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Quraysh and the Roman army: Making sense of the Meccan leather trade

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 March 2007

Patricia Crone
Patricia Crone
Affiliation:
Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, pcrone@ias.edu
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Abstract

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This paper argues that the trade in leather and other pastoralist products, which the tradition ascribes to the Meccans, could make sense on the assumption that the goods were destined for the Roman army, which is known to have required colossal quantities of leather and hides for its equipment. The hypothesis that the Meccans were servicing the Roman military is examined and found to be impossible to prove in our current state of knowledge; it is at least compatible with the evidence, however, and also highly promising in terms the light it could throw on the political aspects of the rise of Islam.

Type
Articles
Information
Bulletin of SOAS , Volume 70 , Issue 1 , February 2007 , pp. 63 - 88
Copyright
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 2007

Footnotes

My thanks to David Kennedy for help with archaeological questions when I first started thinking about the leather trade and to Michael Cook, Rebecca Foote, John Haldon, David Kennedy again, Chase Robinson, and the participants in the Colloquium on the Theme from Jāhiliyya to Islam in Jerusalem, 2006, especially Larry Conrad and Michael Lecker, for comments on earlier versions of the article.