Food Stores and Prepared Foods in Islamic Period Iran (Second until Seventh Century AH)

During second to seventh century, Iran passed through one of its most prosperous historical period. This prosperity was achieved in different dimensions. One of these areas was that of people’s economy and financial life. It was because of the relative improvement in different strata’s income level as well as their experiencing a certain level of monetary economy that markets in Iran encountered some developments and new occupations were added to it, including shops in which foodstuff and foods were sold. There appeared stores that for economic justifications, sometimes one group of foodstuff such as dairy products, were exclusively sold in several stores. Besides selling raw material, another feature of this development was the existence of stores that were involved in procurement and sale of prepared foods and providing places for serving them. This article tries to examine the reasons for the appearance of these stores based on texts from the second and seventh century AH and explain the features and types of their products.