the participation of Arab merchants. For some centuries,
Arab merchants made regular sailings all the way to China,
but from 900-t. this direct trade was replaced by smaller
networks. Arab merchants continued sailing on India, though
rarely longer than to the Malacca Strait. Chinese ships
began most recently from 900-t. to sail to SE Asia and
reached the Song Dynasty all the way to India's southwest
coast, the Malabar Coast.
Internal maritime trade in Asia, like the European, was
of great importance in the last centuries of the Middle
Ages, but unlike the situation in Europe, it rarely invoked
the interest of the larger states. However, a single
significant exception forms the Chinese naval expeditions
during the Ming Dynasty, which from 1368 replaced the
Mongolian Yuand dynasty. Under the leadership of the eunuch
Zhenghe, in 1405-33, a series of naval expeditions were
carried out, which brought the Chinese high seas ships to
virtually all major ports in Asian waters. It was a far
greater effort than the contemporary Portuguese voyages of
discovery along the West African coast. Technically, there
was nothing in the way for the Chinese ships to continue to
Europe or America, but the nomads pushed against the borders
of the kingdom, and China again turned its back to the sea.
Trade in the Asian waters was linked to emporia,
ie. port cities which were favorably situated in relation to
shipping's dependence on the annual rhythm of the monsoon
winds, and whose princes secured the merchants the necessary
legal certainty. During the 1400-t. were the major empories
of Aden at the entrance to the Red Sea, Hormuz at the
entrance to the Persian Gulf, Cambay on the Indian west
coast, Kozhikode (Calicut) further south and Malacca, which
dominated the narrow waters between Sumatra and the Malacca
Peninsula. Thus, after the discovery of the sea route to
India in 1498, the Portuguese met a fully developed network
that, to a certain extent, supplied exotic goods such as
pepper and other spices to Europe, but primarily linked the
Asian markets.
With the discovery of the sea route to India, the period
leading up to European rule over much of Asia began in the
1700-1900-t. The Portuguese stayed in the 1500-t. owing to
the strength of their ships and their superior ability to
impose duties on parts of internal Asian shipping, however,
primarily because none of the larger Asian states considered
it essential. Political power rested in the Asian states on
the mastery of agricultural land, and the transport of goods
by rivers in India and China was far more important than
trade by sea. The ancient empories received little support
in their fight against the Portuguese - Hormuz and Malacca
were conquered, Kozhikode was isolated and taken over by the
Portuguese conquest of Goa. However, there was no talk of
complete mastery of the Asian maritime trade.
From the early 1600s. Dutch and English trading companies
also started trading in Asia. Initially, the companies had
only political ambitions to the extent they considered
necessary to protect their own trade. They failed to
challenge the larger Asian states and were thus able to
obtain fortified support points in India and SE Asia without
much difficulty.
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