Lecture by
Hugh Kennedy (Professor of Arabic at SOAS, University of London)

In conversation with
James Morton (Associate Professor of History, Chinese University of Hong Kong)
Chen Yexuan (Assistant Professor of History, Sun Yat-sen University)

This lecture will explore the connections between Western Asia and China, circa 700-1100 CE, and their impact on perceptions of global entanglement in the primary metropole of the Islamic world, Baghdad. The talk will focus on shifting routes of trans-Asian trade, continental and oceanic, especially after the emergence of Baghdad as the most important market for goods and services in Western Eurasia from its foundation in 762. Its location at a nexus of Indian Ocean commercial networks precipitated a profound reorientation of long-distance commerce. The globalization of Baghdad was no less a question of the demands of an early Islamic commercial economy for commodities from across Asia. The discussion will consider how the elites of Baghdad – whether as rulers, merchants, or consumers – perceived their participation in a globalized economy and, especially, the role of governmental and commercial institutions in its development.


This event has been organized by the Silk Road Imaginaries research project at the Neubauer Collegium in partnership with the University of Chicago Campus in Hong Kong.