Kalyan Mosque

History

The present building went up under the Timurids, probably during Ulugh Beg's reign, over the remains of Arslan Khan's 12th-century mosque and a 14th-century successor. In 1514, under the Shaybanid Ubaydullah Khan, it was thoroughly rebuilt, its portal and mihrab dressed in tiles and mosaic; the mosaic mihrab bears the signature of the calligrapher Bayazid al-Purani. In 1542 a marble slab was set into the portal recording Abdulaziz Khan's decree exempting Bukharans from certain taxes.

In Soviet times, from the 1930s, the mosque was used as a grain store. It was returned to the Muslim Board in 1996 and restored in 1997 for Bukhara's 2,500th anniversary.

Architecture

The mosque is a 130 × 80 m rectangle laid out around a four-iwan courtyard. Galleries carried on 208 piers and roofed with 288 domes surround the yard. On the west side stands the maqsura, the main prayer hall with the mihrab, under a great blue dome. The octagonal pavilion in the middle of the courtyard was added in 1915 by master builder Shirin Muradov.

Did you know?

After Samarkand's Bibi-Khanym, this is the second-largest surviving Friday mosque in Central Asia. Two marble slabs hang side by side in the portal niche: Abdulaziz Khan's decree of 1542, and a slab of 1996 recording the mosque's return to the Muslim Board.