 Photo credit: Genghiskhanviet
A bazaar is a market: a permanent enclosed merchandising area, marketplace, or street of shops where goods and services are exchanged or sold. The term originates from the Middle Persian word vāzār. Souq is another word used in the Middle East for an open-air marketplace or commercial quarter. The term bazaar is sometimes also used to refer to the "network of merchants, bankers, and craftsmen" who work in that area. Although the current meaning of the word is believed to have originated in native Zoroastrian Persia, its use has spread and now has been accepted into the vernacular in countries around the world. The rise of large bazaars and stock trading centers in the Muslim World allowed the creation of new capitals and eventually new empires. New and wealthy cities such as Isfahan, Golconda, Samarkand, Cairo, Baghdad, and Timbuktu were founded along trade routes and bazaars. Street markets and arcades are European and North American equivalents. |
