Bibi Chanum Mosque

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Facades of the mosque (2010)
Domed structure
Stone stand Koran

The mosque of Bibi Chanum ( Uzbek Bibixonim Masjidi , Russian Мечеть Бибиханым Metschet Bibichanym , Persian مسجد بیبی خانم Masjed-e Bibi Chanum , English Bibi-Khanym Mosque ) is one of the most important sights of Samarkand . In the 15th century it was one of the largest and most magnificent mosques in the Islamic world. Only a grandiose ruin remained of it until the middle of the 20th century, but in the meantime significant parts of the mosquehave been restoredthrough restoration .

Origin and meaning

The Bibi Chanum mosque was built from 1399 to around 1404 on the orders of the Central Asian ruler Timur (Tamerlane). Before that, Timur had expanded his power from Syria to India in several successful campaigns and had become the most powerful ruler in the Islamic world. With the construction of the new Friday mosque (main mosque) in his capital Samarkand, Timur wanted to set an example of his power and his political and religious claims. The building, the construction of which he temporarily supervised and corrected himself, could not be fully completed by his death in 1405.

A romantic legend later grew up around the origin of the mosque, in which Bibi Chanum, Timur's favorite wife, is portrayed as the builder (see below).

The ruins of the mosque and adjoining market, end of the 19th century.

The attachment

The Bibi Chanum mosque follows the basic type of the courtyard mosque: its outer walls enclose a rectangular area measuring 167 by 109 m, which runs lengthways roughly from northeast to southwest - according to the qibla . Its monumental buildings and covered galleries leave an inner courtyard of 78 by 64 m in the middle.

You enter the mosque from the northeast through the staggered arches of a huge, approximately 40 m high parade portal and thus reach the inner courtyard. On the opposite side of the courtyard there is a monumental dome, also around 40 m high, with a square floor plan (Persian kiosk type). It ends with the southwest wall of the mosque and thus vaults the space in front of the central mihrab of the complex. This dome structure is the largest structure in the mosque. However, the dome can not be seen from the courtyard, for you is a whole construction occluding Pischtak upstream: a display wall, the monumental, deeply embedded Ivan framed. The ivan does not allow passage into the dome room behind; this is only accessible from the sides.

In the middle of the long sides of the inner courtyard, there are two more domed buildings, which are much more modest in size and which in turn have pishtake with ivans on the courtyard side. The portal building through which you enter the mosque also opens onto the courtyard with an ivan. With these features, the Bibi Chanum mosque realizes the classic Persian-Islamic building type of the “four-ivan scheme”: a complex with an inner courtyard, in which two ivans (framed by high pishtaks) face each other.

The buildings mentioned were connected around the courtyard by 7.2 m high galleries open to the courtyard. Its covering was formed from a series of small, flat brick domes and supported by a forest of over 400 marble columns and pillars. Today only hints of the galleries are recognizable.

The four minarets at their outer corners were also a lost ornament of the mosque . Only the shafts are left of four other, even more powerful towers or minarets that flanked and stabilized the portal arch of the entrance and the pishtak of the main dome.

In the middle of the inner courtyard rises on a stone pedestal a huge Koran stand made of marble blocks decorated in relief, also from the time of Timur.

This huge mosque with its three domed rooms, the covered galleries and the open inner courtyard was intended to gather the entire male urban population of Samarkand for common Friday prayer .

Artistic design

In the construction of the three domes, a sophisticated innovation was used in Timur's time: the two-shell structure. For example, the lofty, 40 m high outer dome of the main structure could be designed entirely with an increased aesthetic impact on the outside, while the inner dome shell remains committed to the proportions and aesthetics of the 30 m high interior above the mihrab . The same applies to the side dome structures: Here, the double-skin structure made it possible to raise the otherwise modest buildings like a tower and to enhance their effect by adding elegant melon-shaped and longitudinally ribbed outer domes.

In the masterful decoration of the mosque all the traditions were central Asia and Persia and even suggestions from India used: Steininkrustationen , decorative in relief marble panels , stucco , wall painting . Especially glazed pottery found here in all varieties: from monochrome-turquoise large main dome over the geometric monumental mosaic of large wall surfaces, the multicolored ceramic to the frames of the arches and the ribs of the side domes, the delicate mosaic of countless of arabesques interwoven , elegant Thuluth font friezes to the cobalt blue , elaborately gold-decorated faiences on the drum under the large dome.

The interior of the domed rooms still shows traces of colored Al-Secco painting and reliefs made of papier-mâché decorated with gold leaf and blue - the latter an invention of the time. Original pieces have also been preserved from the encrusted marble slabs in the base zone.

The size of the facility was felt to be unheard of and unprecedented even at the time it was built. Timur had the best builders, stonemasons and faience artists of his time available for his mosque : In addition to local masters, many artists were involved in the construction and decoration, whom Timur had abducted to Samarkand during his campaigns from Azerbaijan , Persia, Central Asia and India . Today it seems admirable that the master builders and artists from different countries were able to create a work of art in such a short time under duress and danger to their lives, which today is considered to be “a synthesis of the highest achievements of the oriental architecture of the time”.

Fate and today's condition

When Timur saw the Bibi Chanum mosque after years of campaigning in 1404, it was almost completed. He was not satisfied and immediately had various changes made, especially on the large dome. Static problems became apparent from the start. Conversions and reinforcements were supposed to save the mosque. However, after just a few years, the first bricks fell from the huge dome above the mihrab on the believers. It is possible that, at Timur's instigation, the structural limits were exceeded.

At the end of the 16th century, the Uzbek ruler Abdullah Chan II had restoration work carried out. After that, the mosque fell into disrepair and became a ruin, where wind, weather and earthquakes continued to gnaw. The inner arch of the portal building only collapsed in 1897. For centuries, the people of Samarkand plundered the ruins in search of building materials. Above all, the brick-walled galleries including the marble columns disappeared.

In the 20th century, the ruins of the Bibi Chanum mosque still impressed visitors to the city with its enormous dimensions and the precious furnishings that can still be recognized. The first fundamental investigation and securing of the ruins was carried out in Soviet times. At the end of the 20th century, the Uzbek government began restoring the three domed structures and the parade portal. The decoration of the domes and facades is also being extensively restored and supplemented. Work on the mosque will continue in 2010.

Name explanation and legend

Early color photo of the ruins by Sergei Michailowitsch Prokudin-Gorski , around 1905–1915

It is unclear when the name Bibi Chanum mosque came up. In the Middle Ages, the mosque was always referred to as the great mosque or Friday mosque (جامع مسجد masğed-e ğāme ', Persian).

Historically, Bibi Chanum (خانم بیبی, Persian: Frau Bibi ) cannot be proven as the name of a wife of Timur. In Persian Bibi is also more of a general honorable term in the sense of venerable woman , especially as a respectful address for the paternal grandmother.

The Bibi Chanum mosque, however, is related to Timur's main wife, Sarai-Molk Chanum. At that time Timur was on campaigns for years; At that time, his wife - already an elderly lady at the time - presumably supervised the work on the mosque, the most important building project in the capital. It is certain that Sarai-Molk Chanum had its own foundation, a madrasah , built directly opposite the Bibi Chanum mosque at the same time . (Only a dome structure has survived on the site today, which is popularly handed down as the mausoleum of Bibi Chanum .)

According to legend, Bibi Chanum is Timur's young and pretty favorite wife, who initiated the construction of the mosque as a gift to Timur. The story is told today as follows:

The builder who Bibi Chanum commissioned fell passionately in love with her. He said boldly: "I will not finish the mosque until you allow me to kiss you." "That is impossible," said Bibi Chanum. “But you can kiss one of my servants instead. It doesn't matter which cup you quench your thirst from: one drink is like the other. ”“ Oh no, ”replied the builder. “Take a look. Here I have two cups: one with clear water, the other with light wine. From the outside, both look the same and both quench your thirst. But the wine will also lift me up and make me happy. ”Bibi Chanum was desperate. Because Timur was already on the way to Samarkand, and time was pressing: the mosque had to be finished. Eventually she gave in and allowed the builder to kiss her cheek. At the last moment she pulled a small pillow between them, but the kiss was so hot and passionate that it burned through the pillow into her tender cheek. Timur soon arrived and was delighted with the mosque, this wonderful gift from his beloved wife. But then, when he took the veil off Bibi Chanum's face, he saw the trace of iniquity on her cheek. Furious with jealousy, he did not give up until Bibi Chanum had confessed everything to him. Furious, he urged the cheeky builder over to him. But he knew that certain death awaited him. Skillful as he was, he built a pair of wings, climbed the tallest minaret of his mosque and flew off to Mashhad in Persia.

literature

  • Edgar Knobloch: Turkestan: Tashkent, Bukhara, Samarkand. Travel to the cultural sites of Central Asia. Prestel, Munich 1999 (4th edition). ISBN 3-7913-2109-9 .
  • Thomas Leisten: The Islamic Architecture in Uzbekistan . In: Johannes Kalter, Margareta Pavaloi (ed.): Uzbekistan: Heirs of the Silk Road. Hansjörg Mayer, Stuttgart 1995, pp. 79-100.
  • Tilman Nagel : Timur the Conqueror and the Islamic World of the Late Middle Ages. Munich: Beck 1993. ISBN 3-406-37171-X .
  • Klaus Pander: Central Asia: Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan. DuMont art travel guide. DuMont, Cologne 1966. ISBN 3-7701-3680-2 .
  • Elena Paskaleva: The Bibi Khanum Mosque in Samarqand: Its Mongol and Timurid Architecture. In: The Silk Road 10 , 2012, pp. 81-98
  • Galina A. Pugachenkova : Samarkand. Bukhara. VEB Deutscher Verlag der Wissenschaften, Berlin 1975.
  • Alfred Renz : History and Sites of Islam from Spain to India. Prestel, Munich 1977. ISBN 3-7913-0360-0 .
  • [Zakhidov:] Зоҳидов, Пўлат: Темур даврининг меъморий каҳкашони. Тошкент: Шарқ 1966. [Zakhidov, Pulat: Architectural glories of Temur's era. Tashkent: Sharq 1996.]

Web links

Commons : Bibi Khanum Mosque  - Collection of Pictures, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Nagel, p. 400; Last, p. 92.
  2. ↑ Sharafuddin Ali Jazdi: Zafarnāmeh (quoted from Leisten, p. 92).
  3. ↑ Renz, p. 298f .; Last, p. 94.
  4. ↑ A prime example of this is Timur's mausoleum Gur-e Mir in Samarkand.
  5. ^ Renz, p. 448.
  6. ↑ Pugachenkova, p. 29.
  7. ↑ Knobloch, p. 151.
  8. ↑ Zakhidov, pp. 58f.
  9. ↑ Pugachenkova, p. 30.
  10. ↑ Zakhidov, pp. 59f.
  11. ↑ Pugachenkova, p. 28.
  12. ↑ Zakhidov, p. 57ff.
  13. ^ Heinrich FJ Junker, Bozorg Alavi: Dictionary Persian-German. 7th edition. Leipzig, Berlin, Munich: Langenscheid. Verlag Enzyklopädie 1992. ISBN 3-324-00110-2
  14. ↑ See also Pugachenkova, p. 27.
  15. ↑ Zakhidov, pp. 59f.
  16. ↑ See Pugachenkova, p. 26.

Coordinates: 39 ° 39 ′ 38 "  N , 66 ° 58 ′ 45"  E