Persian Empire
Deep Dive 11 min read

Persian Gulf Trade and Maritime Commerce

The Persian Gulf is a shallow, warm, salt-rich body of water, roughly 1,000 kilometres long and 200–350 kilometres wide, opening to the Arabian Sea through the Strait of Hormuz. For at least four thousand years it has been a major artery of maritime trade. The great ports of the gulf — Dilmun, Gerrha, Siraf, Hormuz, Basra — were the nodes of a maritime commerce that reached from East Africa to China, and the gulf trade was, for most of that time, a complement to the overland Silk Road and a major source of Persian wealth. D. T. Potts’s The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity (1990) is the reference work on the gulf, with his chapter on the Gulf in the Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran (2013) updating the picture. For the Islamic period, George Saliba’s work on the Indian Ocean trade and R. J. Hoyland’s India in the Medieval Islamic World are useful. For the Sogdian and Chinese sources the mainstays are de la Vaissière’s Sogdian Traders (2002) and Ralph Kauz’s edited Wirtschaft und Handel der Seidenstraße (2006). For the excavations at Siraf, the publication of record is David Whitehouse’s Siraf: History, Topography and Environment (2009). George F. Hourani’s Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times (1995, expanded edition) is the classical treatment of the Islamic maritime trade.

The geography of the Gulf

The gulf’s shores are marked by extensive coral reefs, sandbanks, and a series of islands, including Bahrain, Qeshm, and Kish, that have been important for trade and pearl diving since antiquity. The gulf’s coasts are hot, dry, and largely desert, and the populations of the gulf have historically depended on seafaring, fishing, and the transshipment of goods from India, East Africa, and Mesopotamia.

The trade of the gulf was, at root, a trade in transshipment. Goods from India, China, and East Africa were landed at the gulf ports and carried overland by caravan to the cities of Mesopotamia, Syria, and the Mediterranean. Goods from Mesopotamia, the Mediterranean, and the Iranian plateau were similarly landed at the gulf ports and shipped east. The gulf was, in the pre-modern period, the principal maritime route between East and West, and its traffic was an essential component of the long-distance trade.

Dilmun and the early gulf trade

The earliest attested gulf trade is that of Dilmun, identified by most modern scholars with the island of Bahrain and the adjacent Arabian coast. Sumerian texts of the third millennium BCE mention Dilmun as a major trading partner, a place from which copper, dates, and pearls were exported to Mesopotamia, and through which goods from the Indus Valley, the Arabian Sea, and possibly even the Persian highlands were transshipped. The Sumerian myth of Enki and Ninhursag, set in Dilmun, describes a paradise of fresh water, abundant dates, and endless trade, a literary image that is clearly drawn from the actual wealth of the gulf trade.

Dilmun’s trade depended on its central position. The island, lying midway between the Indus and the Tigris, was an ideal transshipment point for the goods that travelled between India, Arabia, and Mesopotamia. The Sumerians and Akkadians, the Babylonians and Assyrians, all maintained active commerce with Dilmun, and the city of Akkil, the principal settlement of the island, has been identified with the modern Bahrain fort at Qal’at al-Bahrain, a UNESCO World Heritage Site (a hypothesis, not a universally accepted identification). The trade of Dilmun declined in the early first millennium BCE, as the caravan routes through the Arabian desert and the Persian Gulf became more developed, but the island continued to be a major centre of pearl diving and fishing.

The Achaemenid gulf

The Achaemenid conquest of the region in the sixth century BCE brought the gulf trade under imperial administration. The Achaemenid state, with its Phoenician, Ionian, and Egyptian fleets, extended Persian power to the Indus Valley and developed the gulf ports. The Achaemenid administration organised the gulf trade through a series of port cities, including Apologos near modern Bushehr, Omana (probably modern Oman), and Tylos (Bahrain). The principal Achaemenid general in the east, who led the campaign that extended Persian power to the Indus, was Aryandes — the satrap of Egypt in some sources, possibly an early satrap of Hindush in others. The Achaemenid control of the gulf trade is documented in a number of Greek and Latin sources. The historian Strabo reports that the Achaemenid kings maintained a navy in the gulf and that the trade in dates, pearls, and textiles was a major source of royal revenue. The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, a Greek merchant’s handbook of the first century CE, provides detailed information on the gulf trade, including the goods that were loaded and unloaded at the various ports.

Gerrha and the Arabian trade

The Arabian side of the Persian Gulf was, in the first millennium BCE, dominated by the city of Gerrha, located in modern eastern Saudi Arabia. Gerrha, whose exact location has not been definitively identified, was a major centre of the trade in Arabian aromatics, in particular frankincense and myrrh, which were brought overland from southern Arabia and Yemen and transshipped at Gerrha for the markets of Mesopotamia and the Mediterranean. Gerrha is mentioned in Greek sources as a wealthy city with strong connections to both the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean trade, and it played an important role in the commerce of the Achaemenid and Hellenistic periods.

The trade of Gerrha declined in the early centuries CE, as the caravan routes shifted and the centre of the gulf trade moved to the Iranian side. The reasons for the decline are not fully understood, but they may include a combination of climatic change, political upheaval, and the rise of competing ports on the Iranian side of the gulf. The legacy of Gerrha lived on, however, in the continuing importance of the eastern Arabian ports, in particular the Omani ports of Sohar and Muscat, in the maritime trade of the Indian Ocean.

The Parthian and Sasanian gulf

The Parthian and Sasanian periods saw a major expansion of the gulf trade. The Parthian kings made use of the gulf for the trade with India, and Parthian coinage has been found in considerable quantities at gulf sites. The Sasanian state, with its more centralised administration, developed the gulf trade into a major source of imperial revenue, and the great Sasanian ports of Siraf and Hormuz became the commercial centres of the late antique gulf.

Siraf

The port of Siraf, on the coast of Fars in southwestern Iran, was the principal port of the Sasanian Empire and the early Islamic caliphate. The city has been estimated to have had a population of perhaps 100,000 people in the ninth and tenth centuries CE, an extraordinary size for a pre-modern port. Siraf was the principal transshipment point for goods travelling between China, India, and the Middle East, and its merchants, the Sirafis, were known across the medieval world for their wealth and their piety. David Whitehouse’s Siraf: History, Topography and Environment (2009) is the reference work.

The prosperity of Siraf ended abruptly in 977 CE, when a violent earthquake destroyed the city and its harbour. The decline of Siraf was followed by the rise of other ports, in particular Qeys and Hormuz, and the trade of the gulf was, by the eleventh century, redirected to the Strait of Hormuz and the southern Arabian ports.

Hormuz

The island and port of Hormuz, located in the Strait of Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, became, in the later medieval period, the principal port of the gulf. The city was founded in the early fourteenth century and became, under the local Hormuzi dynasty, a major centre of the Indian Ocean trade. The Portuguese, led by Afonso de Albuquerque, captured Hormuz in 1507 and held it for more than a century, using it as a base for their trade in the gulf. The English and Dutch East India Companies also maintained a presence at Hormuz, and the island became, in the early modern period, one of the great commercial entrepôts of the world.

The kingdom of Hormuz declined in the seventeenth century, as the Portuguese, English, and Dutch competed for control of the gulf, and as the centre of the trade shifted further east to the Mughal ports of Surat and the Omani ports of Muscat. The modern port of Bandar Abbas, founded in 1623 by Shah ʿAbbas I of Persia, occupies the same general area and is one of the principal ports of modern Iran.

The goods of the gulf trade

The Persian Gulf was the principal maritime route for the trade between India, China, and the Mediterranean for more than a thousand years. The goods carried in the gulf trade included:

From India: cotton textiles, spices (pepper, cinnamon, cardamom), gems (diamonds, rubies, sapphires), pearls, ivory, indigo, and teak. From China: silk, porcelain, and paper. From East Africa: ivory, gold, slaves, and exotic animals. From Arabia: frankincense, myrrh, dates, and horses. From Mesopotamia: glass, woollen textiles, dates, and barley. From the Iranian plateau: Persian carpets, silver plate, silk, and turquoise. From the Mediterranean: wine, olive oil, glass, gold and silver coin, and various manufactured goods.

The pearl fishery of the gulf was, in particular, a major source of wealth. The pearl banks of Bahrain, Kuwait, and the Trucial Coast (modern United Arab Emirates) were the most productive in the pre-modern world, and pearls from the gulf were exported to India, China, and the Mediterranean. The pearl fishery declined in the twentieth century with the development of the cultured pearl industry, but it remains a traditional activity in the gulf.

The Sasanian navy

The Sasanian kings maintained a substantial navy in the Persian Gulf, both to protect the maritime trade and to project power across the gulf. The Sasanian fleet drew on the coastal and riverine peoples of the empire, including the Omanis of the southeastern Arabian coast and the people of the Tigris-Euphrates waterway. The Sasanian navy was used in the long wars with the Byzantines in the sixth and seventh centuries, and the Sasanian conquest of Yemen in the sixth century (under Khosrow I) gave them direct access to the Indian Ocean trade.

The Islamic gulf trade

The Arab conquest of the Sasanian Empire in 651 CE did not interrupt the gulf trade but redirected it through the caliphal administration. The early Islamic caliphs, ruling from Damascus and later Baghdad, developed the gulf ports of Basra, Abadan, and Siraf as major centres of the trade with India and China. The famous voyages of the Arab sailors, including the ninth-century voyage of Sulaiman al-Tajir and the tenth-century Accounts of China and India of Abu Zayd al-Sirafi (who compiled the account of Sulaiman’s voyage in 916 CE), provide detailed information on the gulf trade, including the types of ships, the goods carried, the customs of the various ports, and the hazards of the sea route.

The ships of the Persian Gulf

The ships of the Persian Gulf, the baghlah, the boom, the sanbūq, and the dhow, were major elements of the maritime trade. The baghlah, a large ocean-going vessel with one or two masts and a distinctive lateen sail, was the principal ship of the long-distance trade between the gulf and India, East Africa, and China. The boom, a smaller vessel with a single mast and a characteristic square sail, was used for the coastal trade. The sanbūq, a fast and manoeuvrable vessel with a lateen sail, was used for the pearling and fishing trade. The dhow, a generic term for the traditional sailing vessel of the Indian Ocean, was used throughout the gulf.

The shipbuilding traditions of the gulf were highly developed. The Teak forests of India provided the principal timber for the larger vessels, and the date palm provided the timber for the smaller vessels. The shipbuilders of the gulf, based in the ports of Basra, Siraf, Hormuz, and Sohar, were famous across the medieval world for their skill, and the gulf-built ships were sought after by merchants from India, China, and East Africa. The Omani shipbuilding tradition has continued, with modifications, to the present day.

The decline of the gulf trade and the rise of European maritime power

The Persian Gulf trade began a long decline in the early modern period, as the European maritime powers, in particular the Portuguese, the Dutch, and the English, established direct sea routes to India and Southeast Asia. The Portuguese, who captured Hormuz in 1507 and Muscat in 1508, briefly established a monopoly of the gulf trade, but their control was challenged by the Safavid Persians, the Ottoman Turks, and the English and Dutch East India Companies. The Dutch East India Company established a base at Bandar Abbas in the early seventeenth century, and the English East India Company followed shortly afterwards. The competition between the European powers for control of the gulf trade continued throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and the gulf was, for much of the early modern period, a major arena of European colonial rivalry.

The decline of the gulf trade was, however, only relative. The ports of Basra, Bushehr, and Bandar Abbas continued to be major commercial centres, and the pearl fishery of the gulf continued to flourish. The English East India Company and the Dutch East India Company both maintained a presence in the gulf, and the British, who established a major naval base at Bahrain in the nineteenth century, were the principal European power in the region until the twentieth century. The development of the oil industry in the twentieth century, with the discovery of major oil fields in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Iran, gave the gulf a new economic importance, and the modern Persian Gulf is a strategically important maritime region in the world.

For further reading

  • Potts, D. T. The Arabian Gulf in Antiquity (1990) and his chapter in the Oxford Handbook of Ancient Iran (2013).
  • Whitehouse, David. Siraf: History, Topography and Environment (2009).
  • de la Vaissière, Étienne. Sogdian Traders (2002, English 2005).
  • Hourani, George F. Arab Seafaring in the Indian Ocean in Ancient and Early Medieval Times (1995, expanded edition).
  • al-Tabari, the Annals, in the various translations.
  • Wheeler, Brannon. Mecca and Eden: Ritual, Relics, and Territory in Islam (2006).
  • Kukreja, Dhirendra. The Indian Ocean Trade in Classical Antiquity (2021).
  • Saliba, George. Islamic Science and the Making of the European Renaissance (2007), for the wider cultural context.