Mausoleum · Shaykhantahur District

Yunus Khan Mausoleum

A portal-and-dome mausoleum for Yunus Khan of Moghulistan (d. 1487), built between 1487 and 1502 — one of Tashkent's two surviving monumental buildings from the 15th century.

TimuridXV20 min1 min read

Photo: Alpasli · CC BY-SA 4.0 · Wikimedia Commons

History

Yunus Khan, ruler of Moghulistan, took full control of Tashkent in 1485 and made it his capital, dying two years later in 1487. His daughter Qutlugh Nigar Khanum was the mother of Zahir ud-Din Muhammad Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire. The mausoleum is thought to have been built by his sons between 1487 and 1502.

A now-faded inscription recorded that Yunus Khan was born in 818 AH and died in 892 AH aged 74, that the building was ruined in 979 AH and restored by Bobokhoja in 1584 — details also given by the 16th-century historian Hafiz-i Tanish. Excavations in 1942 and 1967 found no burial inside; legend says the khan's body was taken back to Moghulistan.

Architecture

Rectangular in plan (21.2 × 22 m), the khanqah has a 7 × 7-metre central hall flanked by two-storey cells. The outer dome and portal arch collapsed in the 19th century and the exterior decoration is gone, but carved ganch and muqarnas survive inside. Ruined parts were rebuilt in the late 1970s and restored again in 1999–2005.