Anwesha Das
About
anwesha.das@emory.edu
Anwesha Das is a PhD candidate in Islamic Civilizations Studies at Emory University.
Her dissertation explores the transoceanic ties of Gujarat across the medieval western Indian Ocean through the cotton textile trade.
By analyzing Arabic texts, Cairo Geniza documents, and material remains, she investigates the intersections of commerce, material culture, and religion.
Das possesses advanced skills in multiple languages, including Arabic, Sanskrit, and Judeo-Arabic.
Her research, supported by numerous prestigious fellowships, situates medieval Gujarat as a central hub in the wider Indian Ocean world, connecting South Asia to the Red Sea and beyond.
Abstract:
While away in India in 1134 CE, Ḥalfon b. Netan’el ha-Levi received updates on business conducted on his behalf from his Adenese business partner Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq – an episode now revealed through a unique Cairo Geniza document. The account itself would not have made much sense had we been unable to place it in the web of letters exchanged between Ḥalfon and his Adenese partners Khalaf b. Yiṣḥaq, Maḍmūn b. Ḥasan, and Yosef b. Avraham b. Bundār in around 1133-34 CE. Through this set of documents, I turn to Ḥalfon during his sojourn in Gujarat in 1133-34 CE – likely conducting his business from the port-town of Bharuch. As the Geniza documents suggest, Ḥalfon was certainly not the only Jewish merchant sojourning in Gujarat at this time. In this paper, I study the connected history of the medieval Indian Ocean through a set of Judeo-Arabic letters from the Cairo Geniza. These letters are embedded into one another, and thus form a significant repository of knowledge of maritime commerce. I argue that the India traders were drawn to Gujarat to purchase textiles – primarily cotton stuffs. My analysis brought forth the quotidian aspect of this transoceanic trade, the merchants’ networks of the India traders and the different geographies – inland sites such as Nahrwāra or Anhilvada, and port-towns like Bharuch – that were stitched together by the trade of textiles from Gujarat. Shifting attention from the existing scholarship that centers the Malabar coast and the spice trade in Cairo Geniza studies, this paper brings into focus Gujarat’s cotton textile trade and its commercial connections with the Red Sea.