08.11.2023 Bahabad-Din Nakshbandi complex

 Baha ad-Din Nakshbandi complex

The Baha ad-Din complex is a cult ensemble located in the suburban area of Bukhara. The complex served as the center of the Naqshbandi Dervish order. Its head, Sheikh Bahauddin Naqshband, died in 1389. and he was buried near the village of Kasri Arifon (now in the Kagan district) near Bukhara.

Northeast of Bukhara in the village of Kasri Orifon is one of Sufism's more important shrines, the birthplace and the tomb of Khazreti Mohammed Bakhauddin (Baha-al-din, Uzbek: Bahovuddin) Nakhshbandi (1318-1389), the founder of the most influential of many ancient Sufi orders in Central Asia, and Bukhara's unofficial 'patron saint'.

Entering the complex through the main, east entrance, you'll walk towards a 16th century khanaka covered by a huge dome, now a Juma (Friday) mosque. In front of it is a precariously leaning minaret. Two more mosques surround Bakhautdin's tomb in the courtyard to the left. The lovingly restored aivan here is one of the country's most beautiful.

The tomb itself is a simple 2m-high block, protected by a horse-mane talisman hanging from a post. Tradition says that it is auspicious to complete three anticlockwise circumambulations of the tomb. Back in the main courtyard there was a petrified tree. Legend has it that this tree sprouted where Bakhautdin stuck his staff, upon returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca.But know this tree was removed. He then added drops of holy water from Mecca to a nearby well. Faucets near the minaret continue to supply this well's water to pilgrims, who splash their faces with it and bring it home by the jugful for good luck.North of the complex a long path leads to the tomb of Bakhautdin's mother, also a place of pilgrimage.

The spiritual focus of any visit is the large mazaar encasing the black tombstone of the saint, traditionally known as the Stone of Desire, and the 20 graves of past pilgrims that include the Khans Abdul Aziz and Abdullah II. The holy courtyard is enclosed by the Abu'l Hakim Koshbegi Mosque (1720), now used as a women's mosque, and the Muzaffar Khan Mosque, built 150 years later. The architectural centre of the complex is the huge khanagha built in the same year as the tomb (1544) by the Uzbek chief Abdul Aziz Khan; a cool, cubed building equipped with 48 hujra cells and crowned by a huge 30-metre high dome.

In 1993, on the 675th anniversary of Nakhshbandi's birth, the complex was restored and revamped with Turkish and Pakistani money (including a personal donation of US$45,000 from ex-President Ozal of Turkey) and unveiled in a great show of international Muslim brotherhood..

 Today we visited to the great place and our day was wonderful .