A sea of debt: law and economic life in the western Indian ocean, 1780-1950

Table of Contents

A Sea of Debt pp i-i
Asian Connections - Series page pp ii-ii
A Sea of Debt - Title page pp iii-iii
Copyright page pp iv-iv
Contents pp v-v
Figures and Tables pp vi-vi
Acknowledgments pp vii-x
Prologue pp 1-23
1 - A Geography of Obligation pp 24-57
2 - Life and Debt pp 58-80
3 - Paper Routes pp 81-106
Interlude pp 107-124
4 - Translating Transactions pp 125-149
5 - Making Africa Indian pp 150-168
6 - Muslim Mortgages pp 169-189
7 - Capital Moves pp 190-216
8 - Unraveling Obligation pp 217-245
Epilogue pp 246-257
Bibliography pp 258-274
Index pp 275-279

In this innovative legal history of economic life in the Western Indian Ocean, Bishara examines the transformations of Islamic law and Islamicate commercial practices during the emergence of modern capitalism in the region. In this time of expanding commercial activity, a mélange of Arab, Indian, Swahili and Baloch merchants, planters, jurists, judges, soldiers and seamen forged the frontiers of a shared world. The interlinked worlds of trade and politics that these actors created, the shared commercial grammars and institutions that they developed and the spatial and socio-economic mobilities they engaged in endured until at least the middle of the twentieth century. This major study examines the Indian Ocean from Oman to India and East Africa over an extended period of time, drawing together the histories of commerce, law and empire in a sophisticated, original and richly textured history of capitalism in the Islamic world.


https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/sea-of-debt/976469F77E9D08E56CFC6C10BB4B3F66#fndtn-information