Abulkasim Madrasah

History and today

The madrasah was built in the 19th century by the Tashkent Sufi master Abulkasim Sheikh as part of a complex with a mosque and a bathhouse in the Yangi Mahalla quarter. The single-storey building gained a second floor during repairs in 1864 and was named after its founder following his death in 1892. The rest of the complex was demolished in Soviet times, but the madrasah survived.

Now a state-protected monument, its twenty cells house Academy of Arts workshops where ganch carvers, painters and miniaturists train apprentices. The upper part of the mihrab, restored in 2002, preserves Persian verses in nastaliq script.