Apart from the splendours of sultanic pomp and the magnificence of the imperial mosques, Istanbul was also characterised by its markets, for it was, above all things, a city of commerce, an opulent international emporium where, in the words of Latifi, ‘the buyers and the sellers of the market of the world all come together’. It attracted foreign merchants from well beyond the empire, from China and India in the east to England, and later America, in the west, from Russia to the north and sub-Saharan Africa to the south. It was the central nexus of the empire from which all networks of commercial power radiated outwards, connecting Ottoman merchants and traders to the capital. A supremely important port, Istanbul's prosperity and wealth was dependent on the sea and the arrival of ships in its harbours.

The markets of the Ottoman capital displayed goods from all over the globe, its shops ‘stuffed with all rare and exquisite merchandice, as [is] of inestimable valewe, pretiouse stones and pearles, zebulini [sables] and other ritch furs of all sorts, silkes and cloth of gould, bowes, arrowes, buckelers, and swourds’. Its markets glittered with ‘Satins, Silks, Velvets, Cloth of Silver and Gold, and the most exquisitely wrought Handkerchiefs, that can be found in the world; with infinite other commodities, the relation of which would be tedious’.