Samarkand

Timur’s Hometown

If you look at postcards from Uzbekistan, Sarmarkand’s Rajestan Square can always be found.  This signature site in Timur’s hometown was where royal proclamations and public executions took place.  There are also three madrasahs that were centres of education of Islamic thought.  Surrounded with minarets, the madrasahs are two-stories, containing dormitories and classrooms for education.  From 1370, Timur built numerous structures in his capital, encouraging the work of great artisans and craftsmen.  In addition to lecturing at Rajestan Square, the great scientist and astronomer Ulugh Beg created the Samarkand Observatory but it was destroyed for religious reasons by 1449.  It was an important site of a sextant used for studying celestial movements and calculations such as the length of a year and the earth’s tilt were extremely accurate.  Today, only a small part of the sextant remains at the observatory site.

The day we visited the Shakhi Zinda Necropolis, which contains a street of mausoleums, it was Qurbon Hayit, a day of sacrifice that takes place 70 days after the end of Ramazon.  This is the time when pilgrims from all over the world go on the Haj to Mecca.  This is the day when a lamb is slaughtered as sacrifice, which we saw plenty of, in Uzbekistan.  People visiting the necropolis were dressed in their best, especially women.  Visiting the necropolis is equivalent to visiting Mecca.  The main mausoleum is the imaginary grave of Prophet Muhammad’s cousin, Kusama Ibn Abbas, also known as the Living King.  The complex contains the mausoleums of women who were royalty.  Each one is made up of a square building with a dome.  

Gur-e Amir Mausoleum contains the remains of Timur and his male descendents.  With meticulous attention to detail, the artisans of the mausoleum decorated the walls with beautiful Arabic calligraphy and inscriptions such as Allah and Muhammad.  Flowers and gardens were included in the walls to symbolize the garden-like nature of the city.  Blue is a colour that most used in the mausoleum to represent the wealth of the city, as it represented a rare resource-water and it was also Timur’s favorite colour.  

The power of Timur’s reign is also demonstrated by the Bibi-Khanym Mosque, built by Timur’s favorite wife to celebrate his return from India.  The mosque that still stands today is a modern version of the one that has fallen apart.  Created for Bibi Khanum, Timur’s wife, the mosque had 450 marble columns which were moved by elephants that Timur brought back from India.  The architect who built the mosque fell in love with Bibi and both Bibi and the architect were sentenced to jump off from the highest of the mosque as punishment.  Due to the haste and lack of care in the construction of the mosque, it quickly fell apart.  The ruins of the older mosque still remain at the back of the new one.