Medicine Dietetics and Pharmacology - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 258

in Mamlūk Egypt, the independence of
the local and long-distance commercial
circuits, the latter continuing to prosper
while the former declined. At the risk of
over-simplification, it should be possible
first to define the “shopkeeper”, dealing
in local products, living in a universe of
limited intellectual and economic hori-
zons. In Abbāsid Ba ∞ dād, this class of
shopkeepers, with its thoroughly practi-
cal daily concerns, seems often to have
been inspired by anbalism. The larger
traders, sedentary wholesalers or travel-
ling merchants, capable of more complex
economic calculations since they need to
take into account the risks of long-distance
transport were attracted by · āfiism,
A ª arism, or eventually Ismāīlism in the
East, Mālikism or ‡ āri ¡ ism in the West.
Major financiers close to the centres of
power, juggling with substantial abstract
sums, tended rather towards anafism or
Twelver · īism or even Ismāīlism.

still vibrant modern echo of these ancient
structures. It is evident that cities of the
western Mediterranean linked to the
Muslim world were remodelled according
to patterns emanating from the East, or
were constructed according to the same
principles in the case of new foundations.
As regards the Ma ∞ rib, it is however
somewhat difficult to glean precise infor-
mation on the topographical and eco-
nomic organisation of sū s in the Middle
Ages. It is known that at al- ayrawān,
before the Fāimids transferred com-
mercial activities to abra Manūriyya,
the sector of the sū s extended along the
Simāt, a main street which, traversing
the whole city from gate to gate, skirting
the Great Mosque and fringed by two
rows of shops, served as the city's prin-
cipal thoroughfare. In 275/888-9, at the
time of the “insurrection of the dirhams”,
following a monetary reform ordered
by the A ∞ labid Ibrāhīm II, the traders
closed their shops and rose in revolt. Also
for the 3rd/9th century in Ifrīiyya, a very
interesting source exists, the Akām al-sū
of Yayā b. Umar, containing a wealth
of detail regarding the daily life of the sū .
But besides this compilation of judicial
consultations relating to the sū , Ma ∞ ribī
literature specifically concerning markets
is rather meagre, and it would be neces-
sary, for a clear understanding of the mar-
ket economy in the mediaeval Ma ∞ rib,
to gather together a very dispersed and
often allusive stock of documentation,
since the sources currently available do
not seem to allocate much importance to
the “market”.
In his synthesis of the politico-admin-
istrative institutions of the mediaeval
Ma ∞ rib, Hopkins supplies very little
information on the administration of
the market. The paucity of references to
the specific jurisdiction of the isba even
leads him to believe that it was in fact the

(Th. Bianquis, P. Guichard)

2. In the Muslim West
In the Occident as well, the geographers
refer to the countless sū s which consti-
tuted the commercial heart of Muslim
towns in all western regions. The diversity
of these sū s is well illustrated, for exam-
ple, by Ibn awal, in the description
which he provides of the markets of Pal-
ermo in the 4th/10th century, for which
he lists some twenty-five different speci-
alities (traders in oil, corn, fish, meat and
vegetables, smiths, apothecaries, money-
changers, drysalters, cobblers, tanners,
joiners, potters, embroiderers, polishers,
etc.). Regarding the late Middle Ages, the
index of Brunschvig's survey of afid
Tunisia names some fifty different sū s. It
would seem to be appropriate to seek out,
through detailed study of a town such as
Fez on the eve of the colonial period, the