From Markets to Marvels: Jews on the Maritime route to China ca. 850-ca. 950 CE

In this article it is argued that Jewish travellers to China between 850 and 950 CE contributed to-and were the products of-a Judeo-Islamic culture, both in their mercantile activity and in the literary output that it spawned. It is argued that events in the Near East and in China in the late 9th and early 10th centuries had an irreversible effect on trade relations between the Near East (from which most Jewish traders of the time emanated) and China. The decline in trade missions to the Far East coincided with an eruption of literary activity in the Islamic world that encouraged works of 'fiction' and marvels. The travelogue of Eldad ha-Dānī is considered within this Arabo-Islamic context and reinterpreted accordingly.