Caravanserai

History

The origin of rural caravanserais are ancient. One early antecedent has been found in the remains of an Urartian site from the 8th or 9th century BCE uncovered in western Iran, near the mountain pass between Urmia and Oshnavieh. The Achaemenid Empire (6th to 4th centuries BCE) built staging posts or relay stations for communications along its major roads. Herodotus reports that they existed along the Achaemenid Empire's Royal Road, a 2,500-kilometre-long (1,600 mi) ancient highway that stretched from Sardis to Susa. He writes: "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." The later Byzantine Empire also maintained staging posts along its major roads. None of these ancient caravanserais have been preserved and therefore not much is known of their appearance.

In the Islamic period (seventh century and after), the use of caravanserais intensified. Their development at this time is linked to the shift from wheeled vehicles to camels and caravans for long-distance travel. 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. The oldest identified example of an Islamic caravanserai is a courtyard structure at Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi, an Umayyad complex from the early 8th century located in the middle of the desert in present-day Syria.

A number of 12th to 13th-century rural caravanserais were built throughout the Seljuk Empire and its offshoots, many examples of which have survived across Iran (e.g. the Ribat-i Sharaf in Khorasan province), Central Asia (e.g. Ribat-i Malik in Uzbekistan) and Turkey (e.g. the large Sultan Han in Aksaray Province). They continued to be built under successor dynasties, although few notable examples have survived from the Ayyubid and Mamluk periods in the Middle East. Under the later Safavids in Iran, as the economy of the region improved, their construction increased to encourage international trade, particularly on the trade routes to India. Shah Abbas I (r. 1587–1629), in particular, built them as part of his improvements to communications and commercial infrastructure.

Urban versions of caravanserais also became important centers of economic activity in cities across 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. The oldest urban caravanserai to have survived to the present day is the Khan al-Mirjan in Baghdad, which dates from 1359. The commercial prosperity of the Levant during the late Middle Ages led to the proliferation of numerous caravanserais in the heart of major Syrian cities and of Cairo in Egypt. Other caravanserais were also built in the center of major cities in Safavid Iran and in the Ottoman Empire.

In the Indian subcontinent, caravanserais are found along the historic trade route known as the Grand Trunk Road. The oldest clear mention of a caravanserai in historical documents is the one commissioned by Muhammad ibn Tughluq, the Sultan of Delhi (r. 1324–1351), which was built between Delhi and Daulatabad. They grew in number during the rule of Sher Shah Suri (r. 1486–1545). Under the Mughals, the sultans commissioned the construction of further caravanserais and encouraged their entourage to do the same, mainly from the 16th to late 18th centuries. Their concept and designs were adapted from Iranian examples.

Function

Caravanserais served a variety of functions supporting trade and commerce. Rural caravanserais were built at intervals along major roads. They served as way stations where merchants and travelers could safely stop and rest along the way. The distance between them was intended to be equivalent to a day's journey. In Iran, this typically amounted to a distance of 30 to 40 kilometres (19 to 25 mi) in open landscapes (like deserts and plains) or about 10 kilometres (6 mi) or less in more difficult mountainous terrain.

Urban versions of caravanserais were commonly built in the hearts of major cities. They provided lodging for merchants, in particular for foreign merchants who needed a place to stay when doing business in the city. They also served as depots for their merchandise and as venues for conducting transactions. In addition to accommodation and storage, caravanserais could include other amenities such as a hammam (bathhouse) and a prayer room or mosque.

Ibn Battuta, a 14th-century Muslim traveler, described the function of a caravanserai 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.

— Ibn Battuta

In many parts of the Muslim world, caravanserais also provided revenues that were used to fund charitable or religious functions or buildings. This was characteristic of urban caravanserais. 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. 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).

Architecture

General

Typically, a caravanserai was a building with a square or rectangular floor plan, with a single entrance wide enough to permit large or heavily laden beasts such as camels to enter. It had a central courtyard, almost always open to the sky, which was surrounded by a number of identical animal stalls, bays, and chambers to accommodate merchants and their servants, animals, and merchandise.

Caravanserais provided water for human and animal consumption as well as for washing and ritual purification (wudu and ghusl), provided by a fountain or well in the courtyard and sometimes by attached public baths (hammams). They kept fodder for animals and had shops for travellers where they could acquire new supplies. Some shops bought goods from the travelling merchants. Many caravanserais were equipped with small mosques, such as the elevated prayer rooms in the center of Seljuk and Ottoman caravanserais in Turkey.

Variations

Building techniques and decoration varied depending on the region and period. Rural caravanserais of the Seljuk period in Iran and Central Asia, such as the Ribat-i Sharaf and Ribat-i Malik, were built in brick and are known for their monumental exterior façades with decorative brickwork. The rural caravanserais of Seljuk Anatolia could include, in addition to (or sometimes instead of) a courtyard, a roofed section consisting of a vaulted hall with side chambers. Built of stone rather than brick, Anatolian caravanserais are also notable for their tall and elaborately carved entrance portals.

The urban caravanserais of the Levant, from the late Middle Ages onward, were of typical layout but built with local decoration such as ablaq masonry and carved stone details. Their street façades often had alcoves for hosting shops. Some were quite large and formed part of a larger complex of amenities, as in the Khan al-Jumruk in Aleppo. In Cairo, starting in the Burji Mamluk period, wikalas were frequently several stories tall and often included a rab', a low-income rental apartment complex, that was situated on the upper floors while the merchant accommodations occupied the lower floors. This made the best use of limited space in a crowded city and provided the building with two sources of revenue that were managed through the waqf system.

The later Ottomans continued to build caravanserais but their patronage was focused on urban centres, where they were built alongside other commercial structures such as arastas (market streets) and bedestens (central market halls) in the middle of the city. The caravanserais themselves consist of courtyards surrounded by two or more levels of domed rooms fronted by arcaded galleries.

In Safavid Iran, caravanserais had a standard layout for the most part: a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a gallery of vaulted openings (iwans) and rooms on one or two levels. At the middle of each of side was a larger central iwan, repeating the four-iwan plan common in Iranian architecture. Rural caravanserais often had rounded towers at their corners and an imposing entrance portal. In the later Safavid period (17th century), more complex layouts appeared, such as those with an octagonal floor plan instead of rectangular. In the Indian subcontinent, caravanserais were drawn from Iranian designs but adapted to local needs. They usually had a symmetrical floor plan with two major gateways. A mosque, often consisting of a three-domed hall, was commonly built into the west side of the building.

In the far west of the Islamic world, comprising present-day Morocco and Spain, urban caravanserais were multi-story buildings with a central courtyard. Though they could have elaborate entrance portals and ornate wooden ceilings in their vestibules, the interior could be relatively austere.