Көшпенділер мен керуендер үйі

Type of roadside inn
the roadside inns

A caravanserai (or caravansary; /k//ær//ə/'/v//æ//n//s//ə/,/r//aɪ/) was a roadside inn where travelers (caravaners) could rest and recover from the day's journey. 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. 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.

Caravanserai (کاروانسرای), is the Persian compound word variant combining kārvān "caravan" with sarāy "palace", "building with enclosed courts". 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.

The word khan (خان) derives from a clipping of or to any caravanserai in general, including those built in the countryside and along desert routes. In Turkish the word is rendered as han. The word comes from ; or fonda in Spanish. In the cities of this region such buildings were also frequently used as housing for artisan workshops.

The Arabic word wikala (وكالة), 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. The word wikala means roughly "agency" in Arabic, in this case a commercial agency, The term khan was also frequently used for this type of building in Egypt.

Kāṭrā is the name given to the caravanserais built by the Mughal Empire in Bengal. The Bara Katra and Chhota Katra refers to two magnificent Mughal katras in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Caravanserais were a common feature not only along the Silk Road, but also along the Achaemenid Empire's Royal Road, a 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." 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. (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. 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).

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. 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. Many caravanserais were equipped with small mosques, such as the elevated examples in the Seljuk and Ottoman caravanserais in Turkey.