Sogdian Merchant Network

Timeline

1. 1071–1080Bukhara · BukharaSogdian-descended Muslim merchants in Bukhara and Samarkand continued practices of family partnership, custody of goods, and transnational agency while invoking Islamic commercial law (fiqh al-muʿāmalāt) to resolve contract disputes, forming a hybrid commercial culture.
2. 1071–1075Merv · KhorasanCaravans departed Merv, passing through Khorasan toward Persia and Anatolia; foreign trading houses in the cities provided warehousing, translation, and credit services for merchants from India, northwestern China, and the steppe, continuing the Sogdian model of intermediary trade.
3. 1076–1080Transoxiana · TransoxianaSogdian's status as a commercial lingua franca had been replaced by Persian and Arabic, but Sogdian-descended merchant families still controlled key trade routes and credit networks, and their organizational model was inherited by later Central Asian Muslim merchant communities.