Bibi-Khanum Mosque
(World Heritage)
The greatest structure from Amir Timur's time is the Friday mosque called Bibi-Khanum. Construction began in 1339 after Timur had finished the victorious campaign to India. The best architects, craftsmen, stonemasons and artists from Samarkand as well as from the countries of Timur worked on the construction of the mosque. In addition, ninety Indian elephants were used to carry out heavy work on the construction site. During his stays in the capital, between his campaigns, Timur personally supervised the construction. In his absence she was from his Ms. Sarai-Mulk-Khanum, who bore the title Bibi-Khanum, is under surveillance. Once when Timur returned from one of his regular military campaigns, he was furious to see that the portal of the madrasah did not rise above the height of the mosque. He ordered the fully completed portal of the mosque to be demolished and a new one to be built at the point that far exceeded the initial height.
The Bibi-Khanum Mosque makes an unforgettable impression on its visitors. It consists of four buildings: the great mosque, two smaller mosques and the entrance arch. The rectangular courtyard is over 53,800 square meters and the entrance area is surrounded by a colonnade. There are four 165-meter-high minarets at the corners of the courtyard. The majestic eastern portal is clad in marble and initially had bronze gates. The entrance to the great mosque is decorated with a huge peshtak with octahedral minarets on either side. The construction of the great mosque is made with a massive drum with inscriptions in Kufi script and covered with a huge blue dome. Sharofiddin Yezdi, a poet and historian of Timur's campaigns, wrote: "Only the dome of the sky and the arch of the Milky Way can be compared to the dome of the mosque and its arched portal". After Timur's death, his grandson Ulugbek, the great scientist and a The ruler of Movarounnahr had a huge marble reading stand built in the courtyard of the Bibi Khanum Mosque, on which the famous Osman Koran was regularly placed on Fridays during public services. Unfortunately, time has not spared this masterpiece of Islamic architecture. The mosque building was badly damaged. A large-scale restoration of the monument was carried out in the 1990s. The dome, minarets and portals of the mosque have been restored and the original architecture of the entire structure has been reconstructed.
