Medicine Dietetics and Pharmacology - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 263

changers' market, a goldsmiths' market
and a slave market ( sū al-na ¶¶ āsīn ).
Bara's trade with foreign merchants
was conducted through the ancient port
of al-Ubulla, which was linked to the gar-
rison city through a canal dug by Ziyād b.
Abīhi. One traveller noted in 443/1051
that al-Ubulla was located to the south-
west of Bara, and the · a al-Arab lay
to the east of this port, which had thriv-
ing markets, caravanserais, mosques and
luxury villas. The Ubulla canal was busy
with boats carrying merchandise to and
from Bara. Nāir-i ‡ usraw visited the
city in the mid-5th/11th century and
found that Bara's markets opened for
business at different times of the day. For
instance, a morning market was held at sū
al- ‡ uzāa , a mid-day one at sū U º mān
and a late-afternoon one at sū al-kaddāin
(the flintmakers' market).
Kūfa, which was founded shortly after
Bara, was a better planned town. How-
ever, al-abarī does not specify the sites of
its markets. ūfa began with an open-air
market. Alī b. Abī ālib, who moved his
capital from Medina to ūfa, is reported
to have said “For the Muslims, the market
is similar to the place of worship: he who
arrives first can hold his seat all day until
he leaves it”. The same theory that a seller
had a right to a space in the market was
upheld by the governors al-Mu ∞ īra b.
· uba and Ziyād b. Abīhi, who held that
a trader who sat in a specific space in a
market place could claim the spot so long
as he occupied it. This suggests that no
permanent shops were built in the market
of Kūfa during the early Umayyad period
and that these were only erected during
the caliphate of Hi ª ām by ‡ ālid b. Abd
Allāh al-arī. Endorsing al-Balā £ urī's
statement, al-Yaūbī affirms that ‡ ālid
al-arī built markets and constructed a
room and an arch ( ā ) for every trader.
Yāūt, on the other hand, recorded that

the Asad Market ( sū Asad ) built at this
time in ūfa was the work of Asad b.
Abd Allāh al-arī. Setting up a tempo-
rary stall/shop in a market incurred no
tax during the 1st/7th century.
According to one account, artisans and
craftsmen worked in an open space near
the central mosque. Al- ⁄ āi recorded
that much of ūfa was in ruins in his time.
Moreover, the cost of living was higher in
ūfa than in Bara. For instance, build-
ing a house in ūfa or Ba ∞ dād cost
100,000 dirhams, whereas a similar house
in Bara cost half as much. According to
Massignon, the market in ūfa during the
3rd-4th/9th-10th centuries, included the
following craftsmen: the topic and paper-
sellers were sited on the ibla side of the
city's major mosque; other crafts nearby
included datesellers ( tammārūn ), the manu-
facturers and sellers of soap ( aāb al-ābūn )
and grocers ( baālūn ). There were also
carpet-sellers ( aāb al-anmā ) and cloth
merchants; laundrymen ( kaārūn ) at Dār
al-Walīd, butchers ( ¡ azzārūn ) and wheat
merchants ( annātūn ); sellers of roast
meat ( sawwāūn ); other merchants who
were neighbours of the tradesmen were
money-changers ( ayārifa ) and goldsmiths
( ayyā ∞ ūn ). The markets of ūfa flour-
ished throughout the Abbāsid period,
and after, according to Ibn ⁄ ubayr and
amd Allāh al-Mustawfī, but details of
commercial activities are lacking in most
of our sources. While visiting ūfa, the
Spanish traveller Benjamin of Tudela ( ca.
1173) reported that the Jewish popula-
tion of about 70,000 had an impressive
synagogue. These population figures were
probably exaggerated; nevertheless, they
remain significant. Jews in the mediaeval
Middle East were well known for their com-
mercial activities and their craftsmanship
as jewellers, and were also famed as bank-
ers and money-changers. Their presence
in large numbers in the predominantly