The Ottoman government ensured adequate safety and funding for the annual pilgrimage caravan ("qafilat al-hajj") from Damascus to the Islamic holy cities of Mecca and Medina. This policy benefited Nablus economically. Pilgrimage caravans became the key factor in the fiscal and political relationship between Nablus and the central government. For a brief period in the early 17th century, the governor of Nablus, Farrukh Pasha, was appointed leader of the pilgrimage caravan ("amir al-hajj"), and he constructed a large commercial compound in Nablus for that purpose.