Souq Al-Manakhah

This guide to Souq Al-Manakhah in Medina opens with the Prophet Muhammad making his rounds through the market he had marked out himself, sinking a hand into a heap of grain the way any careful buyer might. It traces how that morning turned into a rebuke about honesty in trade, and how this same square became Medina's first marketplace, with two rules that stunned rival traders elsewhere: no tents or walls, and no rent or tax for anyone who claimed a spot each morning. Picture the open ground as you stand here, once traced out by nothing more than a sandal's mark in the dirt.