Merchant (tajir)

التاجر

The merchant is someone who makes the exchange of goods for profit his trade; the plural is tujjar. Before Islam Mecca was a centre of caravans and markets, and the Prophet ﷺ Muhammad and Khadija bint Khuwaylid (may God be pleased with her) traded there in partnership. Merchants bought and stored, imported and exported, often through agents who shared the profit; the jurists' name for that partnership is mudaraba. The Turkish encyclopaedia sets out ethical limits that forbid interest, deception and gharar, and makes learning the rules of trade an obligation on every merchant.

Depth

At a glance

Era: Pre-Islamic Arabia · The Prophetic Era · The Early Abbasid Caliphate
Region: Arabia · Levant & Iraq · Persia & Central Asia · China & East Asia · South Asia · Egypt & Nile
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Summary

The merchant is someone who makes buying and selling goods for profit his work; the plural is tujjar. The Turkish encyclopaedia defines trade as the exchange of goods for profit and calls the person who practises it a merchant. ¹ It praises trade, and quotes a tradition that places the honest, truthful merchant among the prophets, the truthful and the martyrs. ¹ Trade was the livelihood of the Prophet Muhammad and Khadija bint Khuwaylid, who traded together in partnership. ¹ ²

Origins

The encyclopaedia records one view that the word tijara entered Arabic from Aramaic and Syriac. ¹ It also reports, from some sources, that the Arabs of the pre-Islamic period identified trade with buying and selling wine. ¹

At the rise of Islam Mecca was a religious and commercial centre. Caravans passed through it going north in summer and south in winter, and markets were held around it. ¹ Usurious, deceptive and gambling-like dealings were common there. The Qur'an warned against them, and the Prophet reorganised trade on the basis of honesty and mutual consent. ¹

The encyclopaedia tells how Khadija bint Khuwaylid traded through partners she trusted. When she learned of the trustworthiness and good conduct of Muhammad, she made a partnership with him and sent him to Syria with her property and her servant Maysara. ² When he returned, having shown his honesty and success in trade, she proposed marriage, and he accepted. ² Before Islam she was known as al-Tahira ("the pure") for her chastity. ²

Development

The encyclopaedia divides the history of Islamic trade into three periods. The first runs from the first to the fourth century of the Hijra (seventh to tenth century CE). ¹ In it Muslim influence reached the eastern Mediterranean coasts, North Africa, the Gulf and the Sea of Oman, and Muslim merchants carried goods from Basra, Oman and Persia to India, Sri Lanka and China. ¹

The encyclopaedia says the first generation of Muslims filled the gap left by Syrian and Egyptian merchants, who had controlled sea trade since the time of Justinian. ¹ Some Companions owned trading ships in the Mediterranean; the entry names Sa'id ibn Zayd, Talha ibn Ubayd Allah and Uthman ibn Affan (may God be pleased with him). ¹ When the eastern Mediterranean coasts were conquered in the time of Umar, the governors of Syria and Egypt set up fleets to protect them. ¹

Under the Abbasids Baghdad and Basra became major trade centres, Basra especially for sea trade, and Baghdad became a more active local and international centre than Damascus. ¹ In China, under the Mongols, associations of Muslim merchants gathered the capital of caravans and served the investments of the rulers' circle. ¹

The Muslim states gave wide privileges to Western merchants and companies from the twelfth century, and the Ottomans granted privileges that over time became the capitulations. Local merchants then placed themselves under the protection of the privilege holders to be treated as European merchants, and this weakened national sovereignty. ¹ In the third period, from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century, European sea trade in the Mediterranean survived only through agreements with the Ottoman state. ¹

Politics and economy

Mudaraba is a contract between capital and labour: one party supplies the money, the other does the work, and the profit is divided as agreed. ³ Jurists of Iraq called it mudaraba; jurists of the Hijaz called it qirad. ³ The owner of the capital is the rabb al-mal and the worker is the mudarib. ³

It was used in land and sea trade for short-term finance, and its forms appear in the Cairo Geniza documents of the fifth to seventh centuries of the Hijra. ³ In Europe it spread from the tenth century under the name commenda and entered commercial law there. ³ It may seem poorly suited to long-term finance, because of the conditions for its dissolution and ending. ³ The capital owner bears the loss unless the worker is at fault or negligent. ³

Al-Dimashqi (Ja'far ibn Ali) divides merchants into three kinds: the hazzan, who buys cheap goods and stores them until the price rises; the importer; and the exporter. ¹ The exporter works through trusted agents in the countries he sends to, who work with him on a profit-sharing basis. ¹ He holds that people of standing avoid domestic trade because it invites profiteering, and that foreign trade is costlier and riskier but more profitable. ¹ Al-Dimashqi also classifies dealings by how the price is paid: cash, instalments or credit. ¹ The encyclopaedia says that merchants used the salam (advance sale), paying in advance for goods delivered later, and that this can be seen as a way of guarding against price swings. ¹

The entry records that the law forbade dealings that lack free consent: interest and deceptive transactions, and gambling-like or uncertain contracts (gharar), among them mulamasa, munabadha, muzabana and muhaqala, along with misleading advertising, false oaths, selling a milk-withheld animal (musarrat), trading stolen goods, intercepting goods before they reach the market (talaqqi al-rukban), buying up goods to raise prices (ihtikar), bidding up a sale (najash), two sales in one, concealing a defect and fraudulent product information. ¹ Carrion, wine, pork, blood, idols, gambling and divination equipment, unowned or unsecured property and obscene publications may not be traded. ¹

The entry says zakat is due on trade goods, that debtors and travellers in need are among the recipients, and that the state supports debts that cannot be repaid. ¹ The Prophet banned internal customs between cities. Jurists debated duties on foreign merchants, and most adopted reciprocity, relying on Umar's practice. ¹ The entry says horses, weapons and enslaved prisoners must not be exported to enemy lands. ¹

Geography

The encyclopaedia lists the great trade centres: Baghdad, Basra and Siraf on the Gulf, and Canton in China; Kufa, Damascus, Cairo and Alexandria on the Hijaz road and the sea routes. It also names the port of Mahahitta in Sri Lanka, the Malabar coast of India, and Madagascar. ¹ Caspian ports traded with lands led by Russia, Bulgaria, Jurjan and Tabaristan. ¹

Workplace

The encyclopaedia does not describe one fixed place for the merchant. He worked in markets, ports and caravans. ¹ His places included Mecca and its markets around the pilgrimage season, and the agencies in the countries he exported to. ¹

Organisation

The encyclopaedia says that the futuwwa and the Akhi organisation dominated trade life in some workplaces in older times. In the sixteenth century, shopkeepers and craftsmen gathered before opening their shops to pray and swear an oath of truthfulness under a chosen leader. ¹ The chapters read for this record describe no separate organisation for wholesale merchants in caravans or ports.

This article distinguishes the merchant from the craftsman. The merchant buys and sells goods in bulk and works through partnership, agency and travel. The craftsman makes what he sells and works in a shop or workshop; the encyclopaedia treats him under "guilds and shopkeepers" in the markets. ¹ Al-Dimashqi placed agriculture and animal husbandry as the primary occupations and trade and crafts as secondary ones. ¹

Training

The encyclopaedia says that trade is a communal obligation, and that learning the rules of trade is an individual obligation for each merchant. ¹ Umar kept from trade anyone who did not know its rules. ¹ He advised the Companions not to let trade pass to foreigners or slaves, lest they fall under their control. ¹ The chapters read describe no professional certificate for the merchant.

Figures across the ages

Khadija bint Khuwaylid: a Meccan merchant who traded through trusted partners, made a partnership with Muhammad before their marriage, and sent him to Syria. ²

Abu Sufyan ibn Harb: took up trade as his father had and managed his clan's trade. He led the Syrian caravan the Muslims tried to intercept; he changed its route and escaped, and that, at the instigation of Abu Jahl, led to the Battle of Badr. ⁴ In 628 he went to Syria with a trade caravan of thirty men. ⁴ The entry says the goods of that caravan were assigned to the war against the Muslims. ⁴

Ja'far ibn Ali al-Dimashqi: classified merchants and dealings in his book al-Isharah, and the encyclopaedia reports his classification from that book. ¹

Travel

The encyclopaedia reports that al-Maqdisi described thirty-six kinds of ship. ¹ It says that Umar set up a fleet to protect the coasts, and that the trading fleets and the navy came into close contact, forming a secure trading alliance in a short time. ¹ Muslim merchants travelled by land and sea to Syria, Egypt, Iraq, India and China. ¹ The museum holds one trade journey of this period, Khadija's trade journey to al-Sham, whose sources were not read for this record.

References

TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "TİCARET", Cengiz Kallek, vol. 41, pp. 134–144. ¹
TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "MUDÂREBE", Cengiz Kallek, vol. 30, pp. 358–362. ³
TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "HATİCE", M. Yaşar Kandemir, vol. 16, pp. 465–466. ²
TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, "EBÛ SÜFYÂN", İrfan Aycan, vol. 10, pp. 230–232. ⁴
Works the encyclopaedia cites and that were not read for this record: Ja'far ibn Ali al-Dimashqi, al-Isharah; al-Maqdisi, Ahsan al-taqasim; al-Mawardi, Tashil al-nazar; Ibn Khaldun, al-Muqaddima.

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Not yet covered

This record did not read the second period of Islamic trade history, nor the later sections of the encyclopaedia on the late Ottoman period and the modern age. Tools, output and images are not yet written, because their sources were not read. The encyclopaedia has no headword for tajir, so this article rests on the entry Ticaret and the entry on mudaraba. It has no headword for karum, the Assyrian trading colonies of Anatolia; the term appears in a passing mention in the entry on letters, which this record did not read. Sections on the forms of partnership (sharika) in fiqh, and on Muslim merchants in India and Sri Lanka, await independent sources.

References

TICARET (Trade) — TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Cengiz Kallek) , p.134-144
HATİCE (Khadija) — TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (M. Yaşar Kandemir) , p.465-466
MUDÂREBE (profit-sharing partnership) — TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (Cengiz Kallek) , p.358-362
EBÛ SÜFYÂN (Abu Sufyan ibn Harb) — TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (İrfan Aycan) , p.230-232

Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Merchant (tajir)”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/job/merchant/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-11-01.

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