The Middle Eastern bazaar is much more than a context for commerce: the studies in this book illustrate that markets, regardless of their location, scale, and permanency, have also played important cultural roles within their societies, reflecting historical evolution, industrial development, social and political conditions, urban morphology, and architectural functions. This interdisciplinary volume explores the dynamics of the bazaar with a number of case studies from Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Nablus, Bursa, Istanbul, Sana'a, Kabul, Tehran, and Yazd. Although they share some contextual and functional characteristics, each bazaar has its own unique and fascinating history, traditions, cultural practices, and structure. One of the most intriguing aspects revealed in this volume is the thread of continuity from past to present exhibited by the bazaar as a forum where a society meets and intermingles in the practice of goods exchange-a social and cultural ritual that is as old as human history.

The Middle Eastern bazaar is much more than a context for commerce: the studies in this book illustrate that markets, regardless of their location, scale, and permanency, have also played important cultural roles within their societies, reflecting historical evolution, industrial development, social and political conditions, urban morphology, and architectural functions. This interdisciplinary volume explores the dynamics of the bazaar with a number of case studies from Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Nablus, Bursa, Istanbul, Sana'a, Kabul, Tehran, and Yazd. Although they share some contextual and functional characteristics, each bazaar has its own unique and fascinating history, traditions, cultural practices, and structure. One of the most intriguing aspects revealed in this volume is the thread of continuity from past to present exhibited by the bazaar as a forum where a society meets and intermingles in the practice of goods exchange-a social and cultural ritual that is as old as human history.

This sumptuously illustrated journey through the bazaars in the old Islamic cities of the Orient shows how little they have changed since the Middle Ages. First the origins of the bazaar, its roots in the markets of ancient times, and the early Islamic fortresses and caravanserais are examined. Then the path of goods, carried by the trader's indispensable companion, the camel, is traced along legendary caravan routes like the Silk, Incense, and Amber Roads.After describing the everyday workings of the bazaar, the book focuses on traditional trades and crafts, including gold and sugar traders' markets, and the workshops of lute makers, fabric painters, glassblowers, and coppersmiths. We watch Persian carpet makers, perfumers, miniature painters, and calligraphers at work and meet people whose exotic trades are now dying out: sword, dagger, and fire makers, water sellers, magicians, story-tellers, and silk weavers. More than a dozen of the finest and most important bazaars -- including Marrakesh, Fez, Damascus, Aleppo, Cairo, Istanbul, Isfahan, Sanaa, and Samarkand -- are described in full and illustrated.With its detailed maps and plans, this book is an invaluable source of information for travelers to the Islamic world as well as for anyone intrigued by the "city within a city", one of the most mysterious and enduring forms of Islamic life. -- from https://books.google.com (Nov. 25, 2015).

Covers the history of Islamic markets, social and physical structures, water, vendors and crafts, and bazaars from Morocco to Central Asia

This book contains articles on historic cities of the Islamic world, ranging from West Africa to Malaysia, which over the centuries have been centres of culture and learning and of economic and commercial life, and which have contributed much to the consolidation of Islam as a faith and as a social and political institution. The articles have been taken from the second edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam, completed in 2004, but in many cases expanded and rewritten. All have been updated to include fresh historical information, with note of contemporary social developments and population statistics. The book thus delineates the urban background of Islam has it has evolved up to the present day, highlighting the role of such great cities as Cairo, Istanbul, Baghdad and Delhi in Islamic history, and also brings them together in a rich panorama illustrating one of mankind's greatest achievements, the living organism of the city.

To examine the political role of architecture, this book presents an original engagement with the largest center of attraction in Tehran, namely, its bazaar. Through a rigorous study, it goes beyond the conventional sociopolitical and architectural discourses of this marketplace by considering architecture as an event. This book offers alternative modes of spatial thinking on a micropolitical level. Emphasis is placed on the focused exploration of key notions mainly drawn from the works of Michel Foucault. It deploys effective methods and shows how philosophical concepts can be deployed as a tool to analyse the ways through which architecture transforms individuals through the act of exchange—whether of words, things, bodies, or thoughts.