By Chase Brown

Maritime and Caravan Trade in Medieval Morocco and Spain

This project explores how the sea and the caravan shaped economic, cultural, and ideological landscapes in medieval Morocco and Spain from the 8th to the 16th centuries. Focusing on key sites in both the Maghreb and al-Andalus, it traces how Muslims, Christians, and Jews experienced and interpreted networks of trade that transcended geography and religion.

While caravan routes carried gold, salt, textiles, and religious ideas across the deserts and mountains of Morocco, the Mediterranean Sea functioned as both a highway and a frontier. Merchant and religious networks flourished through long-distance trade in cities like Marrakesh and Fez. Meanwhile, coastal hubs such as Tangier and Malaga served as points of contact, and sometimes conflict, between Islamic and Christian polities.

Trade was not merely economic; it was ideological. Christophe Picard explains, “The sea was embraced by Muslim rulers as part of God’s creation, an extension of the caliphate’s divine order” (Picard, 2018, p. 112). In contrast, Christian rulers often viewed the sea as a contested zone of religious threat and imperial promise (Burman, Catlose, and Meyerson 2022, p. 287). These opposing visions influenced military campaigns, cartography, and diplomacy across centuries.

Following the movements of goods, people, and ideas between Morocco and Spain, this StoryMap reveals the Mediterranean not as a boundary but as a shared convergence space marked by coexistence, rivalry, and memory.