Souq an-Niswan

The bride’s lane of the Aleppo souq. Niswan means women, and the lane is named not for what it sells but for who it sells to: wedding dresses, accessories, wedding equipment, everything that goes into a bride’s trousseau. It is a long lane and covered from end to end.

A lane named after its customers

Lanes in the Aleppo souq go by craft: the smiths, the furriers, the jewellers, the tailors. An-Niswan may be the one exception. The name says who the goods are for rather than what they are. That has a practical result. No single craft holds the lane; every part of a wedding preparation stands side by side, and the shopping is done in one visit.

A knot in the network

The lane’s second feature is where it sits. The gold souq and the herb souq both branch off it, and at its end is al-Mahmas, the lane named after the roasting house. An-Niswan is not simply a street but one of the knots of the market network: enter here and you can leave by three different lanes. Points like this are also the easiest places in the Aleppo souq to lose your bearings.

How long it takes

Twenty minutes. For anyone who has come to buy, that measure means nothing, since preparing a wedding takes days, but twenty minutes is enough to walk through. The length of the lane is what eats the time.

What most people miss

The turnings. Openings into the side lanes sit halfway along, and because they fall between rows of windows a brisk walker goes straight past them. One takes you to the gold souq, another to the herb sellers. Then walk to the far end: the smell of al-Mahmas reaches the street, and your nose tells you where in the market you are.