Autor and Photos
byAndrey KUDRYASHOV.

The most honoured of the Moslem saints of Tashkent, Sheikh Khovand Takhur, after whom
Shaykantakhur, an administrative district of Tashkent, is named, was born at the close of
13th century in the mountain settlement of Bogustan to a family of descendants of the
Prophet. His father, the famous sheikh Umar Vali Bogustani, came from the family of the
second righteous caliph Omar, and was in his youth a dervish and the protege of the Sufi
teacher Khasan Bulgari. After many years of journeying, Umar Vali and twenty of his
closest co-workers, all of whom were well-known devotees, settled in a mountain valley
which from then on became the ancestral land of the Bogustani ishans, and to this day it
retains its ancient name of Charvak. Nowadays this valley is home to the Charvak water
reservoir, but the holy places were preserved almost in their original form on the shore.

Pilgrimage to Tashkent At the age of ninety Umar Vali Bogustani set off on the one hundred
and fifty kilometer pilgrimage to the mazar of Abu Bakr Kaffol Shashi in Tashkent, in
those days a long and dangerous journey. After the death of Genghizkhan, long-held
disputes between local rulers and their enemies began in the divided areas of his
short-lived empire. According to contemporary evidence, once populated and flourishing
lands became barren deserts between isolated citadels. Most notable was the humility of
the legendary ishan who, it was rumoured, could rule over elemental forces, but who
nevertheless walked to the tomb of another devotee to pray to the Almighty for an heir.
Allah heard his prayers, the legend goes, through the invisible mediation of the saint
Kaffol Shoshi. One year after Umar Vali’s journey to Tashkent, his son Takhur was born in
Bogustan, and later became a beacon of wisdom. In his youth, Khovand Takhur repeated the
religious experience of his father, spending many years wandering as a dervish. Then he
settled down in Tashkent where he soon gained authority among citizens by his
extraordinary learning, always combined with his gentle temperament, charity and fairness.
Having become a sheikh he often reminded his followers of the favorite statement of Akhmad
Yassavi, that the spiritual qualities of a man searching for truth are in direct
proportion to his forbearance when faced with rudeness and ignorance. Besides his
teaching, the sheikh dedicated himself to charity in the very literal sense, and persuaded
rich and influential people, in the name of Allah, to help widows and orphans, of which
there were many in that unquiet time. He was held in such high regard by the inhabitants
of Tashkent that after his death in 1355 he was buried in a place considered sacred a
thousand years before the city was founded.

The Iskander grove One kilometer south-east of the Eski Djuva fortress which was built in
the times of the Samanides, there was a grove of petrified saures - conifers planted, so
the legend goes, by Alexander the Great. It is said that the great commander, moving east
with his phalanxes from conquered Samarkand to the Fergana valley and crossing the Steppe of Hunger, had fallen ill because of bad water which he had drunk with his soldiers. On the advice of his magicians he was brought to the sacred spring Chorsu in the Chach oasis to drink the curative waters. In gratitude for his restored health, Alexander ordered a
grove of long-lasting saures to be planted around the spring. Young plants were brought by
his soldiers from the Tian Shan mountainside. In the time of Khovand Takhur the
thousand-year-old saures had petrified, but the grove and salubrious spring still were
sacred places, which the sheikh chose for meetings and conversations with his followers in
the hot days of the summer chilla. It was not ungodly, as it was not un-Islamic to
remember Alexander the Great - Iskander Zu-l-Karnein - to whom several sura of the Koran
are dedicated. Two hundred years later, next to the mausoleum of Shaykantakhur (as
inhabitants of Tashkent called Sheikh Khovand Takhur) was built the mausoleum of Yunus
Khan – the last Mongolian ruler of Chach, who in 1416-1486 made Tashkent the capital of
Mogolistan. His vassal was Umarshaykh, the ruler of Fergana married to the Tashkent
princess Kutlug Nigor. Their marriage produced Zakhiriddin Mukhammad Babur, the great
military leader, philosopher and poet, who founded in North India the powerful Moslem
state known as the Great Mogul Empire. The grove of petrified saures existed in Tashkent
until 1924 when it was cut down by the first Young Communist League of Uzbek SSR members who, with the zeal of the newly-converted, rushed to do away with the medieval
superstitions and prejudices of their ancestors. Only one trunk remains, which stands
right against the dome of the Sheykhantakhur mausoleum. Living saures have been preserved only in the small homeland of Khovand Takhur, in the outskirts of the mountain village Bogustan. There is a scientific explanation for the disappearance long ago of the sacred spring of Sheykhantakhur. Tashkent is located in a zone of seismic hyperactivity.
Therefore geothermal water outlets, in the course of time, change their location,
depending on the movement of subsoil. There are mineral water springs in many other places of Tashkent. The Tashkent water, which is said to have cured Alexander, is aerated and bottled, though sanitary technicians claim that the same water runs in the pipelines of
populated areas.

The zealous servant Half a century after Shaykantakhur’s death, the ancestral lands of the
Bogustan ishans gave Tashkent a holy man who became one of the most influential people of his time. In Bogustan in 1404 the great-grandson of Khovand Takhur was born. He was given the name Ubaydullah - servant of Allah - as he was born on the night of predetermination of the sacred month of Ramadan, especially sacred to Moslems because during this night the Most High, through archangel Djabrail, sent the Holy Koran to the Prophet Mukhammad. As someone predestined for holiness, Ubaydullah showed unusual merits from the first minutes of his life. For forty days he did not drink his mother’s milk, keeping the first fast. When his parents called fellow villagers to celebrate the cutting of the first hair, they had to cancel the celebration, because the notice of Emperor Temur came. During his childhood and youth Ubaydullah avoided the common entertainments of his contemporaries, and preferred to withdraw to the mazar of his holy ancestors, and to study Sufi wisdom. At the age of eighteen he was often so deeply absorbed in zikr – mentally repeating the names of the Most High that he did not notice anything even when surrounded by a crowd at a market. His selfless devotion was evident to everybody so at the age of twenty two he was sent to study in the best madrasahof Samarkand, where, in the mazar of the saint Kussam ibn Abbas, known as the Living Ruler, the Prophet Mukhammad and Isa Paygambar came to him during his devotions. From Samarkand Ubaydullah went to Bukhara to join to the religious heritage of the Sheikh Bakhauddin Nakshbandi, the founder of the mystic Nakshbandiya order. From there he went to Herat, where, for five years he was the postulant of the Sufi teacher Said Tabrizi. At last, in 1430, having heard of the prominent Nakshbandi devotee, ishan Yakub Charkhi, he went on foot to look for him in the Hissar mountains and, after a short course of studies, received from the hands of Charkhi, who was convinced of his spiritual progress, irshad – the document which gave Ubaydullah the right to be a Sufi preceptor. It is said that the wise Charkhi, together with the document and with grace, gave him the covenant of Bakhauddin Nakshbandi looking for truth: that their heart must always be with the God, and their hands must be working. This covenant, formulated by the Nakshbandiya order (literally, the chasers), meant a gradual rejection of eremitic life
and handouts by Sufi followers, in favor of temporal work and active participation in
society. It was consistently adhered to by Sheikh Ubaydullah who, in 1432, returned to
Tashkent where he soon became known as Akhrar – devoted to God. Khodja Akhrar taught his close followers that the task of a Sufi is not only the salvation of oneself, but also the
spiritual salvation of all mankind, which cannot be done by renouncing mundane affairs,
even such as policy. He wrote the following on the subject: “The task of the Sufi is not
only to save himself, but to save the world. In order to save the world, it is necessary
to have power, and in order to have power it is necessary to have relations with the
world. Hence bothrenunciation of the world and possession of the world serve the same
purpose. Power over the world, which is the world of passions, evil, the world of the
devil – is a blessing for this world and brings its salvation. Butonly the man whom the
world as it is cannot attract must striveforpowerovertheworld, the man who has achieved
the degree of indifference and complete disregard to the value and charms of the world.”
In the beginning, the young sheikh lived in Tashkent in the same way as his
great-grandfather Khovand Takhur. He prayed a lot, spoke little, avoided bad people and
places, wore simple clothes and cared for ill people, widows and orphans. He became
interested in agriculture, renting a plot of land near Parkent settlement and with a pair
of bullocks from his relatives in Bogustan began to cultivate the land. He conformed to
instructions received by him, so he claimed, during inspirations following his zikr. From
the very beginning his harvests were surprisingly good, knowing as he did the right
selection of crops for each kind of soil. In the lean years the sheik opened his grain
bins to people, something that won him the affection of many fellow countrymen, and made
him renowned in distant lands.

The «King’s» mosque Soon the number of Khodja Akhrar followers was in the hundreds and
thousands. Followers from far away, including the noble and the rich, brought gifts and
donations to preceptor according to Sufi tradition, the largest part of which the sheikh,
also according to tradition, spent on charity, increasing his fame and authority. Part of
it went to the Nakshbandiya order, whose religious leader called Khodja Akhrar “The Pole
of Faith”. According to contemporary witnesses, during his life the Sheikh possessed
thousands of hectares of land near Tashkent and Samarkand, flocks of millions of sheep and
herds of many thousands of horses and camels. But he strove to appear modest, not to stand out in a crowd, and spent enormous amounts on constructing madrasahs and mosques all over Mavorounakhr, the land which, according to many historians, he ended up ruling after the mysterious death of Temur’s grandson, Ulugbek, the Emir of Samarkand while on a journey. Alisher Navoi wrote about Khodja Akhrar : «Inthefollowingtimeshe gained surprising influence on those in power and indescribable closeness to sovereigns and rulers. The sovereigns of Mavorounakhr considered themselves his murids and associates.

Following the murder of Emir Ulugbek, a series of coups d’etat began in Samarkand.
Abdullatif, whom many accused of parricide, ruled only five days. He was then killed by
the plotters, and for a year and half a new favorite became emir. In 1451, the great
grandson of Temur, Mirza Abu Said, came to the summer house of Khodja Akhrar in Parkent to ask for his blessing before setting out to Samarkand for the conclusive battle for the
Timurid throne. Everything turned out well for him. Having defeated his rivals, Abu Said,
invited the sheikh to his court to be the councilor and educator of his successors. The
sheikh, who saw the struggle for power as a means to the salvation of the world, did not
refuse. This was to the benefit of Samarkand and all Mavorounakhr, which, legend has it,
Khodja Akhrar once saved from invasion by sending a sandstorm, because his family could
rule over elements. Khodja Akhrar persuaded the new governor to cancel the tamga taxation
system, which was preserved in the Temurid state as a legacy of Mongolian times and did
not conform to norms of Islam and shariah. Before his departure to Samarkand, Khodja
Akhrar gave Tashkent the famous mosque near Chorsu market, which was built at his own
expense in the same place that, in ninth century, Yakhya ibn Asad Samanid, the founder of
the city, had ordered the building of the first cathedral mosque. The holy Sufi preceptor
Ubaydullah Khodja Akhrar lived to the age of 89, respected and well, and left this world
in 1489 in the Kamangaran settlement near Samarkand. Fourteen years later tribes of Uzbek
nomads led by Mukhammad Sheibani-khan conquered Tashkent, and soon extended their power over all Mavorounakhr. Only the young emir of Fergana, Zakhiriddin Babur, a descendant of Temur and the Tashkent Khans could offer any resistance to their invasion. The governors of the Sheibani dynasty, fearful of the powerful Nakshbandi order, confiscated all the lands and property of the Khodja Akhrar family, but they did not attempt to close the
order. In the 16th century the Sheibani Khans of Tashkent built the Kukeldash madrasah
next to Khodja Akhrar mosque and it is to this day a working educational institution. Two
hundred years later, Tashkent became the capital of the Turkestan General Government of
the Russian Empire, then underwent a series of disastrous earthquakes - in 1866, 1868 and
1886. The latter was especially destructive, and demolished almost all the ancient
buildings in the city. Only the Shaykantakhur mausoleum remained untouched. The Khodja
Akhrar mosque near Chorsu market had been so badly destroyed that it was restored only
twenty years later with money donated by Emperor Alexander III. Thus, for a certain time,
it was called Tsarskaya (the King’s).