After successive waves of Muslim conquest, the Islamic Empire’s borders at its height encompassed territories as far West as Spain and Portugal, as far east as India and China, and from Central Asia in the north to Arabia in the South. The taxes levied on conquered populations generated immense revenue for the Islamic empire’s treasury.

The spread of Islam in these territories established a new mode of urban planning. The majority of urban towns and cities beginning west in Muslim Spain, North Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia and reaching east in the Indian subcontinent and ending in the Muslim towns established in China had the same core elements of the Islamic city. Ibn Battuta, when he visited the Muslim quarter of a Chinese town, observed that its market was arranged exactly as in the towns of the dar al-Islam (abode of Islam). ¹ The souq was an essential part of the socioeconomic fabric of any Islamic city.

The Islamic Empire in the Middle East was strategically located and controlled most of the world’s major land and maritime trading routes, thereby facilitating intercontinental commerce. The Islamic Empire served as a two-way channel, facilitating the flow of goods and merchandise from India, China, Southeast Asia, and East Africa to Europe, and vice versa. The favorable geographical position of the Islamic lands made the Islamic heartlands wealthy and prosperous, prompting the inundation of luxurious goods, spices, and textiles from Europe and the East into the hands of Muslim court elites and common citizens.

Islamic cities like Alexandria, Gaza, Damascus, Baghdad, Rayy, Bukhara, Samarkand, Mecca, and Aden were prominent trade and port cities that coalesced along the Silk Road. The Arab and Muslim rulers established grandiose urban metropolises with proper urban planning, facilities, and amenities. One of the most vital establishments in any Islamic city at the center of economic life was the public market (Ara. souq, Per. Bazaar).

History of the souq in the medieval Arab world

The souq, or Market, is an Arabic word borrowed from Aramaic “šūqā” (“street, market”), itself borrowed from Akkadian “sūqu” (“street”). The souq was a large-scale communal market that stretched across the city and catered to residents’ everyday needs.

Historians debate the origin of the souq: whether it derived from ancient Roman and Greek models, was a natural extension of the deep-rooted generational knowledge of commerce from pre-Islamic times, which was later translated into more developed financial institutions and structures after Islam was revealed, or a combination of both.

This expertise has stemmed from the Arab’s long history of engaging in local and regional trade for millennia, given the geographical location of the peninsula on the incense road, which was a destination for caravans coming from every corner of the world, converging the land routes connecting the Mediterranean world and Europe to Africa and the East and vice versa. The souq is merely a sophisticated manifestation of the Arab’s profound business intuition, cultivated over centuries, even millennia, and of their cemented economic structures, founded since ancient times.

In pre-Islamic Arabia, Arabs held several temporary markets in specific areas at certain times of the year. Following these markets, Arabs were motivated to travel from one area to another. They also went beyond Arabia to bazaars in Iraq, Syria, and Ethiopia. Among these bazaars, Okaz was the most prominent for its role in political, cultural, and social affairs and its influence on Arabic poetry.

Okaz was located near a temple, in a big field southeast of Mecca. Its proximity to Mecca made this suq an important gathering and shopping place, especially for Hajj pilgrims. After the advent of Islam and the rise of Muslim power, new urban centers such as Basra, Kufa, Baghdad, and Qayrawan emerged. The suq was designed as a permanent part of the city, no longer a seasonal or temporary market typical of Arabia.²

The establishment of the Islamic souq began in the early days of Islam when the Prophet of Islam built a Souq in Medina after the Hijra, close to the jami’ (the Friday mosque). The souq in early Islamic cities had a primitive layout of humble booths or kiosks in a large open space, sometimes shaded by fabric and umbrellas, surrounding the outer perimeter of the central mosque. It is only later, under the Umayyad Caliphate, that the enclosed, covered shops we see in most souqs today began to appear.

 

To understand the intricate interplay of the souq with the functions of other establishments in the medieval Islamic city, we must first understand what a Medieval Islamic city comprised. Most Islamic cities more or less had four main functions that are physically manifested in: (1) the governmental authority, represented by the palace or the citadel; (2) the religious and intellectual life, represented by mosques and madāris; (3) the economic exchange that took place in the souks, qīṣāriyyas, and caravansarais (4) and the residential neighborhoods, occupied by the urban population.” ³ There were other key elements of the city’s socioeconomic features, such as the public bathhouses (hammam) and the main square (maydan).

There were two kinds of souqs: permanent and temporary. The permanent markets operated daily, year-round, usually within the city walls, near the central mosque in the city center, with designated routes, and provided essential services and goods to the occupying population. In contrast, the temporary markets were seasonal and peripatetic, erected outside the city walls, and served travelers who came during pilgrimage seasons and itinerant visitors unfamiliar with the city’s directions.

Sometimes they were erected for special celebrations and festivals, remained in place for their duration, and were later dismantled. There were markets designed to serve the army during warfare and military campaigns, where the necessary armaments, uniforms, and equipment were sold.

How were the souqs erected, supervised, and maintained

The Souq: professions, their divisions, and supervision

The medieval Islamic Souq was a sophisticated, highly organized, and self-sufficient enterprise. The market was divided into different trades (sina’aat) and crafts (hiraf) essential to sustain an urban population. The retailers, shopkeepers, middlemen, and even peddlers of the same profession were congregated in the same lane or quarter for convenience’s sake, usually marked by bearing the name of the trade itself- i.e souq ash-shammaen (the candles market) and souq al-anbareen (ambergris souq), souq Al-halaweiyean (confectioner’s souq), and souq as-sanadiqeen (the chests souq) for selling wooden chests, boxes, and trunks for storage.

Describing the souqs of Baghdad, al-Yaqubi observed that for the traders of each specific good or service, there were defined lanes and that no group or trade was mixed with any other, nor was a category being sold with another category. He also noticed that the crafts in the market area were kept separate, with each type in its own lane. ⁴

If we examine Medieval market inspection manuals (hisba) from different Arabo-Islamic cities, one would marvel at the level of specialization in each craft and its subdivisions. According to the Egyptian hisba manual written by Ibn-bassam, he recounts supervising well over 36 professions and sub-professions selling various foodstuffs and their cooking, textile work, apothecaries and pharmacists, doctors, veterinarians, oculists, bone casters, surgeons, cobblers, goldsmiths, jewelers, cashiers, coppersmiths, blacksmiths, ironmongers, potters, ceramic sellers, glassware sellers, wood sellers, sawdust sellers, and carpenters, builders, gypsum craftsmen and brick makers, slave merchants, real estate agents, and beasts of burden brokers, bathhouse supervisors, cuppers and blood-letters, boy and girls’ tutors, and supervision over non-muslims (collecting taxes and moral conducts).

For example, souqs specializing in food had different shops selling fruits, vegetables, pulses, grains, meats, poultry, seafood, and dairy that people would buy for their consumption. In the food souqs, public market cooks were assigned to stalls, where they prepared meals for customers who had purchased the ingredients beforehand, or they prepared fresh meals in the stalls and sold them to the public. Sometimes the food was ordered and delivered as takeout to homes, or eaten right away at restaurants and eateries in the market.

Average-income households and poor folks didn’t cook at home due to space limitations and safety concerns. In contrast, the affluent and elite had private kitchens in their residences, with professional chefs and staff handling the food.

Each market cook was assigned to prepare a specific meal item, either savory or sweet. They ranged from bread bakers, meat roasters, fish cooks and fryers, sausage cooks, and porridge (Hareesa) cooks, to confectioners, doughnut (Zalabiyeh) fryers, sweet beverage sellers, and juicers. There were ancillary food items that were allotted a separate workshop, such as millers (flour grinders), spice sellers, vinegar, sugar, salt, ghee, and oil sellers.

 

The textile industry, like the food industry, was equally specialized due to its prominence as one of the most lucrative commercial industries for Medieval people. The handling of textiles in their raw and unfinished forms required multiple processes, with each process having a specific seller/dealer, such as the spinner (ghazzal), weaver (ha’ik), dyer (sabbagh), linen workers (kattan), and cotton fluffer (naddaf) and comber (qattan) until a finished piece of fabric is made.

The finished fabrics are sold as raw materials or ready-to-wear clothing (dresses, pants, robes, etc.). Garment-making professionals included the tailor (khayyat), hemming and mending professional (rafaa’), embroiderer (tarraz), pattern professional (raqqam), not to mention clothiers (bazzaz), silk merchants (Harairriean), and cap makers (Al-qalanisean). The process of washing fabrics and clothing was similarly divided into different domains like the fuller (qassar), launderer (ghassal), and finally, the starcher (nasha’), which prepares the garment for ironing, and batting professional (daqqaq)–the word daq meaning to beat or pound. A separate market (Souq Al-Abbareen) sold all the sewing implements needed, including scissors, threads, and various types and sizes of needles.

Also, these trades and professions were divided by their respectability, based on their proximity to the city’s grand mosque. Crafts and trades deemed most respectable and pristine according to Islamic jurisprudence, such as candle sellers, herbalists, incense merchants, perfumers, and textile merchants, as well as items that booksellers and binders would sell, were placed close to the central mosque within the city complex. In contrast, less respectable and unsanitary crafts that were undesirable to the sensibilities of the urban population, such as trash collectors, saddle makers, potters, and tanneries, were situated on the city’s periphery.

Trades that could cause hazardous conditions, especially those that required the use of fire (bakeries, blacksmiths, oven workers), were advised to prop their stalls away from vendors selling items that could easily catch fire, such as herbalists, chemists, and wood sellers.

Each trade was headed by a professional (‘arrif) who had reached the pinnacle of expertise in that particular field and would be appointed by the market supervisor (muhatsib) to monitor and root out any fraudulent activities, supervise weights and measures, regulate prices, and ensure that daily business ran as seamlessly as possible. The muhtasib was also tasked with collecting tax revenue from merchants and sellers, upholding market affairs (sanitation and equipped facilities), public morality, and religious duties, especially ensuring that merchants and customers observed the mosque’s prayer times.

 

 

 

1. ABDULLATIF AWAD, J. (1984). ISLAMIC SOUQS (BAZAARS) IN THE URBAN CONTEXT: THE SOUQ OF NABLUS [Master’s Thesis]. https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/33362255.pdf ↩︎
2. Gharipour, M. (2012). The bazaar in the Islamic city : design, culture, and history. American University In Cairo Press. ↩︎
3. The Souk in the Islamic City between Power and Organization of Space, Nour Eddine Nachouane, Aicha Knidiri, Hesperis Tamuda, ISSN 0018-1005, Nº. 56, 4, 2021 (Ejemplar dedicado a: The City in the Islamic World: Genesis and Changes/ Geographical and Urbanistic Approaches), págs. 221-236 ↩︎
4. The Souk in the Islamic City between Power and Organization of Space, Nour Eddine Nachouane, Aicha Knidiri, Hesperis Tamuda, ISSN 0018-1005, Nº. 56, 4, 2021 (Ejemplar dedicado a: The City in the Islamic World: Genesis and Changes/ Geographical and Urbanistic Approaches), págs. 221-236 ↩︎