Mosque · Qarshi City

Kok Gumbaz Mosque (Qarshi)

A late 16th-century Friday mosque built under Abdullah Khan II; the portal is dated AH 999 (1590–1591). Still one of Qarshi’s main mosques.

Khanates1590–159125 min1 min read

Photo: Yoshlar ishlari agentligi · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

History

The mosque was built under Abdullah Khan II of Bukhara (1557–1598); the inscription on the main façade names the khan and the year AH 999, i.e. 1590–1591. Its dome, faced in blue tiles, earned it the name Kok Gumbaz, the Blue Dome.

The 1898 earthquake badly damaged the outer dome, which collapsed. Friday prayers resumed here in 1953. The building was partly repaired in 1957, 1971 and 1975 and fully restored in 1982, when the Samarkand master Nusratillo Asadov laid verses from Surah al-Mulk in blue glaze on the dome. Further work in 1996, for Timur’s 660th anniversary, and in 2005–2006, ahead of Qarshi’s 2,700th anniversary, gave it its present appearance.

Under Abdullah Khan II Qarshi became an important trading town in the south of the Bukhara Khanate; the brick bridge over the Kashkadarya and the town’s mosques date from these years. Kok Gumbaz is the best-preserved building of that period.

Architecture

A square hall under a tall dome sits between two wings. The main chamber is about 8 × 8 m and some 14 m high. Each wing has four domed rooms in two rows, originally open at the front like verandas. Because the mihrab in the qibla wall is set deep, the rear wall is slightly wider. The builders used fired bricks measuring 26 × 26 and 28 × 28 cm.