10/4: Bukhara's Bazaars, Mosques & Madrassas - Oh My!

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It was funny seeing mounted police officers in Bukhara as it'd been a long time since we'd seen any others - probably last year in Lima, I think!

Older men throughout Uzbekistan wore hats just like these. The white design around the border varied from city to city.

Yesterday, after the long car ride from Nukus, we had sat facing the Lyab-i-Hauz or pool in Bukhara's central square. Just behind us had been the Kazrati Kodzha Karim now the Ceramic History Museum but we waited until today to visit it. It didn't take long as there were only a few exhibits. 

This carpet seller had some beautiful items that we’d never seen before: individual carpet squares that were perfect for a table runner or smaller pieces ideal for coasters.

We really liked how the man had put some remnants together to make a carpet that was about a 4x6. His sense of color and design was top notch. Again, since we’d just arrived the late afternoon before, we wanted to check out prices and selections in other shops before buying anything right away as we had three plus days in Bukhara. 

After being in Khiva for the last few days and seeing the plethora of souvenir shops and vendors in all the museums, we soon got the sense that all of Uzbekistan was a shoppers’ paradise, almost on a par with Southeast Asia! These were some of the coasters we admired. We ended up buying a slew of them at the end of the day after realizing no one else sold anything like that elsewhere in Bukhara. 

Read the sign on your right for your smile of the day! Isn't that cute?! If you have difficulty reading it, just click on the picture to make it bigger. 

Just a few blocks from the main square, remains of 18th century caravanserais or roadside inns and bathhouses were discovered during archaeological excavations. 

The heart of any Silk Road city was its bazaars and Bukhara once had 40 of them, along with 24 caranversais, six tims or trading houses and three toks or bazaars with several entrances that straddled major intersections. One of the biggest still in existence in Bukhara was Tok-i-Tilpak Furushon or Cap Makers’ Bazaar which once specialized in gold-embroidered skullcaps, fur hats and illustrated manuscripts, all of which had to be protected from the sun’s glare. 

 Inside the bazaar was the tomb of holy man Khoja Ahmed I Paran. Because of its prime location between some of Bukhara’s most important historical sights, we passed through Furushon several times while in the city, dawdling each time to admire the lovely items for sale. 

The Ulug Beg Madrassa, erected in 1417, was Central Asia’s first madrassa and the prototype for the version he was to build later in Samarkand’s Registan Square three years later. Ulug Beg’s love of astronomy and science was revealed in the star-shaped motifs and the inscription above the doorway that stated “It is the sacred duty of every Muslim man and woman to seek after knowledge.” 

This was the first time we'd seen any spiral columns in any of the madrassas in either Khiva or Bukhara.

While admiring the madrassa from across the square, we ran into the same English couple that we’d first met over breakfast at our Khiva guesthouse and then the night before at the same restaurant for dinner here in Bukhara! We didn't realize then how we were all on the same 'tourist route' in Uzbekistan even though the country was pretty large. 

Across from the Ulug Beg Madrassa was the Abdul Aziz Madrassa from 1652. Both madrassas followed the traditional design with a mosque and lecture hall on either side of an entrance portal and a series of student cells arranged the inner courtyard just like we’d also witnessed in Khiva.

I couldn't stop craning my neck looking up at the exquisite ceiling and its stunning mosaics. 

The madrassa had what was billed as an Architectural Museum but it mostly consisted of a woman selling lots of souvenirs and one or two exhibits!

The courtyard:

More items to tempt tourists for sale in the courtyard:

Another major bazaar in Bukhara was Tok-i-Zargaron or the Jewelers’ Bazaar which once cornered the local market for lapis lazulis and rubies but now it mostly sold carpets. 

I had been looking for a silver bracelet off and on while on this trip and I found the perfect one in the bazaar as it was well known for its silver items.  

A common sight in Bukhara was seeing displays of ceramics and many other handcrafted souvenirs on sidewalks which made sometimes for a slow meander in Bukhara!

The Kalon Mosque, with its 288 cupolas, was for centuries Bukhara’s main Friday mosque and was built to accommodate over 10,000 worshippers. The town’s first Arab governor built the earliest mosque on this spot. A later 12th century building was set ablaze by the Mongol forces but was rebuilt in 1514. When Genghis Khan arrived at the holy site, he converted the mosque into a stable. During the Soviet era, the mosque was used as a warehouse!

We hadn't seen these almost geometric-shaped mosaics before. 

Unlike the other mosques in both Khiva and Bukhara which had rooms, open cupolas instead lined both sides of the courtyard.

In the background, behind the madrassa was the Kalon Minaret. 

The largest of the mosque's 288 cupolas was the gorgeous Kok Gumbaz or Blue Dome at the far end of the courtyard. 

Under the dome was the minbar or raised steps from which the imam delivers the sermon at the Friday prayer.

View from inside the dome looking toward the madrassa entrance:

The actual prayer space in the mosque seemed surprisingly small given its large size although the courtyard could also be used as a prayer space for larger groups. 

More of the 288 cupolas:

While we were sitting and enjoying the spaciousness and reverence of the madrassa’s courtyard, a young teacher came up to us with her three 11 year-old students and asked if it would be OK to chat for a few minutes. I didn’t mind one iota and was very pleasantly surprised how fluent especially one of the girls' English was. We had gotten accustomed to being asked where we’re from students and adults the world over when we travel but I hadn’t remembered anyone asking immediately after that the natural follow-up question of where we were living.

 As the imam had just begun the afternoon Call to Prayer, we couldn't chat any longer because silence was required.

It was so wonderful observing obviously non-Western tourists also exploring and admiring the spectacular Kalon Mosque as much as we had. 

We had to wait a bit before entering Mir-i-Arab Madrassa across from the mosque as the prayer space was being used then, not for souvenir stands as others had been, but really for prayer time! The madrassa which was built in 1535 was one of only two to function during the Soviet period. The building, financed by Ubaidallah Khan after selling 3,000 Persian slaves, was named after the khan’s Yemeni spiritual adviser as Mir-i-Arab means ‘Lord of the Arabs.' Unlike other madrassas, this one had two blue domes. Under the right one was a mosque; under the left, the burial vault for Mir Arab who died before the madrassa's construction was finished in 1536.

 I read that four huge arches, decorated with ornaments in the form of stars, divided the rooms. Handwritten books stored in the madrassa library were considered the cultural and spiritual knowledge of Muslims. 

The madrassa had for nearly 500 years been training people from the neighboring countries of Central Asia as well as Afghanistan, Russian, Iran and Azerbaijan interested in the development of Islamic religion and culture. Currently 120 students were enrolled in the four year program that included general education subjects in addition to religious education. Free accommodation and two meals a day were included.

As it was a working madrassa, its interiors were off limits to us but that didn't prevent us from taking a peak through an open doorway and later through the lattice work window.

When we had entered several minutes earlier, this imam had been praying with a few people in this small space. The best view was from behind him through the lattice work window. 

The little of what we saw of the madrassa's mosaic work and the lattice behind was sublime and lent an air of mystery to what lay beyond the forbidden doorway. 

The Kalon Minaret was Bukhara’s most impressive building which made sense as Kalon means ‘great’ in Tajik, the language spoken in this part of Uzbekistan. Built in 1127 by the Karakhanid ruler Arslan Khan, the tower was probably the world’s first tallest building when it was built. As even Genghis Khan was reportedly awestruck, he ordered it to be spared from Mongol destruction, so it was the only building of that period to survive in Bukhara.

The minaret, connected to its mosque by a bridge passage, rose 158 feet through bands of intricate brick patterns. I read that the single turquoise band near the top is thought to be the earliest example of glazed tile work in Central Asia. The Minaret was also known as the Tower of Death in the 19th century when criminals were tied in sacks and thrown off the skylight by orders of the Emir!

What a small world it was in Bukhara as we saw the same two Japanese women we had eaten breakfast with our second morning at the Khiva guesthouse and then had seen them each day since! Obviously, we were all on the same schedule and itinerary more or less visiting the same Silk Road sights in Uzbekistan. We wondered whom we might run into next. Ivy: Too bad we didn’t see Hal or Elaine there, too, as you mentioned our former neighborhood friends were also traveling in this part of the world then!

We were all set to enter the Carpet Museum when we saw a stream of Italian tourists enter and decided to postpone our visit to the next day as we were in no rush to cross it off our list.

We spent a very relaxing time, instead on a bench in the central square where the Lyab-i-Hauz or pool was, remarking on what a wonderful day we had exploring especially Kalon Mosque.

Next post: More of Bukhara's mosques, museums and mausoleums!

Posted on October 25th, 2018, from Barcelona, Spain.