Kalan Mosque

Start with your feet. The courtyard floor is laid in fired brick, worn smooth and the colour of dry bread. In the morning it holds the cool of the night. By afternoon it gives back the heat of the sun. Around you, long arcades of pointed arches throw bands of shadow across the ground. Above them, a single turquoise dome rises against the sky. Listen for a moment. Inside these walls, the noise of the old city drops away.

You are standing in the Kalan Mosque, the great Friday mosque of Bukhara. The word kalan means great or large, and the name is honest. This is one of the largest mosques in Central Asia. Its courtyard was built to hold many thousands of worshippers at once, gathered shoulder to shoulder for Friday prayers. Even on a quiet weekday, the scale is hard to take in. The open space seems built for crowds, and it is.

The mosque belongs to a group of buildings called Po-i-Kalan, which means the foot of the great one. The great one is the minaret beside you. Together with the Mir-i-Arab Madrasa across the square, these three buildings form the centre of the old city. The whole historic centre of Bukhara was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1993. Many visitors come for the minaret and leave after one photograph. The mosque rewards those who stay.

Here is the first surprise. The minaret is much older than the mosque it serves. The tower was completed in 1127, under the Karakhanids, a Turkic dynasty that ruled this region in the twelfth century. An earlier Friday mosque stood beside it. That building did not survive. When Genghis Khan's Mongol armies took Bukhara in 1220, much of the city burned. The minaret stayed standing. The mosque around it had to be rebuilt.

Locals tell a popular story about that day. According to the tale, Genghis Khan rode up to the tower and looked up at its height. His hat fell from his head, and he bent down to pick it up. Legend has it that he decided any tower that made a conqueror bow deserved to be spared. Nobody can prove this happened. But the minaret is still here, more than eight hundred years later, and the story is still told.

The mosque you see today was finished in the early sixteenth century, in 1514, during the rule of the Shaybanids. They were a dynasty of Uzbek khans who made Bukhara their capital. They built on a grand scale, and they followed the great Timurid style of Samarkand. That style uses a large rectangular courtyard, a tall gateway on one side, and a domed prayer hall on the other. Stand in the centre and you can read the plan clearly.

Turn toward the main gateway, the tall portal on the eastern side. This kind of entrance is called a pishtaq, a high rectangular frame around a deep arched niche. It works like a stage set. From the street, it announces the building. From inside, it frames the light. Look at the tilework on its surface. Blue, turquoise and white glazed pieces form geometric patterns and bands of calligraphy that climb the frame.

Now look along the galleries that wrap around the courtyard. They are not plain corridors. Rows of brick pillars hold up a ceiling made of hundreds of small, shallow domes. Walk into the shade and look up. Each dome repeats the one before it, and the rows seem to run on and on. In summer, these covered halls gave space to worshippers who could not fit in the prayer hall. They also gave something just as precious here... shade.

On the far western side stands the main prayer hall, crowned by that turquoise dome. The dome sits on a high drum, which lifts it above the roofline so it can be seen from the streets around. Inside the hall is the mihrab, the niche that shows the direction of Mecca. Its surface is covered in glazed mosaic and carved patterns. If the hall is open, step quietly to the entrance and let your eyes adjust to the darker interior.

In the middle of the courtyard, look for a small octagonal pavilion. It looks modest beside the gateway and the dome, but it gives the open space a centre point. Photographers often use it as a foreground against the prayer hall behind. Notice, too, how the brickwork changes across the courtyard. Some surfaces are original, some are restored. The different shades of brick show centuries of repair.

The twentieth century was hard on this building. During the Soviet period, religious life was suppressed across Central Asia. The mosque stopped serving its purpose, and the great courtyard was used for other, practical things, including storage. After Uzbekistan became independent, the mosque returned to worship. Today it is a working mosque again. Remember that as you walk. People still come here to pray, and visitors are expected to dress modestly and keep their voices low.

Before you leave, walk back to the gateway and look out across the square. Directly opposite is the Mir-i-Arab Madrasa, with its own pair of blue domes. The mosque and the madrasa face each other across the open ground, gateway to gateway. Builders in Bukhara often paired buildings this way. The effect is a long axis of space, with the minaret standing to the side like a watchman. It is one of the finest urban views in Central Asia.

Now take one last look around the courtyard. The arches, the rows of small domes, the single blue dome to the west. Notice the light on the brick, and how it has changed even in the time you have stood here. Swallows often move between the arches overhead. Outside the gate, the city waits... the bazaars, the trading domes, the narrow lanes. Carry the quiet of this courtyard with you as you step back into them.