What characterized trans-Saharan trade, and how did it affect West African society?

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Copper Coin from Mogadishu, Twelfth CenturyIslamic proscriptions against representation of the human form prevented the use of rulers’ portraits on coinage, unlike the practice of the Romans, Byzantines, and Sassanids. Instead Islamic coins since the Umayyad period were decorated exclusively with writing. Sultan Haran Ibn Suleiman of Kilwa on the East African coast minted this coin, a symbol of the region’s Muslim culture and of its rich maritime trade. (© The Trustees of the British Museum/Art Resource, NY)

“Trans-Saharan trade” refers to the north-south trade across the Sahara (Map 10.2). The camel had an impact on this trade comparable to the very important impact of horses and oxen on European agriculture. Although scholars dispute exactly when the camel was introduced from Central Asia — first into North Africa, then into the Sahara and the Sudan — they agree that it was before 200 C.E. The trans-Saharan trade brought lasting economic and social change to Africa, facilitating the spread of Islam via Muslim Arab traders, and affected the development of world commerce.