In 1660, a catastrophic fire swept through the dense wooden neighborhoods of Istanbul. The rebuilding that followed was one of the great urban construction projects of the Ottoman seventeenth century. Among the buildings commissioned in the aftermath was the New Mosque (Yeni Cami) in Eminönü — whose construction had been started in 1597 and then halted for fifty-seven years — and, as part of the same complex, the Spice Bazaar. Both buildings were commissioned by Turhan Hatice Sultan, the Valide Sultan, meaning the Queen Mother of Sultan Mehmed IV. The bazaar was funded specifically with revenues from the Ottoman province of Egypt. Construction began in 1660. When it was completed, the L-shaped covered market became part of the mosque's külliye — the charitable complex of associated buildings whose rents and revenues supported the religious foundation. The bazaar was built to pay for the mosque's upkeep. Commerce and faith, in Ottoman urban planning, were never very far apart.

The Spice Bazaar sits at the edge of Eminönü, where the Golden Horn meets the Bosphorus and the ferry docks press against the old bridge piers. The air around it carries its contents outward: saffron threads in glass jars, whole dried chilies in sacks, pyramids of sumac and cumin, dried rose petals and hibiscus flowers, powdered turmeric so bright it seems to glow. Inside the arched stone galleries, the eighty-five shops that line the main corridors sell spices, Turkish delight, dried fruits and nuts, honey, and herbs. The covered bazaar is L-shaped, its two wings meeting near the main entrance gate. Light comes through small windows in the vaulted ceiling. The stone and mortar that have held the building together since the seventeenth century absorb and release the scents of four centuries of trade. You are smelling Ottoman Istanbul, and something much older still — the spice routes that connected Istanbul to the Indian Ocean world, to Persia, to the Arab lands, to the eastern Mediterranean.

Istanbul has two famous covered bazaars. The Grand Bazaar (Kapalıçarşı) is the largest — a labyrinthine city within a city, dating to the fifteenth century, covering sixty-six streets and containing thousands of shops. The Spice Bazaar is smaller, more contained, easier to navigate, and in some ways more alive to a single purpose. Where the Grand Bazaar has diversified into gold, leather, carpets, and souvenirs over the centuries, the Spice Bazaar has held closer to its original function, though modern pressures have pushed in candy shops and tourist goods here too. The difference in scale is also a difference in atmosphere. In the Grand Bazaar you can get genuinely lost. In the Spice Bazaar you are always near the end of a corridor, always able to orient yourself by the smell of a particular stall. It is a smaller, more legible world — which is part of why it remains one of the most visited places in the city.

Step outside the Spice Bazaar and you are in Eminönü, the quarter where old Istanbul's geography becomes most physical. The New Mosque fills the square with its grey stone and twin minarets. The ferries for the Bosphorus and the Prince's Islands load at the docks a few meters away. The Galata Bridge, linking the old city to the Beyoğlu district on the northern shore, begins here. The Golden Horn opens to the left. The Bosphorus strait stretches ahead. For centuries, Eminönü was the point through which goods from every direction passed into the city — and the Spice Bazaar was where those goods were stored, traded, priced, and dispersed. The function has changed less than the buildings around it. Istanbul is still a city through which things pass. Eminönü is still where you can feel that movement most directly, and the Spice Bazaar is still, as it has been since 1660, the city's fragrant hinge.