The oldest among them, and the oldest in Central Asia, is the mausoleum of the Samanids, sometimes described as the tomb of Ismail Samanid, who ruled Bukhara from the end of the ninth century to the beginning of the tenth. According to Pugachenkova34 this building is linked by all its principal elements to the pre-Islamic Soghdian traditions when architecture still had to make use of less solid and less durable materials: wood and sun-baked bricks. (See 34 and 50.)
Pope35 finds this mausoleum an edifice of imposing force and originality. Built some time before Ismail’s death in 907, it exerted a strong influence on subsequent Islamic architecture both in structural development and in the decorative deployment of material. It is almost cubic, roughly 31ft on each side, with a low hemispherical dome and, at the corners, four small ovoid domes of Sasanian derivation. An open-arcade gallery, just below the cornice, surrounds the building. The walls, which slope slightly inward, are fortified at the four corners by huge, three-quarter inset columns, made more emphatic by dark shadows. In form and emphasis the building has a time-defying solidity, appropriate for a memorial.
The problem of setting a dome over a square chamber is here carried beyond the simple solution of Parthian and Sasanian times. Consisting of three supporting arches that curve down from the crown of the arch to the walls, the squinch carries the thrust of the dome downward – rather like a Gothic flying buttress.36 The outer surfaces of the walls are covered with brick ornaments, which Rempel37 considers to be skilfully executed. The brick was used with a vivacity and intensity that had no precedent.38 The deeply shadowed texture of the walls veils the harsh reflected glare of sunlight. Much of the ornament seems to be derived from techniques in evidence in carved wood – in which Pope sees confirmation that a good deal of wood was used to build the early mosques of this region. The entrance arches show a distinct tendency towards the articulated portico of later times. Rempel39 sees two trends in the architectural decor of this mausoleum: a transition from an outer layer of bricks on a wall towards an ornamental brick tiling; and the stylising of some ancient motifs while preserving on the whole the ancient architectural tradition. About 250 years later we find the same principles in the Karakhanid mausoleums in Uzkend, with the notable addition of incised (carved) terracotta. The mausoleum has been thoroughly (and successfully) restored and its surroundings turned into a park.
The new citadel, the Ark (from the Persian ‘Arg’) dating from the eighteenth century, was built on an artificial hillock, the site of the medieval citadel, with a high front wall facing the Registan square and reinforced with a layer of baked bricks. (See 29.) Access to the interior is by a narrow winding tunnel with a gate on either side. On top is the palace of the former emir, a simple brick structure, now housing a local museum. Next to it is a mosque with carved columns, built in 1712, but the iwan with the columns is from the early twentieth century, as is the adjacent short minaret. Opposite the Ark, at a small pond, is the Bala Hauz mosque, built in 1712; a richly decorated iwan was added early this century. The colours and carvings on the columns and the coffered ceiling are remarkable.
Another interesting monument is the nearby mausoleum Chashma Ayub (Well of Job). (See 22.) By its style it belongs to the twelfth century, but an inscription above the entrance gives the date of a reconstruction as 1380, or 1384. There is something crude in the outline of the building, with its elongated walls and conical cupola on a high drum, and in the bareness of its structural elements, which are without any architectural decor whatsoever.40 The conical shape of the cupola, in contrast to the usual bulbous one, is an element alien to Transoxania, ascribed by some to the influence of Khorezmian builders brought in by Timur after the destruction of Gurganj. It has, however, certain similarities to the group of mausoleums in Kasan, in north Ferghana (see p.150), which date from 1340 and point therefore rather to a general decline of architectural and decorative art in a period immediately preceding the Timurid renaissance. The interior decor is interesting and unusual, consisting of alabaster stalactites in triple rows in the corners, constructed on a pattern of twelve-sided stars.
Fig. 14 Bukhara. 1 Ark; 2 Mausoleum of Ismail Samanid; 3 Chashma Ayub; 4 Madrasa of Abdulla-Khan; 5 Madrasa Madar-i Khan; 6 Mosque Baland; 7 Madrasa Gaukushan; 8 Khaniga Khoja Zainuddin; 9 Mosque Kalan; 10 Madrasa Mir-i Arab; 11 Minaret Kalan; 12–15 Vaulted bazaars; 16 Mosque Maghak-i Attari; 17 Madrasa Kukeltash; 18 Khaniga Nadir Divan Begi; 19 Madrasa Nadir Divan Begi; 20 Madrasa of Ulugh-beg; 21 Madrasa of Abdulaziz Khan; 22 Char Minar; 23 Mausoleum Saifuddin Bokharzi; 24 Mausoleum Buyan-Kuli Khan; 25 Mosque Namazga; 26 Khaniga Faisabad
South-west of Registan we find the complex called Kosh-madrasa (the Coupled Madrasas). As the name indicates, it consists of two madrasas facing each other, both built in the second half of the sixteenth century, under the rule of Abdullah Khan. Both were recently restored. The first, Madar-i Khan (Khan’s Mother), was dedicated to the ruler’s mother and was built in 1566. The other, built in 1588, bears the name of Abdullah Khan himself. The madrasa Madar-i Khan is interesting only as an indication of the general artistic decline of the period. There is hardly any decoration at all, except for a few tile ornaments on and inside the portico. Instead of incised mosaics, polychrome majolica and other laborious techniques, we find only very simple three-colour majolica in blue, white and turquoise; the patterns are inexact and unsophisticated, and their contours lack sharpness.
Its opposite is far richer in both architectural and ornamental decoration, but the craftsmanship is equally poor. Only the entrance door, which has a complicated girikh ornament with carvings of vegetal motifs inside the geometrical pattern, has a touch of artistic genius. The mosque inside the courtyard is not oriented exactly towards Mecca, but strictly on the four cardinal points, which may suggest that its sponsor, the ageing khan, perhaps contemplated having it as his mausoleum. The interior design of the large halls of this mosque shows some architectural innovations. The system of supporting constructions, owing to the large size of these halls, became so complicated that the structure almost becomes an ornament in itself, thus giving the building a unique individuality.41
South of here, and completely insignificant from the outside, is the Masjid-i Baland, or High Mosque, built in the sixteenth century. Its main attraction is the interior decoration, which consists of painted vegetal ornaments, religious inscriptions and a superbly decorated mihrab niche with patterns of incised mosaics, as well as a beautifully carved and painted wooden ceiling. This was a local mosque not designed for solemn services and gatherings like the cathedral mosques, but for day-to-day services, contemplation and refuge from busy everyday life; the emphasis of its architecture is therefore on cosiness rather than overall grandeur, soft lines and light materials rather than grandiose proportions in a cold or heavy style.
Another similar early sixteenth-century structure is the Khaniga of Khoja Zainuddin. This was simultaneously a district mosque, a khaniga (hostel), and a tomb of the khoja, which was situated in a niche in the western façade. The building, seen from the yard, is flanked by two rows of wooden columns supporting a wooden roof. The main hall is rectangular, large and high, and covered with a dome, the lower part of which consists of a belt of stalactites. The dome is divided into sections by means of ribs, and the whole system is decorated with polychrome paintings in gold, blue, red and especially turquoise, to symbolise the heavenly dome.
In the very centre of the city is a group of monuments called Poy Kalan, consisting of a minaret, a mosque, and a madrasa, which in spite of being from different periods form a remarkable and harmonious complex for which the city is rightly famous.
Fig. 15 Girikhs on spherical surfaces; main façade of the Masjid-i Kalan, Bukhara
The Minar-i Kalan, or Great Minaret, is an impressive tower, 170ft high, with a diameter at the bottom of 40ft. (See 52.) It is a cylindrical structure of baked bricks, narrowing toward the top and culminating in a brick lantern with a circular terrace with sixteen narrow openings. It is decorat
ed with parallel bands of ornamental friezes, with geometrical patterns entirely made of bricks. These patterns are different in each band and never repeat themselves. Below the lantern was a band of tiled relief inscriptions with a glaze in turquoise. This is one of the earliest known examples in Central Asia of colours used in architectural decoration. Originally, in the eleventh century, the lantern was of wood and the minaret stood closer to the citadel; during a siege it was burned down and the Karakhanid Arslan Khan then had it rebuilt a little further away and entirely of brick. The work was completed in 1127.
The adjacent mosque, Masjid-i Kalan, connected with the minaret by a bridge on the first floor, was built in the fifteenth century on the site of an older, twelfth-century, mosque. After reconstruction in the early sixteenth century under the Sheybanid khans, the mosque received its present appearance. In size, this cathedral mosque of Bukhara almost equals its counterparts in Samarkand and Herat, but it can hardly compete with them for sophistication of architectural design or harmony of ornamental decor. There is the traditional yard, 430ft by 270ft, with four iwans on the axes. On the longer axis lies the main building, opening into the yard with a monumental arched iwan. Squared at the base, the building continues as an octagon with a further transition into a cylindrical drum supporting a double dome, the outer one covered with turquoise ceramic tiles. Domed arcades surround the yard; there are 288 small cupolas supported by mighty columns. Cohn-Wiener42 assumes that two ornamental panels in the outer wall are remnants of the original twelfth-century mosque, which, he deduces, therefore had the same dimensions. One of these ornaments is exactly the same as on the minaret, the other is typical of the period. Some of the columns may also have survived from that time.
Exactly opposite the main entrance, on the ‘twin’ principle, is the portal of another monumental building – the Mir-i Arab madrasa, built in 1535. Among the numerous madrasas built in this area in that period of religious zeal, Mir-i Arab is without doubt one of the best. Significant of the period is the fact that the then ruler, Ubaydullah Khan, who provided the builder, Sheikh Mir-i Arab, with money gained from the sale of several thousand Shi’ite Persians into slavery, himself lies buried in one of the corner rooms, alongside the sheikh and among numerous tombs; there is no longer a special mausoleum for the ruler. The style is again horizontal, a rectangular yard with four iwans surrounded by four two-storey wings of cells. There are two domed halls, right and left of the main portal. Next to this portal are the two domes, one for the assembly hall, the other for the mosque, supported by cylindrical drums. The architectural decoration still remains within the traditions of the late Timurid period. Incised mosaics, mainly blue and white, decorate the pishtak, the iwans in the yard and the walls of the tomb hall and the mosque. Inscriptions in elaborate Thulth character, stylised islimi (vegetal) motifs, and patterns of coloured glazed bricks appear on walls, arches, columns and ceilings. Mir-i Arab is the only madrasa in Central Asia that has served the same purpose for more than 400 years – it was one of the only two Muslim colleges allowed to operate in the Soviet Union.
Fig. 16 Poy-Kalan complex. 1 Mosque Kalan; 2 Madrasa Mir-i Arab; 3 Minaret Kalan
A feature of sixteenth-century Bukhara was a number of domed bazaars built usually over an intersection of two busy streets. (See 32.) Several of these bazaars have survived, still retaining their original names derived from their function: the Cupola of Jewellers, of Cap-Makers, of Money-Changers. Usually there is the main dome over the actual crossroads and around it a group of smaller and lower cupolas covering the shop premises. Some of them were built over an intersection of several streets that converged from various angles, and this of course made the design more complicated. All of these structures are highly utilitarian, with no decoration, but with an undeniable architectural character of their own.
Near one of these bazaars is the oldest surviving mosque in Central Asia – the Maghak-i Attari, dating from the twelfth century and built on a site where there was already a temple in Soghdian times.43 (See 30.) Excavations revealed some fragments of alabaster decoration and brickwork from the tenth century. The main twelfth-century façade, now almost 15ft below ground level, was uncovered and restored in 1930. It represents the most important architectural and artistic feature of the mosque. The rest was completely swallowed by later reconstructions. Pugachenkova44 sees in the two quarter columns, paired together on each side of the pishtak (portico), a motif reminiscent of pre-Islamic style. The slightly receding pishtak is covered by a broken arch and flanked by two corner columns and two sets of ornamental panels in incised terracotta, with geometrical motifs. There are two types of girikhs in the upper and lower panels, and one in the middle panel on each side. Rempel45 connects some elements in the decoration with the roughly contemporary twelfth-century mausoleums in Uzkend, where, however, the technique of incised terracotta seems to have reached a higher degree of perfection.
Fig. 17 Medallions; details from the western iwan, madrasa Mir-i Arab, Bukhara
Fig. 18 Mosque Maghak-i Attari, Bukhara; brick pattern with background filling in alabaster
Around the water reservoir Labi-hauz is another important architectural complex of central Bukhara. The Kukeltash madrasa (1568) is yet another typical building of the Abdullah Khan period. It contains 160 cells and is therefore one of the biggest of its kind. In the corners are octagonal vestibules around which the cells are grouped radially. Inside, the ceiling of the vestibule is formed by tiny bricks separated by thin lines of white alabaster, which give a very impressive decoration.
On the east side, the Nadir Divan Begi madrasa (1622) was originally designed as a caravanserai, but was soon converted for a more pious purpose. (See 33.) A rather crude mosaic depicting imaginary birds of paradise decorates the entrance iwan, lined with an inscription frieze in ornamental Kufic. Niches and tympans around the courtyard show tile mosaics, mostly in blue and white, with floral motifs.
Ulugh-beg also built a madrasa in Bukhara in 1417, and the khan Abdulaziz added its opposite number, across a narrow lane, in 1652. Compared with the Samarkand madrasa, the one in Bukhara, a few years older, is much smaller, simpler and altogether more modest. The dome of the assembly room rests not on traditional squinches, but on a system of strong semi-vaults, like structural stalactites, which demonstrates contemporary effort to seek constructional innovation and improvement.
The madrasa of Abdulaziz Khan dwarfs its counterpart in all respects but one. It is bigger, richer, more sophisticated, but it somehow lacks the harmony of proportion that marks the older building. There are some new motifs in the decoration, perhaps deliberately introduced to break the straitjacket of tradition: phoenixes and birds with snake heads among flowers now liven up the mosaic; stylised landscapes appear in wall paintings, resembling Indian miniatures of the Moghul period; the alabaster ceilings of both the assembly rooms and the mosque have an extremely complicated geometrical pattern. But the decoration, especially the paintings with their profusion of gold and blue, does not harmonise with the geometry of the structure, and these two elements seem to be in permanent conflict. Pugachenkova46 sees in this building the last effort of Central Asian architecture in the late feudal period ‘to break free onto the path of progress by rejecting the restricting traditions of the past, but it could not find enough strength for such an active step’.
The so-called Char-Minar (Four Minarets), built in 1807, is a little building full of character. (See 51.) It consists of four turrets with a small turquoise cupolas and a square domed house between them. Originally it was a gatehouse to a madrasa, built by a wealthy merchant, Khalif Niyazkul. The madrasa disappeared almost entirely, but this little structure ranks among the most original monuments of late Muslim Bukhara. One of the turrets recently collapsed and is being restored.
To conclude, we must mention five more buildings on the outskirts of the city. First, to the east, two mausoleums: that of Saifuddin Bokharzi, built in the fourteenth century, with a portico added in the fift
eenth or sixteenth century. It is remarkable for its massive size, its simplicity, and the clarity of its architecture. Two egg-shaped cupolas cover the two rooms inside, and this indicates a considerable evolution from the older style and tradition of single-room structures. Inside, the highly decorated wooden cenotaph with a profusion of carved ornaments ranks among the best works of its kind in medieval Bukhara. Next to Saifuddin Bokharzi, another mausoleum, that of Buyan-Kuli Khan (1358), also has two rooms, but with the high portico they form a much more integrated structure than the former. The contrast is not only in size (Buyan-Kuli is much smaller), but also in the emphasis on decoration, intimacy, refinement and subdued lighting. Glazed incised terracotta was the main technique of interior decoration, and this represents an enormous step forward since the preceding period, not to mention the astonishing variety of motifs. Some ornamental panels are now in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Fig. 19 Madrasa Kukeltash, Bukhara (sixteenth century); girikh on a carved door-panel
Fig. 20 Labi-hauz complex. 1 Madrasa Kukeltash; 2 Madrasa Nadir Divan Begi; 3 Khaniga Nadir Divan Begi; 4 Labi-hauz reservoir
South of Bukhara the mosque called Namazga dates from the early twelfth-century Karakhanid period and consisted first only of a brick wall with a mihrab niche. This mihrab, with delicate embellishments of incised terracotta, has survived to the present day. The glazed polychrome tiles were added during restoration in the fifteenth century. Namazga was a type of out-of-town mosque, where on the great Islamic feast days the entire male population of the city and its wider environs gathered. Designed to accommodate such huge popular gatherings, the Namazga mosque had no walls and no arcades, just a light fence to indicate its border and the mihrab wall to show the direction of ritual bows and prayers and to provide the imam with a place to conduct the ceremony.
Treasures of the Great Silk Road Page 17