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Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- PLATES -- TEXT FIGURES -- MAPS -- INTRODUCTION TO THE EXPANDED EDITION -- PREFACE -- CHAPTER I: TRADE ROUTES IN THE PRE-ISLAMIC ERA -- CHAPTER II: TRADE ROUTES UNDER THE CALIPHATE -- CHAPTER III: THE SHIPS -- NOTES ON CHAPTER I -- NOTES ON CHAPTER II -- NOTES ON CHAPTER III -- BIBLIOGRAPHY -- INDEX

The ethical theory of the Mu'tazila is properly called 'rationalism', because it held that the values of human and divine actions are knowable in principle by natural human reason. Since this doctrine and related parts of the theory (mentioned in the next section) were the prevailing ethical theories in the major preIslamic religious cultures of Iran and Byzantium, the question easily arises, to what extent were the Mu'tazila as the first systematic theologians in Islam indebted to these cultures for their ethics?