Christian and Islamic attitudes towards merchants and trade were both negative in their origins, but while Christianity’s attitude was strictly negative in 70-80 C.E., the Islamic attitude showed leniency toward the honest merchant. During the 1170 to fourteenth century both religions’ attitudes had shown negativity with an understanding of the necessity of merchants, but while Islam’s attitude slightly shifted negatively, Christianity’s attitude shifted further positively. Continuing throughout the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, both religions shifted in their attitudes, however Christianity completely shifted to a positive view while Islam faintly shifted more negative.
Documents 1 and 2 shows the negative attitudes that both Christianity and Islam shared towards merchants and trade yet Christianity was completely negativity while Islam was more lenient. Document 1, written from the bible, shows that around 70-80 C.E. the origin of Christian attitudes toward merchants and trade was completely negative and was looked down upon. Because this document is an excerpt from the bible, it shows that all Christians, during this time period, had a negative attitude towards merchants and trade. Document 2, which was written from the Qu’uran in 620-650 C.E, states that only the truthful merchants will take the rank of martyrs in faith. This shows that while the Muslims’ attitude was negative , it was lenient towards the truthful merchants because martyrs were highly look up to. Because document 2 was an excerpt from the Qur’an, it has absolute power in the Islamic religion therefore the negativity and lenience to the truthful merchant shown in the document applied to every Muslim at the time. There was negativity toward merchants and trade from the Christian religion and the Islamic religion, yet the Islamic religion showed hope for the honest merchant.
Islam and Christianity’s attitudes, during 1170 to fourteenth century, are negative but with an understanding...