Bukhara - Sufi Shrine, Summer Palace and Chor Minor

The Naqshbandi Mausoleum was built for the founder of the Naqshbandi Sufi Order, Khoja Bakhouddin Naqshbandi.  He was the spiritual teacher of Amir Temur (ie Tamerlane).

It seems to me that Sufism is not a "sect", but a way of practicing Islam.  There are different "orders" of Sufism - congregations who have formed around a master.  You can be a Muslim and a Sufi, but you cannot be a Sufi without being a Muslim.  Perhaps it is similar to the various Christian orders.

Outside the shrine 

Inside.

Lovely ceilings

Presumably this is where the bodies are buried? 

Then we went to the summer residence of the last Emir of Bukhara, Sitorai Mokh-Khosa.  Apparently there had been several palaces, which were destroyed.  This surviving one was built in 1912-1918, by order of the last Emir of Bukhara Mir Sayyd Muhammad Alim Khan. The construction involved Bukhara masters and Russian engineers.

Another guide book was less complimentary.  They described it as both charming and nauseating, built by the Russians to get the Emir out of the Ark Fortress and ensconced in a cultural no-mans-land on the edge of town.

Anyhow, this is what we saw.

Outside view.

Inside view. The white room

and an example of mirror tiling. 

Two views of a lovely bright room. The windows were double - not double glazing, but double windows.  Just right for a sewing room, I thought.

Our next visit was to Chor Minor.  It looked like an upturned stool.

It was built in 1807.  The name means "four minarets", although they are not minarets in the usual sense of the word.  It was the gate-house to a madrassah, that has now gone. 

The inside has been whitewashed and is now used as yet another place to buiy souvenirs.  However Sanjar told me that if I walked around the back, I would see some original inscriptions.  So I did.

Then it was lunchtime.  BL and I went back to the restaurant across the road from our hotel. BL had  chicken - or lamb?

and I had to try the ice-cream.  The "fork" is decorative - cocoa shaken over a fork.