Kaffal Shashi Mausoleum

History

The mausoleum stands over the grave of the jurist and hadith scholar Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Ismail al-Kaffal ash-Shashi, one of the first preachers of Islam in Tashkent; it is also known as the Hazrati Imam Mausoleum. The original tomb has not survived. The present building was raised in 1541–1542 by the court architect Ghulam Husayn from baked bricks measuring 25×26×5 cm, and the Hazrati Imam Complex later grew up around it.

During the Soviet campaign against religion the mausoleum was closed, though believers kept coming. On 27 March 1945 a decree of the Uzbek SSR's Council of People's Commissars handed it, with six other much-visited shrines, to the Spiritual Administration of the Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.

Architecture

It is an asymmetrical domed portal mausoleum of the khanqah type, where pilgrims lodged in small cells; such complexes often included a mosque and a kitchen. Almost square in plan (13.3×12.5 m), it centres on a 6×6-metre hall, with two- and three-storey octagonal and square cells in the corners. Above the door an inscription gives the date, the architect's name and the calligrapher's signature; the dome inscriptions are lost. The dome is clad in coloured tiles, the walls carry carved panels, and a small courtyard to the south holds later tombstones.