The Spiritual Legacy of Mizdakhan necropolis

In 712 CE, the lower reaches of the Amu Darya were conquered by the Arabs, who established Islam here. However, as in many other sacred places in Central Asia, Islam here reinterpreted and assimilated some features of local cultic practices. As early as the 4th century BCE, the clay fortress of Gyaur Kala stood in close proximity to Mizdakhan. Four centuries after the Arab conquests, the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan destroyed it. Yet the sanctuary of Mizdakhan itself survived and remained located at a bustling crossroads of the Great Silk Road, eventually becoming one of the largest burial sites for the Turkic nomads—Karakalpaks, Kipchaks, and Kazakhs.

Initially, Muslims were generally forbidden to visit graves. In this way, Islam sought to distance itself from the cult of ancestor worship, which was widespread among the Arabs when they were still pagans. According to the Sunnah, the Prophet Muhammad allowed only identification markers to be placed on graves so that relatives of the deceased could find them. One of the hadiths of Abu Dawood states that when the Prophet’s closest companion, Uthman ibn Maz’un, died, Muhammad brought a stone, placed it at the head of the grave, and said, “With this, I will recognize the grave of my brother and bury here those who die from among my family.” Thus, in the Hanafi madhhab—the Islamic theological and legal school officially adopted in Uzbekistan to this day—it is believed that a Muslim’s grave should not rise more than four fingers above the ground and should not be adorned or decorated. However, in practice, the cult of local saints and the veneration of graves began to actively revive in Central Asia as early as the 9th–10th centuries, coinciding with the development of Sufism—Islamic mysticism, which in many places reconciled orthodox Muslim doctrines with traditional folk customs and pantheistic worldviews. As Sufi tariqas (mystical brotherhoods or monastic orders) developed in the 12th–14th centuries, the objects of popular veneration became mazars—the tombs of renowned sheikhs and spiritual guides who served as awliya (saintly patrons or intermediaries between God and the local community)—as well as kadam goh (or kadam joy), “places of footprints,” symbolic monuments associated with folk tales about visits to these sites by figures from the Bible or the Quran. In Uzbekistan, the most common objects of such veneration are the biblical prophets Noah, Job, Daniel, King Solomon, and King David; Alexander the Great (also known as Iskander Zulkarnain, the Two-Horned); the Prophet Muhammad’s son-in-law, Hazrat Ali; the Prophet’s daughter and Ali’s wife, Fatima; and the mysterious saintly elders Hazrat Khizr (Khidr) and Parpi-Ota.

As for Mizdakhan itself, almost every one of the hundreds of thousands of graves here is designed in the form of a classic gumbaz—a semicircular dome of clay or brickwork atop a sturdy cubic base. This form, it is worth noting, is particularly characteristic of nomadic cultures. It seems to suggest that a person who, throughout their life, had no permanent abode, finally finds a stable and enduring “home” in death. Many cultural scholars believe that the structure of the gumbaz itself represents a symbolic model of the universe, where the cube symbolizes the world with its four cardinal directions, and the dome represents the celestial hemisphere resting upon the earthly firmament—exactly as a traveler would see it while journeying across the vast expanses of the local deserts.

It is worth noting that even today, among the Karakalpaks, famous or distinguished ancestors are considered patrons of the entire clan. Therefore, their graves are revered as ancestral shrines. Among the Uzbeks of Khorezm, alongside burials in the ground that conform to Islamic norms, there are also burials in sagana—clay or wooden sarcophagi placed above the ground. Typically, sagana are used to inter particularly revered individuals, and this practice can be seen as a remnant of Zoroastrianism, which considered the dead body impure and forbade defiling the sacred elements—fire, water, and earth—with it. However, while the stone sagana of famous Muslim ascetics and Sufi teachers serve as symbolic tombstones, with the body still buried in the ground, in the lower reaches of the Amu Darya, above-ground burials of even less prominent individuals were widespread until the last decades of the 20th century.

The central architectural and cultic monument of Mizdakhan is dedicated to Shamun Nabi—a legendary magician and warrior. Local keepers of oral traditions say that this mysterious preacher of monotheism arrived in the ancient land of Khorezm even before the envoys of the Prophet Muhammad. Shamun (Simon?) performed many miracles—healing incurable diseases, controlling the weather and the movement of celestial bodies, and even speaking the language of wild animals. Moreover, he was a fearless warrior and hero who dared to challenge the local king, whom the tradition calls Gyaur—the infidel, that is, a pagan. King Gyaur was considered an invincible commander and a cunning politician, but with Shamun, he engaged in hand-to-hand combat out of pride, relying on his own trickery. During the duel, he threw a handful of grain under Shamun’s feet, causing him to stumble and fall to his knees before the enemy. But Shamun’s loyal dog, at its master’s call, instantly dug an underground tunnel and, emerging from beneath the ground between the opponents, tore out Gyaur’s entrails. Nevertheless, Shamun could not bear the shame of his fall and, out of humiliation, cut off his own legs. According to legend, after his death, the Almighty took pity on him, and the legs of the deceased grew back so that in the afterlife, Shamun could stand before God not as a cripple but in his natural form.

Storytellers do not provide a clear answer as to which religion Shamun preached, where he came from, or why his heroic deeds ended so strangely. His mausoleum, with its high portal and seven domes, stretches 25 meters in length. Inside lies an equally long tomb, its shape strikingly similar to the tomb of the prophet Daniel in Samarkand. However, when archaeologists opened Shamun’s tomb, they found no human remains inside. The structure itself was dated to the late 18th century, though it was built on the ruins of an older monument, likely from the 16th century. It is worth noting that the mention of a dog in the legend of Shamun, which saved his life and effectively decided the duel in his favor, does not align well with Islamic beliefs. In Islam, the dog is considered an unclean animal. It must be kept at least 60 steps away from human dwellings, and even then, its breath is deemed impure. According to ethnographer Gleb Snesarev (1910–1989), this part of the legend reflects much older ideas rooted in Zoroastrianism, where the dog was considered a noble and almost sacred animal.

After studying archaeological and historical data and analyzing the inscriptions on the walls of the mausoleum, Karakalpak historian and local historian K. Nurzhanov suggested that Shamun’s mausoleum might serve as a reminder of the Amu Darya’s change of course in the 15th century—a natural disaster that forced millions to flee drought and famine. The Amu Darya did not always flow into the Aral Sea; at times, it changed its direction. In ancient times, the famous river flowed along the southern edge of the Ustyurt Plateau, heading toward the Sarykamysh Depression in the Karakum Desert, and then, passing through the Uzboy Depression, it emptied into the Caspian Sea. In the Middle Ages, this old channel of the Amu Darya—the Daryalyk—fed the agricultural oases of Khorezm through complex irrigation systems, flowing through its capital, Gurganj. Today, only the small town of Kunya-Urgench (Old Urgench) in northern Turkmenistan remains of Gurganj. In the 13th century, the Mongols of Genghis Khan destroyed the dams on the Daryalyk and flooded the city, killing 100,000 inhabitants. Gurganj was rebuilt over a century, only to be destroyed again by Tamerlane and then rebuilt once more. But at the end of the 16th century, according to chroniclers, some natural catastrophe finally turned the waters of the Amu Darya toward the Aral Sea, forcing the capital of Khorezm to be moved to Khiva—nearly 100 kilometers south of Gurganj.

According to historian Nurzhanov, Mizdakhan, located at the bend of the Amu Darya, witnessed these disasters and mass migrations. Therefore, its cultic monuments from that time could well have been dedicated to these events. This version seems particularly relevant today, as the region around the Aral Sea, which dried up at the end of the 20th century, is experiencing a severe ecological crisis, forcing people to leave in search of a better life. Perhaps it was during these medieval calamities that the local legend of the “World Clock” emerged and took root.

The storytellers of Mizdakhan refer to the ruins of the medieval mausoleum of Saint Erezhep (Rajab) Khalfa, who preached Islam during its early spread in Central Asia, as the “World Clock.” According to legend, the grave of the first man, Adam, is hidden somewhere in the foundation of this mausoleum. The mausoleum is a tall rectangular structure from the 9th century, with one wall and the roof already completely collapsed. The remaining walls are slowly crumbling, though archaeologists note that they stand on a fairly solid foundation, which includes a layer of reeds that protects against dampness and groundwater and provides stability against seismic activity. If the mausoleum is considered the World Clock, it is easy to calculate when Judgment Day will arrive. Over twelve centuries, only a third of the structure has collapsed—meaning that roughly two and a half millennia remain until the end of the world.

However, it is possible that the world will last a bit longer than these calculations suggest. The reason is that modern pilgrims diligently build numerous small pyramids of stacked stones around the crumbling mausoleum. Each pyramid must consist of seven bricks—symbolizing the seven angels of the heavens or the seven domes over the tomb of Shamun Nabi. It is forbidden to destroy others’ pyramids to build one’s own, as this would be akin to building one’s own happiness on the ruins of others’ hopes. It is an even greater sin to take a stone from the sanctuary. Even European tourists, who are strictly warned by guides and caretakers, do not dare to take a pebble from Mizdakhan as a souvenir.

The number 7 also appears in a ritual followed by women at Mizdakhan who wish to overcome infertility. According to custom, they must roll down the steep slope of Jomard-Kasab Hill on a Thursday, turning head over heels seven times along the way. The name of the hill itself echoes the Zoroastrian name of the first man, Gayomardan, whose myth may have inspired the local legend of Adam’s grave. Oral traditions say that Jomard was no ordinary butcher (a profession considered lowly in Muslim societies) but a wealthy benefactor who distributed meat to all in need. He would place as much meat on one side of his scales as the amount of earth the supplicant could pour onto the other side.

@ Andrey Kudryashov / “Fergana”