Database: Caravanserai
The Caravanserai was a "palace (saray in Persian) for groups of people (karvan)". More roadside inn than palace, it offered a safe place and varying levels of comfort to merchants, pilgrims and travelers recovering after a day's journey along the empire's roads.
Caravanserais were commonly constructed by the caliphs, their relatives and members of the local elite to display their piety and generosity. Hundreds of them dotted the empire, especially its Iranian-Iraqi core. They were built about 30 kilometers apart, the distance a man and his pack animal could be expected to travel each day. In them, travelers could find safety for the night, exchange goods, share news and pay taxes to ensure the maintenance of the facility.
No two caravanserais were alike. Even if most of them featured a large courtyard surrounded by a wall, both their physical appearance and available facilities varied widely from one to the other. In plains and deserts, the courtyard would be open and the walls made of dried bricks, while in the mountains, a fully roofed area would keep out rain and snow. The most well-appointed had a cistern, stables, a prayer space, guards, and rooms for guests. But most were simple roofed galleries without any of these niceties! While no caravanserais survive from this period, the so-called "desert palaces" of the Umayyads, like Qasr al-Hayr al-Sharqi, may have fulfilled a similar role.