What is the souk al manakh ?

When looking into the Souk al-Manakh we find out from wikipedia.com that al-Manakh is a reference to camel. And Souk or Souq, suk, sook, is a commercial headquarter or a merchants trading centre.

Personally I believe that the camel is not the al Manakh as the wiki states or as the term is used by many online writers, but that the spirit of the camel or the ambience of a market where camels were once traded in open air markets is the inclination for the term Souk al- Manakh.

The etymology of words gets lost in the liberal use of these words on the internet because the internet is such a free means of expression. The real meaning of many terms can however be found with some research. Sometimes this research bring the researcher deep into the dungeon of the internet archive.

I refer you to the following hub called Kitab al - Manakh to make my point. In that hub I was researching the origin of the word almanac and found out that the kitab is a book and al - Manakh is an inclination or a klima or a atmosphere.

Make sure to press your back button if you leave. It will lead you back here.

See if you agree with me that the Souk al-Manakh is not the market of the camel. I think you will agree that it is a marketplace for merchant traders where an atmosphere that could only be brought about by the temperament of high energy, stressed out camel traders, where the ruckus of loud voices brought about by the nerves of traders on the edge of losing it all are looking to dump their camels, or oil stocks, or real estate stocks, or gold, at any price that is quoted when panic sets in.

So to my understanding the Souk al- Manakh is indeed a trading exchange but it is not named after camels but more after the spirit of camel trading. I might reflect on that statement at a later date and regret my words but for now I stand by my word.

Regardless,the history of the Souk al-Manakh might shed more light on the subject.

The KSE is the Kuwait Stock Exchange and it has been in existence since 1962. There were stock markets prior to this but they were unregulated. It is today classed among the most prestigious merchant exchanges in the world. Listed on the exchange are several Kuwaiti Banks, Kuwaiti investment companies, insurance, real estate, industrial, food, services, and fund management companies. The KSE is the primary stock exchange of Kuwait.

However, Kuwait also has a secondary stock market and it is called the Souk al-manakh. It is the unofficial stock market of Kuwait. This exchange is run in an underground garage and it is highly unregulated. The merchants of trade who deal on this exchange are putting money and other currencies up against some highly risky financial assets.The companies traded on the Souk al - Manakh are non Kuwaiti owned but they have drawn so much attention to speculators, who are mostly oil rich Kuwaiti nationals, in the past that at one point the Souk was trading volumes so large as to place it amongst the top capitalized markets in the world.

It gained it's reputation as being the camel market because the original use of the underground garage was that of a place where camel traders once plied their merchant business.

However the camel market reached a peak in the 1970's when oil stocks started to lose their steam. Though this secondary market was borderline illegal it still managed to find government support in the form of financial bailouts when a mini crash left the Souk al-Manakh under funded.   

The Souk al-Manakh of Kuwait is an interesting story but the period after the 1977 mini crash is much more involved and I will tell the short version of it in another article where we will be going back to 1982 and a world where big money rolls out of the Sheiks pockets as they contest the camel markets against all types of merchant traders and governments.

I'll call that story Merchant Trader in the Gulf.