The bedesten was the core of the commercial life of an Ottoman town. There the finest fabrics, jewellery and goods of superior craftsmanship were sold and were kept in strongrooms at nightfall. They were continually under guard whereas the rest of a bazaar was only patrolled.
It follows that the merchants were rich and could pay much higher rents than the common market shopkeepers or stallholders. The cells and the space in front of them for counters, made from their shutters, were rented and the revenues formed part of the endowment of a mosque. The right to build a bedesten was granted by the sultan and so its existence as well as its size were matters for local pride. It must be added that thieves did get in, if rarely, by digging holes in the domes or roofs. In Edirne, the bedesten was founded by Mehmed Ito help support the staff and maintenance of the Eski Cami. It is of exceptional size, 56.30 m by 19.80 m inside. There are 36 cells inside and 56 outside, some of these are cut into two on the diagonal. Curiously, the backs of these shops dwindle to a point leaving little storage space for any reserves of stock.
All was on the counter. Built of ashlar like the mosques and courses of brick for economy in the Byzantine manner, the bedesten has arches above its windows in which are set half-a-dozen differing motifs carved in stone. But the wonder of this interior is it's six piers and seven pairs of domes which transform it into a palatially spacious hall. A central entrance on each of the four sides adds to its appearance and with cells larger than the bedesten at Bursa it is considered the finest surviving example. There was a second bedesten known as the Eski (Old) Bedesten. Built for Murad II as part of the endowment of his mosque for the Mevlevi it was a handsome building in spite of its humble trade for the Old does not refer to its age but that of the clothes sold there.
It was badly damaged in the earthquake of 1752 and it had vanished by the middle of the 19th century when Edirne, in economic decline, no longer had need of it. An arasta is any unified group of shops also endowed for the maintenance of a pious foundation as at the Selimiye (p 27) which was built by Murad III. The Semiz Ali Pasha Pazar (Bazaar) is also an arasta but is known by the name of its founder or as the Kapali car*i as with the huge covered market of Istanbul. Ali Pasha's bazaar was built in 1569 by Sinan as part of the endowment of several of that Pasha's foundations including his mosque at Babaeski. At one time there were 211 shops. The 300 m vista down it is unique, and the place still bustles. Lady Mary Wortley-Montagu declared that it was half-a-mile in length and increased the number of shops to 365, one for every day of the Christian year but too many for the Moslem year. She talks of rich goods instead of today's more humble wares and also of its cleanliness and the fresh paintwork.
She may be forgiven her exaggeration for it may not take a year to traverse it, but it certainly does take a long time. Today there are 126 shops selling modest goods. The goldsmiths and armorers disappeared in the 19th century.
