From the Mercantile System to Diplomatic Order: Embassies between Mameluk Egypt and Rasulid Yemen (7th-9th/13th-15th centuries) From the middle of the 13th century to the beginning of the 15th century the rapid expansion of the mercantile system of the Karim in the Red Sea was concomitant with the establishment of a new diplomatic order, made up regular diplomatic relations, with stable and codified forms, between the Mameluk Ssultan of Egypt and the Rasulid Ssultanate of the Yemen. Working from systematically catalogued accounts of embassies found in Arabic Yemenite-Arab and Syrian-Egyptian sources, this article examines the importance of diplomatic presents coming from both parties, their political meaning with reference to the different rapports de force as well as their purely economic dimension. The study of this relationship between the Mamelukes and the Rasulides is an invitation to reconsider the relationship between commercial and non-commercial exchanges with reference to a "diplomatic order" established in the wake of a pre-existing mercantile system.