In the late 16th-century or early 17th-century, during Ottoman rule, the caravanserai Khan ar-Rastan was built just outside the town. Abd al-Ghani al-Nabulsi, the 17th-century Sufi sheikh, visited the false tomb of Persian Sufi mystic Abu Yazid al-Bistami at ar-Rastan (the actual one is in Bistam) in 1678, writing "over his grave there is splendor and awe, asserting his presence there." Khan al-Rastan was visited in 1745 by Edward Pococke who described it as a "huge fortified caravanserai" that was decaying rapidly.