Type of roadside inn
"Funduq" redirects here. For the Palestinian village, see
al-Funduq
.
A
caravanserai
(or
caravansary
;
)
[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]
Terms and etymology
[
edit
]
Caravanserai
[
edit
]
Caravanserai (
Persian
:
??????????
,
romanized
:
k?rv?nsar?y
), is the Persian compound word variant combining
k?rv?n
"
caravan
" with
-sar?y
"palace", "building with enclosed courts".
[6]
Here "caravan" means a group of traders, pilgrims or other travellers, 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
[
edit
]
The word
khan
(
???
) derives from a clipping of
Middle Persian
:
?????????
,
romanized:
x?nag
,
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
[
edit
]
The term
funduq
(
Arabic
:
????
; sometimes spelled
foundouk
or
fondouk
from the
French
transliteration) is frequently used for historic inns in Morocco and around the
Maghreb
.
[5]
[11]
[12]
: 116
The word comes from
Koin? Greek
:
πανδοκε?ον
,
romanized:
welcoming all; an inn
;
[13]
[5]
it appears as
Hebrew
:
?????
,
romanized
:
pundaq
,
fundaco
in
Venice
,
fondaco
in
Genoa
and
alhondiga
[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
[
edit
]
The Arabic word
wikala
(
?????
), sometimes spelled
wakala
or
wekala
, is a term found frequently 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
[
edit
]
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
okelle
s 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
[
edit
]
K??r?
(
Bengali
:
?????
) is the name given to the caravanserais built by the
Mughal Empire
in
Bengal
. The
Bara Katra
(Bengali:
??? ?????
,
romanized:
Ba?a K??r?
,
lit.
'Great Caravanserai') and
Chhota Katra
(Bengali:
??? ?????
,
romanized:
Ch??a k??r?
,
lit.
'Small Caravanserai') refers to two magnificent
Mughal
katras in
Dhaka
,
Bangladesh
.
[20]
[21]
[22]
[23]
[24]
History
[
edit
]
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
han
s 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.
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
kulliye
of the
Suleymaniye 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]
Architecture
[
edit
]
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,
wikala
s (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]
View of a typical courtyard layout in the Shah-Abbasi caravansarai in
Karaj
, Iran
Notable caravanserais
[
edit
]
Alphabetically, not taking article (al-, el-, etc.) into consideration.
- Abbasi Hotel
,
Isfahan
, Iran
- A?zıkara Han
,
A?zıkarahan (Aksaray Province)
, Turkey
- Akbari Sarai
,
Lahore
, Pakistan
- Aminoddole Carvansarai
, in the
Kashan Bazaar
,
Kashan
,
Iran
- Bara Katra
, Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Buyuk Han
, Nicosia, Cyprus
- Buyuk Valide Han
, Istanbul, Turkey
- Buyuk Yeni Han
, Istanbul, Turkey
- Caravanserai of Sa'd al-Saltaneh
, Qazvin, Iran
- Caravanserai of Zor
, I?dır, Turkey
- Chhota Katra
, Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Corral del Carbon
, Granada, Spain
- Elbasan Han
, Korce, 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
- Kurkcu Han
, Istanbul, Turkey
- Kur?umli An
, Skopje, North Macedonia
- Manuc's Inn
, Bucharest, Romania
- Mori?a Han
, Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina
- Multani Caravanserai
, Baku, Azerbaijan
- Mughal Sarai, Surat
, Gujarat, India
- Nampally Sarai
, Nampally, Hyderabad, India
- Orbelian's Caravanserai
, Armenia
- Rabati Malik
, Uzbekistan
- Shaki Caravanserai
,
Shaki
,
Azerbaijan
- Stari Han
, Kremna, U?ice, 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
Gallery
[
edit
]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
"Dictionary.com ? caravansary"
.
Archived
from the original on 12 December 2019
. Retrieved
31 January
2016
.
)
- ^
Chisholm, Hugh
, ed. (1911).
"Caravanserai"
.
Encyclopædia Britannica
(11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
- ^
"Caravanserais: cross-roads of commerce and culture along the Silk Roads | Silk Roads Programme"
.
en.unesco.org
.
Archived
from the original on 29 May 2020
. Retrieved
17 June
2020
.
- ^
a
b
"Caravanserai"
. National Geographic Society. 23 July 2019.
Archived
from the original on 29 July 2020
. Retrieved
17 June
2020
.
- ^
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
i
j
M. Bloom, Jonathan; S. Blair, Sheila, eds. (2009). "Caravanserai".
The Grove Encyclopedia of Islamic Art and Architecture
. Oxford University Press.
ISBN
978-0-19-530991-1
.
- ^
"caravanserai | Origin and meaning of caravanserai by Online Etymology Dictionary"
.
www.etymonline.com
.
Archived
from the original on 18 June 2020
. Retrieved
17 June
2020
.
- ^
"Caravansary | building"
.
Encyclopedia Britannica
.
Archived
from the original on 27 July 2020
. Retrieved
17 June
2020
.
- ^
MacKenzie, D. N.
(1971), "x?n", in
A concise Pahlavi dictionary
, London, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, p. 93.
- ^
a
b
"Khan | architecture"
.
Encyclopedia Britannica
.
Archived
from the original on 27 July 2020
. Retrieved
17 June
2020
.
- ^
Petersen, Andrew (1996). "khan".
Dictionary of Islamic architecture
. Routledge. pp. 146?147.
ISBN
9781134613663
.
- ^
a
b
Touri, Abdelaziz; Benaboud, Mhammad; Boujibar El-Khatib, Naima; Lakhdar, Kamal; Mezzine, Mohamed (2010).
Le Maroc andalou : a la decouverte d'un art de vivre
(in French) (2 ed.). Ministere des Affaires Culturelles du Royaume du Maroc & Museum With No Frontiers.
ISBN
978-3902782311
.
- ^
Wilbaux, Quentin (2001).
La medina de Marrakech: Formation des espaces urbains d'une ancienne capitale du Maroc
(in French). Paris: L'Harmattan.
ISBN
2747523888
.
- ^
"Strong's Greek: 3829. πανδοχε?ον (pandocheion) -- an inn"
.
biblehub.com
.
Archived
from the original on 29 December 2014
. Retrieved
19 February
2015
.
- ^
"alhondiga in the Diccionario de la Real Academia Espanola"
.
Archived
from the original on 6 August 2017
. Retrieved
25 April
2015
.
- ^
Parker, Richard (1981).
A practical guide to Islamic Monuments in Morocco
. Charlottesville, VA: The Baraka Press.
- ^
a
b
Le Tourneau, Roger (1949).
Fes avant le protectorat: etude economique et sociale d'une ville de l'occident musulman
(in French). Casablanca: Societe Marocaine de Librairie et d'Edition.
- ^
a
b
Hathaway, Jane (2008).
The Arab Lands under Ottoman Rule: 1516-1800
. Routledge. p. 141.
ISBN
9780582418998
.
- ^
AlSayyad, Nezar (2011).
Cairo: Histories of a City
. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. pp.
143
.
ISBN
978-0-674-04786-0
.
- ^
Pallini, Cristina (2006). "Italian Architects and Modern Egypt".
Studies in Architecture, History & Culture: Articles by the 2003-2004 AKPIA@MIT Visiting Post-Doctoral Fellows
(PDF)
. Aga Khan Program for Islamic Architecture at MIT. pp. 39?50.
- ^
Mamun, Muntasir.
Dhaka: Smriti Bismritir Nagari
????: ?????? ????????? ????
[
Dhaka: City of Memories and Oblivion
] (in Bengali) (3rd ed.). pp. 201?206.
ISBN
984-412-104-3
.
- ^
Rahman, Mahbubur.
City of an Architect
. Dhaka: Delvistaa Foundation.
ISBN
978-984-33-2451-1
.
- ^
Ahmed, Nazimuddin (1980).
Islamic Heritage of Bangladesh
. Dacca: Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of the People's Republic of Bangladesh. pp. 50?51.
OCLC
8476199
.
- ^
Asher, Catherine B (1984).
Inventory of Key Monuments. Art and Archaeology Research Papers: The Islamic Heritage of Bengal
. Paris:
UNESCO
.
- ^
Hasan, S. Mahmudul (1980).
Muslim Monuments of Bangladesh
. Dhaka:
Islamic Foundation
.
- ^
"The History - Herodotus" -
http://classics.mit.edu/Herodotus/history.mb.txt
Archived
29 June 2011 at the
Wayback Machine
- ^
"Seljuk Caravanserais"
.
Archnet
.
Archived
from the original on 18 June 2020
. Retrieved
17 June
2020
.
- ^
"Seljuk Caravanserais on the route from Denizli to Dogubeyazit"
.
UNESCO World Heritage Centre
.
Archived
from the original on 22 June 2020
. Retrieved
17 June
2020
.
- ^
"Khans of Damascus"
.
Archnet
.
Archived
from the original on 18 June 2020
. Retrieved
17 June
2020
.
- ^
a
b
Williams, Caroline (2018).
Islamic Monuments in Cairo: The Practical Guide
(7th ed.). Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
- ^
a
b
c
Kuban, Do?an (2010).
Ottoman Architecture
. Antique Collectors' Club.
- ^
a
b
c
Sumner-Boyd, Hilary; Freely, John (2010).
Strolling Through Istanbul: The Classic Guide to the City
. Tauris Parke Paperbacks.
- ^
"Wa?f".
Encyclopaedia of Islam, Second Edition
. Brill. 2012.
- ^
a
b
Behrens-Abouseif, Doris. 2007.
Cairo of the Mamluks: A History of Architecture and its Culture
. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
- ^
"Wakala Qansuh al-Ghawri"
.
ArchNet
.
Archived
from the original on 3 January 2018
. Retrieved
2 January
2018
.
- ^
Sims, Eleanor. 1978. Trade and Travel: Markets and Caravansary.' In: Michell, George. (ed.). 1978.
Architecture of the Islamic World - Its History and Social Meaning.
London: Thames and Hudson Ltd, 101.
- ^
Ciolek, T. Matthew. 2004-present.
Catalogue of Georeferenced Caravansaras/Khans
Archived
2005-02-07 at the
Wayback Machine
. Old World Trade Routes (OWTRAD) Project. Canberra: www.ciolek.com - Asia Pacific Research Online.
- ^
Freely, John (2008).
Storm on Horseback: The Seljuk Warriors of Turkey
. I. B. Tauris.
- ^
Yeomans, Richard (2006).
The Art and Architecture of Islamic Cairo
. Reading: Garnet. pp.
230-231
.
ISBN
978-1-85964-154-5
.
- ^
Denoix, Sylvie; Depaule, Jean-Charles; Tuchscherer, Michel, eds. (1999).
Le Khan al-Khalili et ses environs: Un centre commercial et artisanal au Caire du XIIIe au XXe siecle
(in French). Cairo: Institut francais d'archeologie orientale.
- ^
Vladimir Braginskiy. Tourist Attractions in the USSR: A Guide. Raduga Publishers, 1982. 254 pages. Page 104.
"The whole of the centre of Sheki has been proclaimed a reserve protected by the state. To take you back to the time of the caravans, two large eighteenth-century caravanserais have been preserved with spacious courtyards where the camels used to rest, cellars where goods were stored, and rooms for travellers."
Further reading
[
edit
]
- Branning, Katharine. 2018.
turkishhan.org
, The Seljuk Han in Anatolia. New York, USA.
- Cytryn-Silverman, Katia. 2010.
The Road Inns (Khans) in Bilad al-Sham
. BAR (
British Archaeological Reports
), Oxford.
ISBN
9781407306711
- K??n?, Mo?ammad-Y?suf; Kleiss, Wolfram (1990).
"Caravansary"
.
Encyclopaedia Iranica, Vol. IV, Fasc. 7
. pp. 798?802.
- Erdmann, Kurt, Erdmann, Hanna. 1961.
Das anatolische Karavansaray des 13. Jahrhunderts
, 3 vols. Berlin: Mann, 1976,
ISBN
3-7861-2241-5
- Gibb, H.A.R. (2010),
The Travels of Ibn Battuta, AD 1325-1354, Volume IV
- Hillenbrand, Robert. 1994.
Islamic Architecture: Form, function and meaning
. New York: Columbia University Press. (see Chapter VI for an in depth overview of the caravanserai).
- Kiani, Mohammad Yusef. 1976.
Caravansaries in Khorasan Road.
Reprinted from:
Traditions Architecturales en Iran
, Tehran, No. 2 & 3, 1976.
- Schutyser, Tom. 2012.
Caravanserai: Traces, Places, Dialogue in the Middle East
. Milan: 5 Continents Editions,
ISBN
978-88-7439-604-7
- Yavuz, Aysil Tukel. 1997.
The Concepts that Shape Anatolian Seljuq Caravansara.
In: Gulru Necipoglu (ed). 1997.
Muqarnas XIV: An Annual on the Visual Culture of the Islamic World.
Leiden: E. J. Brill, 80?95. [archnet.org/library/pubdownloader/pdf/8967/doc/DPC1304.pdf Available online as a PDF document, 1.98 MB]
External links
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]
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