Trust, Privilege, and Free-Trade Zones: The Law, the State, and Economic Networks in the Mediterranean as Reflected in the Cairo Geniza Documents

In S.D. Goitein’s pioneering work on economic structures in the Mediterranean as reflected in the Cairo Geniza documents, states are largely missing as players, particularly in the commercial economy.  Goitein went so far as to argue that, given state capacity and interest, the Mediterranean in effect constituted a ‘free trade zone.’ Scholars building on a foundation of Goitein’s work and focusing on business relationships have either ignored or argued explicitly for the absence of either the state or legal system in sustaining or constraining the geography or contractual obligations of long-distance business.  In this paper, I survey some of the ways Islamic states intervened in the commercial economy, and use this work to re-examine business networks in the eleventh century. I show that businessmen engaged in both regional and long-distance trade relied not only on geographically far-flung networks of fellow businessmen, but on participation in multiple networks, including those of local patronage, privilege and policing provided by state structures. Business was sustained not simply by participation in a coalition of friends and associates, but by multiple networks of belonging that characterized economic, political, and social structures across the Islamic Mediterranean.