How a Cairo souk became India and Egypt’s oldest link on the ancient spice route

The souk was founded in 1382 by Emir Djaharks el-Khalili, who built a commercial inn on what had once been part of the Fatimid palace district. Over the next centuries, as Cairo evolved from a royal enclave into a trading metropolis, the lanes around the souk filled with workshops and wikalas or caravanserais, drawing merchants from across the Mediterranean, the Levant, East Africa and India. The market’s present-day mix of spice sellers, metalworkers, jewellers and cafés owe their existence to the trade routes that converged along the old spine of Al-Mu‘izz Street. It was along these routes that Indian traders travelled, carrying not only sacks of spices but the methods that gave those spices their character.

Cairo’s commercial hub

Since its foundation, Khan el-Khalili has stood as a central hub of Cairo’s life and commerce. However, the spices that fill its stalls today represent Indian connections that are much older than the market itself. Behind one of the stalls that has been around for over a century, Ahmad el-Hariri keeps a ledger his family has maintained for generations. “My grandfather used to tell us about the Indian merchants who came with their spice sacks,” el-Hariri says. “They didn’t just sell spices, but also taught us how to use them. The way we blend cumin with coriander, the way we toast whole spices before grinding — these techniques came from India,” he adds.

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The souk still carries that inheritance in every jar Ahmad opens, in every warm cloud of spice that drifts out into the street. The spice blends that characterise dishes such as Molokhia (a popular dish made from the leaves of the jute mallow plant) and Sayadieh (seasoned fish served over spiced rice and garnished with caramelised onions and toasted nuts), served during Ramadan, derive their complexity from techniques (toasting, grinding, and finishing handed down by cooks and merchants who bridged ports from India to Alexandria) and ingredients carried along historic spice routes.

The history of long-range spice trade traces back to early first millennium BCE when cinnamon and pepper from India and Indonesia were transported to Egypt. These trade connections that find their roots in Kerala’s Malabar Coast, and in Gujarat’s ports, where dhows loaded with precious cargo prepared for journeys across the Arabian Sea, not only altered the culinary landscapes of both civilisations but also their identities. Black pepper and saffron became the cornerstone of this trade. Egyptian pharaohs demanded it not just for its flavour, but for its perceived medicinal properties, and as a symbol of wealth and power.

Tamils traded with the Hellenistic kingdom

“India grew spices, especially pepper, which was in great demand in the Western world. The sea yielded pearls and mines produced precious stones, and both these were exported to the West in substantial quantities. In addition, we produced muslin and silk. We hear of cotton cloth as thin as the slough of a snake.” Ram Sharan Sharma, author and founder chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research, New Delhi, writes in India’s Ancient Past.

The early Tamil poems mention the weaving of complex patterns on silk. Sharma notes, “In ancient times, the Tamils traded with the Greek or Hellenistic kingdom of Egypt and Arabia, on the one hand, and with the Malay archipelago and China, on the other. When Egypt became a Roman province and the monsoon was discovered at about the beginning of the first century AD, this trade received great impetus. Thus, for the first two and a half centuries, the southern kingdoms conducted a lucrative trade with the Romans.”

Faisal Babu M, Assistant Professor, Department of Arabic & Islamic History at MES Kalladi College Mannarkkad in Kerala’s Palakkad, observes: “According to Roman-Greek writers and historians, this relationship emerged since the time of ‘King Solomon’ when Teak timbers were exported from Malabar through Arabian Sea routes. Historical evidence records that Arabs from Yemen, Oman, Egypt and others were expert in utilising the western wind to export natural spices of Malabar and other goods to their land to the far West and to become successful trade tycoons.”

He further adds, “The region was in a period of economic prosperity and there was brisk trade between Kerala and Arabia. For more than 30 centuries, India maintained its position as one of the foremost among the Martine nations. Spices, precious stones, animals and hill products of Kerala attracted traders from all over the world. The port cities of Kerala naturally became important trading centres. India had colonies in Cambodia, Java, Sumatra, and Burma and trade settlements in south china, Malaya, Arabia, Persia and along the east coast of Africa. The sea route was well charted. Trade winds were known to Indians before the 18th century BC. Even at that time, they used to travel across the oceans. They maintained friendly relations with other countries and in consequence trade and commerce flourished.”

Key ports along the Red Sea

Even Egyptian cuisine carries traces of the ancient link with India. As Mohammed Emara, Executive Chef at the Sheraton Cairo, puts it, “There’s no doubt that the Egyptian koshary’s ancestor is in fact the Indian khichdi. The name and the ingredients are similar, and khichdi is close to mujaddara (a Middle Eastern rice-and-lentil dish), which can be traced back to the 10th century.” That overlap isn’t incidental: for nearly a millennium, Arab merchants controlled the spice trade that linked the Indian Ocean to the Mediterranean. Their monopoly created immense wealth for Arab traders and made spices increasingly prized in Egyptian kitchens.

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Ports such as Aydhab and Qusayr on the Red Sea coast functioned as major reception points for Indian spice imports, though the journey from the Western Ghats to the Nile Delta demanded seamanship, seasonal timing and a steady reliance on Bedouin guides. Monsoon winds could overturn entire fleets, piracy haunted the Arabian Sea, and the inland legs of the journey required intimate knowledge of desert routes. But the profits outweighed the risks. Saffron — the costliest of all — rivalled gold in value and was used by Egypt’s elite in food, ritual and the dyeing of luxury textiles. By the time these trade networks matured, Cairo’s commercial districts had absorbed the world they connected to.

In his study ‘The Spice Trade in Mamluk Egypt’ (University of California, Berkeley), Walter J. Fischel, a scholar of Oriental Jewry and Islamic civilisation, observes: “The spice and pepper trade of a group of Muslim merchants in Egypt was carried on from the 12th to the 15th century between Egypt on the one side and Yemen, South Arabia, and India on the other.” Fischel notes that few periods in Islamic history possess as rich a body of first-rate documents and records as the history of Egypt under the Ayyubid and Mamluk dynasties. Central to this documentation is the term Karimi, used primarily as a qualification for a merchant, appearing most often as tājir al-Karīmī (singular) or tujjār al-Karīmi (plural).

According to Fischel, the Karimi merchants of Mamluk Egypt did not originate from Kānīm in the Western Sudan, nor were they a homogeneous group in ethnic or geographical terms. Their commercial base was Yemen, which served as their principal supply centre and starting point. Many of the spices they transported from Yemen to Egypt were likely of Indian origin, though these were usually not purchased directly in India. Instead, Indian merchants shipped the spices to Yemen, where the Karimi acquired them before forwarding them to Egypt.

The key port for their operations between the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea was Aden, then a major commercial hub and transit port. From Aden, goods were shipped through the Red Sea to the western shores of Egypt and Sudan, reaching ports such as Aydhab, Qusayr, and occasionally al-Tur or Suez. Fischel emphasises that Aydhab was particularly favoured by the Karimi because of its advantageous harbour facilities, abundant freshwater supply, and the ease with which their ships could access it.

Peak of India-Egypt spice trade

In 1517, the arrival of Ottoman rule in Egypt marked a new chapter in the spice trade story. Coffee houses in Cairo began serving drinks spiced with Indian cardamom and cinnamon, while Egyptian spice blends began incorporating Ottoman preferences that had themselves been influenced by Indian traditions. This period saw the establishment of many of the merchant families whose descendants still operate in Khan el-Khalili today.

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Professor Mahmoud Hassan from Cairo University’s Faculty of History explains, “The Ottoman period represented the maturation of the India-Egypt spice trade. Egyptian cuisine reached its full flowering during this period precisely because spice supplies became more reliable and diverse.” The spice blend known as baharat, essential to Egyptian cuisine, contains black pepper, cardamom, cinnamon, and cloves, all originally Indian spices. The technique of tempering spices in hot oil mirrors exactly the Indian practice of tadka or tempering.

Even Egyptian bread-making shows Indian influence. The use of nigella seeds (kalonji) in baladi bread (traditional Egyptian flatbread) reflects ancient trade connections, as this spice travelled from India to Egypt. Mohammed el-Sayyed, another spice merchant in Khan el-Khalili, laughs and says, “When Indian customers ask me about the ‘authentic’ Egyptian way to use spices, I have to smile. Our spice knowledge is Indian knowledge, adapted over centuries to Egyptian tastes and ingredients. This mixing is what makes our food special.”

In Khan el-Khalili and markets throughout Egypt, vendors still recognise the fine distinctions between Malabar and Tellicherry pepper, which proves that globalisation is hardly a modern invention, but merely the latest chapter in a trade story that began when the first Indian dhow rode the monsoon winds toward Egypt’s ancient coast.