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History of commercial hospitality
Edited by Kevin O'Gorman and Charles Harvey [Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK and Newcastle University Newcastle, UK]
Introduction
The theoretical aims of this paper are two-fold: to explore the development of an infrastructure of hospitality provision intended to facilitate commerce within the Islamic world, and to combine material culture research methods in an analytical framework. Material culture research analyzes the physical world to infer meaning on human function. By exploring three key aspects of material culture, a fresh research perspective is offered. The importance of this paper is therefore three-fold; it demonstrates engagement with new qualitative methods from different disciplines. Second, it enhances our understanding of the development of commercial hospitality and trade through the adoption of alternative methodologies and perspectives. Third, it offers a methodological framework for future research. In offering a new and explicit methodological framework for using material culture as a means of enquiry, this paper answers the question: How can data from material culture be used to strengthen hospitality and tourism research methods? Exploring and discussing archaeological, architectural and artifactual data collection methods, from a material culture perspective, creates a three-level framework.
Contextually, this paper explores the place of hospitality in Safavid Iran during a period when a "capitalist" economy informed by Islamic propriety had existed for almost 1,000 years in the region ([81] Rodinson, 2007). The value in better understanding the nature in which religion, commerce and pioneering ambition interacted is apparent since Iran was situated between the Ottoman and Mughal empires and commercial hospitality facilitated trade and pilgrimage throughout the surrounding regions ([59] Linderman, 2013). There is a strong tradition of hospitality in the Islamic world, drawing on the ethics of the Prophet Ibrahim as articulated in the Qur'an ([70] O'Gorman, 2010). Caravanserai were hostels for travellers, where accommodation was often provided free for a night ([71] O'Gorman, 2009). A comprehensive system of caravanserai existed across Iran, and wider Islamic world. In contrast to the monasteries of Western Christendom ([70] O'Gorman, 2010), caravanserai could also be used as commercial centers for merchants. As well as being located on trade and pilgrimage routes, caravanserai were also commonly found associated with the grand bazaars of Iranian cities ([38] Hagi-Qasimi, 2005a, [39] b).
The term "Islamic world" is an...