Maghribi Merchant Bill of Exchange System

Timeline

1. 1001–1100Tunisia · IfriqiyaJewish merchants from the Maghreb region of North Africa established family trading houses in places such as Tunisia and Sicily, sustaining trans-Mediterranean trade networks through kinship and communal trust, thereby laying the organizational foundation for remote payment via bills of exchange.
2. 1101–1300Cairo (Fustat) · EgyptMerchants issued bills of exchange (suftaja) to transfer payment instructions from one place to another, redeemed at nodes such as Cairo and Alexandria by affiliated trading houses, avoiding the risk of escorting gold coins over long distances. Around 1211, this system supported the settlement of spice and textile trade between North Africa and the Levant.
3. 1101–1400Mediterranean commercial centers · Islamic worldThe bill-of-exchange practices of Maghribi merchants operated alongside hawala exchange in Islamic law and Jewish commercial law rules, forming patterns of credit transfer under a plural legal culture that influenced later Mediterranean commercial customs and the form of financial documents.