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A caravanserai (or caravansary; /kærəˈvænsəˌraɪ/)[1] was a roadside inn where travelers (caravaners) could rest and recover from the day's journey.[2] Caravanserais supported the flow of commerce, information, and people across the network of trade routes covering Asia, North Africa and Southeast Europe, most notably the Silk Road.[3][4] Often located along rural roads in the countryside, urban versions of caravanserais were also historically common in cities throughout the Islamic world, and were often called other names such as khan, wikala, or funduq.[5]
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Caravanserai
Caravanserai (Persian: کاروانسرای, romanized: kārvānsarāy), is the Persian compound word variant combining kārvān "caravan" with -sarāy "palace", "building with enclosed courts".[6] Here "caravan" means a group of traders, pilgrims, and travelers, engaged in long-distance travel. The word is also rendered as caravansary, caravansaray, caravanseray, caravansara, and caravansarai.[4] In scholarly sources, it is often used as an umbrella term for multiple related types of commercial buildings similar to inns or hostels, whereas the actual instances of such buildings had a variety of names depending on the region and the local language.[5] However, the term was typically preferred for rural inns built along roads outside of city walls.[7]
Khan
The word khan (خان) derives from a clipping of Middle Persian: 𐭡𐭩𐭲𐭠, romanized: xānag, lit. 'house'.[8][5] It could refer to an urban caravanserai built within a town or a city[5][9] or to any caravanserai in general, including those built in the countryside and along desert routes.[10]
In Turkish the word is rendered as han.[5] The same word was used in Bosnian and Bulgarian, having arrived through the Ottoman conquest. In addition to Turkish and Persian, the term was widely used in Arabic as well, and examples of such buildings are found throughout the Middle East from as early as the Umayyad Caliphate.[5][9] The term han is also used in Romanian being adopted from Ottoman Turkish.[citation needed]
Funduq
The term funduq (Arabic: فندق; sometimes spelled foundouk or fondouk from the French transliteration) is frequently used for historic inns around the Maghreb.[5][11][12]: 116
The word comes from Koinē Greek: πανδοκεῖον, romanized: welcoming all; an inn;[13][5] it appears as Hebrew: פונדק, romanized: pundaq, fundaco in Venice, fondaco in Genoa and alhóndiga[14] or fonda in Spanish. In the cities of this region such buildings were also frequently used as housing for artisan workshops.[15][11][16]: 318
Wikala
The Arabic word wikala (وكالة), sometimes spelled wakala or wekala, is a term frequently found in historic Cairo for an urban caravanserai which housed merchants and their goods and served as a center for trade, storage, transactions and other commercial activity.[17] The word wikala means roughly "agency" in Arabic, in this case a commercial agency,[17] which may also have been a reference to the customs offices that could be located here to deal with imported goods.[18] The term khan was also frequently used for this type of building in Egypt.[5]
Okelle
The term okelle or okalle, the Italianized rendering of the Arabic word wikala, is used for a type of large urban buildings in 19th century Egypt, specifically in Alexandria. Here, the older Egyptian wikala was reinterpreted in an Italianate style by the Italian architect Francesco Mancini. Directed by Muhammad Ali, he designed and built a number of okelles delineating the Place des Consuls (the main square of Alexandria's European quarter), which served as consular mansions, a European-style hotel, and a stock exchange, among other functions.[19]
Katra
Kāṭrā (Bengali: কাটরা) is the name given to the caravanserais built by the Mughal Empire in Bengal. The Bara Katra (Bengali: বড় কাটরা, romanized: Baṛa Kāṭrā, lit. 'Great Caravanserai') and Chhota Katra (Bengali: ছোট কাটরা, romanized: Chōṭa kāṭrā, lit. 'Small Caravanserai') refers to two magnificent Mughal katras in Dhaka, Bangladesh.[20][21][22][23][24]
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Caravanserais were a common feature not only along the Silk Road, but also along the Achaemenid Empire's Royal Road, a 2,500-kilometre-long (1,600 mi) ancient highway that stretched from Sardis to Susa according to Herodotus: "Now the true account of the road in question is the following: Royal stations exist along its whole length, and excellent caravanserais; and throughout, it traverses an inhabited tract, and is free from danger."[25] Other significant urban caravanserais were built along the Grand Trunk Road in the Indian subcontinent, especially in the region of Mughal Delhi and Bengal Subah.
Throughout most of the Islamic period (seventh century and after), caravanserais were a common type of structure both in the rural countryside and in dense urban centers across the Middle East, North Africa, and Ottoman Europe.[5] A number of 12th to 13th-century caravanserais or hans were built throughout the Seljuk Empire, many examples of which have survived across Turkey today[26][27] (e.g. the large Sultan Han in Aksaray Province) as well as in Iran (e.g. the Ribat of Sharaf in Khorasan province). Urban versions of caravanserais also became important centers of economic activity in cities across these different regions of the Muslim world, often concentrated near the main bazaar areas, with many examples still standing in the historic areas of Damascus, Aleppo, Cairo, Istanbul, Fes, etc.[28][29][30][31][16]
Ibn Battuta, a 14th-century Muslim traveler, described the function of a caravenserai in the region of China:
China is the safest and best country for the traveller. A man travels for nine months alone with great wealth and has nothing to fear. What is responsible for this is that in every post station in their country is funduq which has a director living there with a company of horse and foot. After sunset or nightfall the director comes to the funduq with his secretary and writes down the names of all the travellers who will pass the night there, seals it and locks the door of the funduq. In the morning he and his secretary come and call everybody by name and write down a record. He sends someone with the travellers to conduct them to the next post station and he brings back a certificate from the director of the funduq confirming that they have all arrived. If he does not do this he is answerable for them. This is the procedure in every post station in their country from Sin al-Sin to Khan Baliq. In them is everything the traveller needs by way of provisions, especially hens and geese. Sheep are rare among them.[32]
In many parts of the Muslim world, caravanserais also provided revenues that were used to fund charitable or religious functions or buildings. These revenues and functions were managed through a waqf, a protected agreement which gave certain buildings and revenues the status of mortmain endowments guaranteed under Islamic law.[33][34] Many major religious complexes in the Ottoman and Mamluk empires, for example, either included a caravanserai building (like in the külliye of the Süleymaniye Mosque in Istanbul) or drew revenues from one in the area (such as the Wikala al-Ghuri in Cairo, which was built to contribute revenues for the nearby complex of Sultan al-Ghuri).[31][30][35]
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Most typically a caravanserai was a building with a square or rectangular walled exterior, with a single portal wide enough to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter. The courtyard was almost always open to the sky, and the inside walls of the enclosure were outfitted with a number of identical animal stalls, bays, niches or chambers to accommodate merchants and their servants, animals, and merchandise.[36]
Caravanserais provided water for human and animal consumption, washing and ritual purification such as wudu and ghusl. Sometimes they had elaborate public baths (hammams), or other attached amenities such as a fountain or a sabil/sebil. They kept fodder for animals and had shops for travellers where they could acquire new supplies. Some shops bought goods from the travelling merchants.[37] Many caravanserais were equipped with small mosques, such as the elevated examples in the Seljuk and Ottoman caravanserais in Turkey.[31][38][30]
In Cairo, starting in the Burji Mamluk period, wikalas (urban caravanserais) were frequently several stories tall and often included a rab', a low-income rental apartment complex, which was situated on the upper floors while the merchant accommodations occupied the lower floors.[39][29] While making the best use of limited space in a crowded city, this provided the building with two sources of revenue which were managed through the waqf system.[34][40]
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Alphabetically, not taking article (al-, el-, etc.) into consideration.
- Abbasi Hotel, Isfahan, Iran
- Ağzıkara Han, Ağzıkarahan (Aksaray Province), Turkey
- Akbari Sarai, Lahore, Pakistan
- Aminoddole Carvansarai, in the Kashan Bazaar, Kashan, Iran
- Bara Katra, Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Büyük Han, Nicosia, Cyprus
- Büyük Valide Han, Istanbul, Turkey
- Büyük Yeni Han, Istanbul, Turkey
- Caravanserai of Sa'd al-Saltaneh, Qazvin, Iran
- Caravanserai of Zor, Iğdır, Turkey
- Chhota Katra, Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Corral del Carbón, Granada, Spain
- Elbasan Han, Korçë, Albania
- Funduq Nejjarine, Fes, Morocco
- Funduq Sagha, Fes, Morocco
- Funduq Shamma'in, Fes, Morocco
- Funduq Staouniyyin, Fes, Morocco
- Garghabazar Caravanserai, Kharabakh, Azerbaijan
- Hasan Pasha Han, Diyarbakır, Turkey
- Kapan Han, Skopje, North Macedonia
- Khan As'ad Pasha, Damascus, Syria
- Khan Jaqmaq, Damascus, Syria
- Khan el-Khalili, Cairo, Egypt
- Khan Sulayman Pasha, Damascus, Syria
- Khan al-Tujjar, Mount Tabor, Israel
- Khan al-Tujjar, Nablus, West Bank
- Khan Tuman, Damascus, Syria
- Khan al-Umdan, Acre, Israel
- Koza Han, Bursa, Turkey
- Kürkçü Han, Istanbul, Turkey
- Kuršumli An, Skopje, North Macedonia
- Manuc's Inn, Bucharest, Romania
- Morića Han, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Multani Caravanserai, Baku, Azerbaijan
- Mughal Sarai, Surat, Gujarat, India
- Nampally Sarai, Nampally, Hyderabad, India
- Mughal Serai, Doraha, Punjab, India
- Serai Lashkari Khan, India
- Orbelian's Caravanserai, Armenia
- Rabati Malik, Uzbekistan
- Shaki Caravanserai, Shaki, Azerbaijan
- Stari Han, Kremna, Užice, Serbia
- Suli An, Skopje, North Macedonia
- Sultan Han, Sultanhanı (Aksaray Province), Turkey
- Sultan Han, Sultanhanı (Kayseri Province), Turkey
- Wikala al-Ghuri, Cairo, Egypt
- Wikala Qaytbay (at al-Azhar), Cairo, Egypt
- Wikala Qaytbay (at Bab al-Nasr), Cairo, Egypt
- Zeinodin Caravanserai, Zein-o-din, Yazd, Iran
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 | This section contains an unencyclopedic or excessive gallery of images. |
An 1850 drawing of Khan al-Tujjar, near Mount Tabor, Israel
Khan al-Wazir, Aleppo, Syria
Inside the Orbelian's Caravanserai, Armenia
The caravanserai of Shah Abbas, now Abbasi Hotel, in Isfahan, Iran. View is from the courtyard (sahn).
An abandoned caravanserai in Neyestānak, Iran
An 1823 etching of Bara Katra, or Great Caravanserai, in Dhaka, Bangladesh; built by the Mughal Prince Shah Shuja
An 1817 sketch of the Choto Katra caravanserai in Dhaka, Bangladesh; built by the Mughal viceroy Shaista Khan
Anderkilla in Chittagong, Bangladesh
The entrance portal of the Wikala of Sultan Qaytbay, dating from 1477, south of Al-Azhar Mosque, Cairo
Tash Rabat Caravanserai, Kyrgyzstan
Panoramic view of the roof of the Sassanid-era Dirgchin Caravanserai in Qom province, Iran
Orbelian's Caravanserai, 1332, Armenia
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- List of caravanserais
- Ribat, Early Muslim frontier fort, later caravanserai or Sufi retreat
- Robat, the Persian word for ribat
- Bedesten, type of covered Ottoman market or market hall
- Caravan city
- Islamic architecture
- Shukuba, the Japanese equivalent
- Rest area
- Motel
- Venta, the Spanish equivalent
- Roadhouse
- Stage station
- Coaching inn
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