Souq scenes of markets, commerce, buildings and streetscapes. Notable artists in the Orientalist genre include: Jean-Léon Gérôme Delacroix (1824–1904), Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (1803–1860), Frederic Leighton (1830-1896), Eugène Alexis Girardet 1853-1907 and William Holman Hunt (1827–1910) who all found inspiration in Oriental street scenes, trading and commerce. Souq A souq or souk (, "shuq", "shuka", Spanish: zoco, also spelled shuk, shooq, soq, esouk, succ, suk, sooq, suq, soek) is a marketplace or commercial quarter in Western Asian, North African and some Horn African cities () . The term "souq" goes by many alternatives in different parts of the world; in the Balkans, the
Souq engravings, works of fiction and travel writing. Shopping at souq or bazaar is a standard part of daily life throughout the Middle East. Today, souqs tend to be found in a city's medina (old quarter) and are often important tourist attractions. The Arabic word is a loan from Aramaic "šūqā" (“street, market”), itself a loanword from the Akkadian "sūqu" (“street”, from "sāqu", meaning “narrow”). The spelling souk entered European languages probably through French during the French occupation of the Arab countries Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia in the 19th and 20th centuries. Thus, the word "souq" most likely refers to Arabic/North