Medicine Dietetics and Pharmacology - Food Culture and Health in Pre-Modern Islamic Societies - page 266

Abd Allāh Street was the largest street
around which people from Bal ¶ , Marw,
Bu ¶ ārā, ‡ uttal, Kābul and ‡ w ārazm
settled. In the same locality was located the
dār al-raī , where slaves were bought and
sold under the supervision of al-Rabī b.
Yūnus. When the Andalusian traveller Ibn
⁄ ubayr visited Ba ∞ dād in the 6th/12th
century, he found that the arbiyya mar-
kets and residential areas had declined.
He also noted that the market of the
hospital ( sū al-māristān ) where physicians
attended the sick every Monday and
Thursday, was located at the old Bara
Gate in west Ba ∞ dād. The shops and
workshops of leather workers ( dabbā ∞ ūn )
were situated at the Īsā Canal on the west
bank of the Tigris away from the main
market of al-Kar ¶ , and not far from a
rubbish dump ( kunāsa ) and an ancient
graveyard. In 449/1057, a fire caused
extensive damage to the food market ( sū
al-aām ), the wood-sellers' market ( sū
al- ¶ a ªª ābīn ), the carpenters' market
( sū al-na ¡¡ ārīn ), the butchers' market
( sū al- ¡ azzārīn ), the dyers' market ( sū
al-abbā ∞ īn ) and the market of the per-
fumers and chemists ( sū al-aārīn ) which
were sited in adjacent buildings.
On the east bank, construction for the
palace of al- ‡ uld began in 143/760
for the prince al-Mahdī, and this had its
own markets: the fief of Badr al-Waīf
housed the sū al-aa ª ; among the five
streets in east Ba ∞ dād, there was a sū
‡ uayr , where Chinese wares were sold.
Rents collected from the markets during
the 3rd/9th century on both banks of
Ba ∞ dād, including those from the Mills
of the Patricius ( arā al-Barīk ), amounted
to 12 million dirhams annually. The trad-
ers in the markets of Ba ∞ dād imported
goods from Central Asia and from the
Far East as far as China, and al- ⁄ āi in
his K. al-Tabaur bi 'l-ti ¡ āra gives a list of
exotic products available in Irā's markets.

When al-Mutaim built the city of
Sāmarrā, he followed the established
pattern for earlier markets in Islamic cit-
ies such as Ba ∞ dād. After laying out the
palace and public buildings, he marked
out the site of the chief mosque and built
the markets around it; the rows of shops
and workshops were made spacious and
every kind of product was sold in adja-
cent shops. In the north of Sāmarrā some
groups of Turkish soldiers were allotted
land on which to build their houses, but
the barracks of the Turks and the men
of Far ∞ āna were established far away
from the markets so that these troops
did not mix with local people and trad-
ers. Some folk were settled further north,
in the area of al-Dūr, where small mar-
kets, some shops and butchers' stalls were
built for the muwalladūn . The aīa or fief
of izām on which the slave market was
situated, was near the guard headquarters
and prison. Shops and rooms for housing
slaves were located there, and on this main
thoroughfare there were houses for the
common people and markets where craft
and product were sold separately. This
was Sāmarrā's second big market. Out-
side the old Sāmarrā, al-Mutawakkil built
a new satellite town, where all the traders
of demeaning status, such as the sellers of
barley beer, harīsa soup and wine ( aāb
al-fuā wa 'l-harāis wa 'l- ª arāb ) were iso-
lated from the rest of the market. Market
taxes and rents ( ∞ alla wa-musta ∞ illāt ) col-
lected in Sāmarrā amounted to ten mil-
lion dirhams a year.
Mawil also had its markets, and its
Wednesday ( sū al-arbaā ) and Sunday
Markets ( sū al-aad ) were well known as
early as the 2nd/8th century. The local
historian al-Azdī mentions others markets,
including the hay market ( sū al-a ª ī ª )
and market of sellers of saddles stuffed
with straw ( sū al-attābīn ) and food mar-
ket. Al-Muaddasī noted that Mawil had