Across Sea and Ocean

Abstract

Although universal recognition of the caliphate diminished substantially in the post-Mongol territories of the Islamic East it remained a symbol of culture and tradition capable of bridging Muslim societies across the Mediterranean, Red Sea, and Indian Ocean. The eighth-/fourteenth- and ninth-/fifteenth-century Muslim rulers of India considered themselves in need of symbolic ties with the Abbasid line in Egypt to better strengthen their claims to ruling authority. This article examines diplomatic exchanges linking Syro-Egyptian elites with those in Delhi, Gujarat, Bengal, Malwa, and the Deccan, placing emphasis on the role of late medieval Indian sultanates in shaping the discourse associated with the Abbasid Caliphate in Cairo. Analysis also considers the relationships connecting premodern societies that spanned the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Eastern Mediterranean, framed through the prism of religious diplomacy involving transoceanic ideas of caliphate.