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Most western-style shops tend to have fixed prices whilst the traditional souqs expect the customer to bargain over the price. Before you make a major purchase, find out what others have paid for a similar item. Shop around, as prices will vary.
A souk (سوق, also sook, souq, or suq; and also used in Heb. שוק, shuk) is a commercial quarter in an Arab city. The term is often used to designate the market in any Arabized city. It may also refer to the weekly market in some smaller towns where neutrality from tribal conflicts would be declared to permit the exchange of surplus goods.
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Though each neighbourhood within the city would have a local souk selling food and other essentials, the main souk was one of the central structures of a large city. A central marketplace, it was where textiles, jewellery, spices, wooden sculptures and other valuable goods as well as the money changers were arranged in a line. A quadrilateral of stone-vaulted streets parallel to or crossing each other or a tight mass of buildings too packed together for roads to intersect them. The workshops were further away from this centre of exchange as were the main residential quarters – those the wealthier merchants or scholars might live within the centre of the city.
The souk was a level of municipal administration. The Muhtasib was responsible for supervising business practices and collecting taxes for a given suq while the Arif are the overseers for a specific trade.
In a souk, the final price of an item is reached by bargaining with the shopkeeper. Traders of a given commodity would all sell in the same souk, thus ensuring a competitive market. In some African countries the souk was a place where people could come and talk, or sit down to tell stories.
The souk in Marrakech is a very surprising and lively place. The smells bring much to its atmosphere, and the spices shops are most enjoyable. You can find a variety of different spices, dry fruits, and canned vegetables.
The "souq" or traditional markets are an enjoyable way of shopping in Riyadh. There are souqs specializing in certain products.
For instance, the antique souq sells a variety of old copper and brass objects. Others are the women's souq, tent souq, second-hand souq, fruit and vegetable souq, fish souq, pigeon souq, falcon souq, camel souq, musical instruments souq, car souq, car parts souq...
"All that glitters is GOLD" in the gold souqs. The cost of gold items is measured by the weight of gold used as there is no labour charge.
Albeit there are no flying carpets, one can have a lot of fun looking for just that special rug at the carpet souq.
Summary: A market, or part of a market, in an Arab city. [Arabic sūq, from Aramaic šuqā, street, market, from Akkadian sūqu, street, from sâqu, to be narrow.]
BAZAAR
A bazaar (Persian: بازار) is a marketplace typically found in Iran, Turkey, India, Pakistan, and other Middle-eastern countries. The word derives from the Persian word bāzār, whose etymology goes back to the Pahlavi word baha-char (بهاچار) meaning "the place of prices".
Words cognate to bazaar are used in nearby states (eg. Post-Soviet states, Balkan countries) to mean an open market, whereas in more distant cultures the word connotes a Near Eastern style market.
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