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In Era 4 and beyond Muslims and people who lived in the Islamic world continued to experience an interconnected community that felt very global. They felt part of a universal religious community. Networks helped to connect and unify Muslims across distances into a larger community. " Many Muslims felt they were part of a universal religious
community called ummah that stretched far beyond the
edges of any Muslim state"

Anouk Gontarczyk

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The Caravan was one of the most important inventions in the Islamic world. this simple invention which was simply a travelling community of people carrying cargo or passengers long distances allowed for complex social connections building a dynamic and strong community.

People would come and go, not just merchants, but all kinds of people trying to get around, planting seeds of the Islamic faith wherever they landed.

Strangely the simple caravan ended one of the most important driving forces for the spread of Islam throughout all of Afro Eurasia.

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Trade and the expansion of civilization had a huge impact on ideas, intellectual and scientific knowledge. The money that came out of trade was put towards the advancement of technology. "In great Muslim cities like Baghdad( Mesopotamia) and Cordoba (Spain) these ideas came

together with local knowledge and contributed to some revolutionary ideas and technology"
The "paper revolution" occured in the Islamic world around the ninth century. People were reading and writing more, this lead to intellectual communities expanding although most people still could not read and reading and writing was still considered only for the elite. It grew significantly throughout this period.

Anouk Gontarczyk

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Networks and Exchange in the Islamic World

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Networks and Exchange in the Islamic World

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The borders of the 'Islamic World' or the 'Muslim World' were blurry and ever-changing. Essentially, there were four periods of expansion: Expansion under Muhammad (622-623 CE), Expansion under the Rashidun Caliphate (632-661 CE), Expansion under the Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 CE), and finally the Abbasic Caliphate that reached its peak in c.850 CE. As you can imagine the breaking up of these caliphates causes a messy, fragmented picture of the history of Islam.

The unifying force behind all of Islam's expansion is the element of trade. The merchants, teachers, pilgrims, and mystics spread the message of the Prophet Muhammad. This happening is described in para. 5 of this article.

After about 700 CE, anyone traveling along the Silk Road, across the Sahara, or sailing across the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean would go through places where Muslims ruled or traded.

Marriage and interaction between men and women spread Islam thoroughly across Southeast Asia and West Africa. With traveling across such a vast expanse also came the spread of not only Islam but also the lingua franca, the Arabic language.
Given such evidence, it is undeniable that trade and the Islamic World are tightly intertwined.