Odina Mosque

History

Odina (Persian for “Friday”) is also known as the Great Friday Mosque of Nasaf. It stands in the middle of the old Qarshi citadel beside Registan Square. Historians Mikhail Masson and Boriboy Ahmedov associate it with Timur, who according to the sources ordered a mosque built here when he came to Qarshi in the mid-1380s. It was used for Friday and Eid prayers, while daily prayers were said in neighbourhood mosques.

In the later 19th century the building was partly dismantled for its bricks; the dome and the stump of a minaret survived until 1914. Under Soviet rule it housed offices and then a warehouse, and in 1938 it was walled in and turned into a prison. The prison was moved out of the city in 2004–2005, ahead of Qarshi’s 2,700th anniversary, and the mosque was restored. Excavations during the work turned up tile fragments and an old mulberry-wood door.

Architecture and today

The mosque measures about 50 × 40 m. Small domes cover spacious prayer halls, and heavy brick piers are linked by arches. The Throne Verse of the Quran runs in gold letters around the large mihrab in the west wall.

Following a presidential decree of 8 October 2020, a museum commemorating the victims of repression opened in the mosque in 2021. Odina Park, the Qilichboy, Abdulazizxoja and Bekmir madrasas and the Qarshi sardoba (cistern) are all close by and easily combined in one walk.