Traditional Market in Oman

For newbies, a souq is the term used for a marketplace (open air).The goods are displayed for sale by the merchants in places where caravans would halt while being loaded with goods and located outside the cities for past known centuries. Only when the  caravans where available did the souqs were held. Plenty of social and cultural activities and major festivals were conducted here rather than being as a marketp to sell and buy goods.

For every large city, one of the central structures was the main souq were essentials and food articles were to be sold while being an open-air marketplace. In the past souqs were those places where caravans loaded with goods would halt  for merchants who wish to sell and display their goods.Souqs were held when only there was a caravan or more available. Plenty of cultural and social activities were held in souqs along with main festivals and hence it was not only a market to sell and buy goods.Different articles like spices, wooden sculptures, textiles, jewellery and other valuable goods were arranged in a line along with money changers. Streets with a quadrilateral and stone vaulted structure that intersect or parallel to one another or a group of adjacent buildings for the roads to intersect them was certainly one of the souq highlights.

Both the main residential quarters and workshops were  far away from the souq as only scholars and wealthier merchants used to live in the centre of the city.

The municipal administration style was adopted by souq in the past with Person’s titled Arif to supervise specialised trades and the ‘Muhtasib’  to collect taxes and oversee business practices

Only by bargaining with the shopkeeper would the final price for an item would be reached. To ensure a competitive market , traders of the same commodity used to sell in the same souq.

Nowadays one could find these traditional souqs around Muscat, Oman. Finally, there is even a hybrid ‘Muttrah Souq’ in Muscat which is hybridised with new age and traditional elements.