Recurrent epidemics of Plague, Bedouin, Tatar and Mongol incursions, and the impact of devastating wars (including the Crusades and the scorched earth policy of the Egyptian Mamluks) had all undermined the fragile agrarian economy of the Middle East by the late 1300s.

European demand for Middle Eastern goods continued, but the region's traders faced increasing competition from other sources. By 1100, for example, both Italians and Spanish Moors were vying with Middle Easterners as paper producers. Syrian exports of glass began to fall when Venice emerged as a major glass-blowing centre. Sugar exports from Egypt, Syria, and Cyprus also fell after the Crusades as Europeans began establishing their own sugar plantations on Madeira, Cape Verde, the Azores and the Canary Islands. Beginning in the 1200s, Middle Eastern dyes faced increasing competition from Italian workshops. Textiles remained a leading export, but here too competition was increasing. By 1400, the Italians had broken the traditional Middle Eastern monopoly on cloth export.

Trade with East Africa and India did continue to thrive in the 1400s. The major import from East Africa was slaves, in return for which the Middle East sent cloth, glassware and weapons to East Africa. The most valuable facet of inter-regional trade during the period, however, remained the transport of spices.

Despite sporadic challenges from China, and increasing competition from Indian merchants, Arab traders continued to dominate the western portion of the thriving ecumenical trade zone throughout the fifteenth century. Muslim traders retained an exclusive monopoly on access to the Indian Ocean via the Red Sea, confining Christian and Jewish commercial activities to the Egyptian trade ports of Alexandria and Damietta. After the Egyptians brought the spice trade under government monopoly between 1422 and 1438, however, Egypt's role as commercial middleman in the long-distance trade network became an increasingly costly irritant to both European and Middle Eastern merchants. This government "grab" for additional profit provided one impetus for the late fifteenth century Portuguese voyages of exploration around Africa.

The European Voyages of Exploration