Medicine Dietetics and Pharmacology - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 264

· īī city of ūfa (only 2,000 Jews lived
in Sunnī-dominated Bara) would tend
to suggest that the former was still an
important commercial centre in the late
Abbāsid period. But when Ibn Baūa
( ca. 1325-54) visited ūfa, he found that
it was merely a caravan station for pil-
grims from Mawil and Ba ∞ dād travel-
ling to Mecca; the commercial city had
fallen into ruins as a result of attacks by
Bedouin. However, he found the neigh-
bouring Na ¡ af a populous town with a
thriving market, admiring the fine and
clean sū which he entered through the
Bāb al-ara. He then offers details of the
layout of the Na ¡ af sū , beginning with
the food and vegetable shops, markets of
the greengrocers, cooks and butchers, the
fruit market, the tailors' market, followed
by the covered market ( ayariyya ) and the
perfumers' bazaar, which was close to
the alleged tomb of the Imām Alī b Abī
ālib.
Al-Wāsi was founded by al-a ¡¡ ā ¡ ,
and its markets, according to the local
historian Bah ª al (d. 292/905), were well
planned. The layout of the market allot-
ted to every trade a separate plot of land
and segregated each craft or trade. Each
group of tradesmen was given its own
money-changer. Iyās b. Muāwiya was
appointed inspector of the Wāsi market.
A kind of toll or rent was collected from
the tradesmen. The sū was divided into
two broad sections. On the right side of
the market the shops of the food-sellers,
cloth merchants, money-changers and
perfume traders were located; on the left
side, the greengrocers, fruit vendors ( aāb
al-fākiha ) and sellers of second-hand goods
( aāb al-sua ) established their shops or
stalls. Day labourers ( ruz ¡ āriyyūn ) and
craftsmen ( unnā ) waited for work on a
space stretching from the sandal-makers'
road ( arb al- ¶ arrāzūn ) towards the Tigris
river. The market was thus an elaborately

laid-out affair. This main market was on
the western side of the town.
In planning a circular-shaped double-
walled citadel city at Ba ∞ dād, with four
massive arcaded gates, the Abbāsid caliph
al-Manūr was also responsible for lay-
ing out the city's markets in the arcaded
space of the four city gates, following the
practice of ancient cities such as Jerusa-
lem. However, after ten years or so, Abū
⁄ afar is said to have been advised by a
visiting envoy, the Patricius, from Byz-
antium that siting markets near his pal-
ace posed danger to a ruler from foreign
spies visiting the markets in the guise of
traders. Shortly before the removal of the
markets from the arcades (measuring 15
× 200 cubits) of the four gates, there was
a riot incited by a certain Yayā b. Abd
Allāh, whom Abū ⁄ afar had appointed
the city's mutasib , for which Yayā was
executed. Nevertheless, the emergence
of the mutasib in Ba ∞ dād heralded the
rise of this urban institution which regu-
lated the ethical behaviour of traders and
craftsmen in the Abbāsid markets.
Following the riots of 157/774, the
city's markets were transferred to the dis-
trict of al-Kar ¶ where shops and work-
shops were laid out on the principle of
selling homogenous products in adjacent
shops/stalls systematically arranged in
rows of roads ( darb , pl. durūb ) and streets
( sikka , pl. sikak ). The markets of the butch-
ers, who carried sharp tools, were allot-
ted a space at the far end of the market.
Thus according to al- ‡ aīb al-Ba ∞ dādī,
al-Manūr instructed his officers Ibrāhīm
b. ubay ª al-ūfī and ‡ irā ª b. al-
Musayyab al-Yamanī to develop the cen-
tral business district at al-Kar ¶ on the
west bank of the Tigris. Al-Manūr's suc-
cessor al-Mahdī was later responsible for
laying out the markets at the Bāb al-ā
and Bāb al- · aīr on the east bank of the
Tigris, around the palace of ‡ uld, in the