Samanid Mausoleum

Interesting facts

The mausoleum of Pakistan's founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah, in Karachi was modelled on this small tenth-century tomb in Bukhara.

Its very existence was unusual: orthodox Sunni law forbids building tombs over graves, so it may be one of the earliest breaks with that rule in Islamic architecture.

In the 1930s researchers found a copy of a tenth-century endowment deed recording that Ismail Samani gave cemetery land for a tomb for his father, Ahmad.

Excavators found three male burials inside; only one could be identified from an inscription, and the other two remain unknown.

At the base the walls are roughly 1.8 metres thick, and all four faces lean slightly inward as they rise.

A gallery of small arches below the cornice lightens the upper walls and lets daylight in, unlike the windowless fire temples the plan recalls.

Massive three-quarter columns at the corners, classical in form, give the little building the look of a fortress.

Its brick patterns closely echo eighth-century wood carving from Penjikent, the old Sogdian town in present-day Tajikistan.

Because of its size and precise proportions it is often nicknamed the 'Jewel Box' of Bukhara.

According to legend, people lowered written petitions through an opening on the south side and expected Ismail's answer to appear on the north side the next day.

Why it is worth it

In a quiet park on the western edge of old Bukhara stands a small cube of brick that ranks among the most important buildings of the Islamic world. The Samanid Mausoleum was raised in the early tenth century as the family tomb of the Samanid dynasty, the Persian rulers who made Bukhara one of the great cities of their age. Tradition links it to Ismail Samani, the founder of the unified Samanid state, who is said to have built it over the grave of his father; an inscription names his grandson Nasr II among those buried here, and scholars still debate under which reign it was completed. It is the oldest surviving monument of Islamic architecture in Central Asia and the only building left from the Samanid period.

The mausoleum is barely more than nine metres on each side, yet it holds the eye for a long time. Its form — a cube crowned by a hemispherical dome, with four identical arched façades — recalls the chahar taq plan of pre-Islamic Zoroastrian fire temples, while inside, arched squinches turn the square into an octagon to carry the round dome, a solution that later Islamic architecture made its own. The real marvel is the surface. The whole building, inside and out, is made of fired brick of a warm, pale tone, laid flat, upright, diagonally and in basket-weave patterns, so that the walls read like woven textile or carved wood rather than masonry.

Its survival is part of the story. Over the centuries the tomb was buried in silt and earth, and local tradition holds that this hidden state spared it when the Mongols sacked Bukhara in 1220. Soviet archaeologists cleared it in the 1920s, and restoration followed at the end of the 1930s; the surrounding cemetery was later turned into Samani Park. The mausoleum belongs to the World Heritage Site of the Historic Centre of Bukhara. Come in the early morning or late afternoon: as the sun moves, shadows sharpen in every recess of the brickwork and the pattern seems to change by the minute.

Getting there

The mausoleum stands in Samani Park, about 2.7 km from the centre of Bukhara on the edge of the old town. Bukhara International Airport (BHK) is roughly 7 km away. From the centre a short taxi ride or walk brings you to the park.

From the encyclopaedia

The Samanid Mausoleum is a mausoleum located in the northwestern part of Bukhara, Uzbekistan, just outside its historic center. It was built in the 10th century CE as the resting place of the powerful and influential Islamic Samanid dynasty that ruled the Samanid Empire from approximately 900 to 1000. It contained three burials, one of whom is known to have been that of Nasr II.

Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Samanid Mausoleum

Interesting facts

Why it is worth it

Getting there

Plan your visit

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From the encyclopaedia