Shari’a law and Sufi orders regulated premodern Islamic trade across oceans and markets

Evidence

Leading components in this structure were the Shariʿa and Sufism, two discursively dialectical traditions and paradigmatic domains that permeated the educational, legal, social, and spiritual practices of Islam, and influenced much in the economic and mercantile spheres. In point of fact, the Shariʿa governed “urban” mercantile and country-side agricultural economy, and its maritime law often regulated commerce in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, the South China Sea, and elsewhere, and was at times followed even by non-Muslims navigating these high seas. Furthermore, Shariʿa’s “law” was the dominant form of practice in city markets, and the Sufi guilds and orders were no less active, as specifically Sufi entities, in the mercantile life of these cities. — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 151

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the law-merchant reading on how pre-state private commercial law functioned — here Shari’a maritime law served non-Muslims, parallel to how the lex mercatoria served cross-community trade.
• SEED: Possible angle: ‘When religious law governed global commerce’ — how Shari’a maritime law was followed even by non-Muslims navigating the Indian Ocean, complicating the story that religious law was purely communal.