One of the modern administrative districts of Tashkent—Sheikhanthour (Shaykhontur)—is today named after the revered Muslim saint of the 14th century, Sheikh Havendi at-Takhur (commonly referred to as Havendi Takhur; Shaykh Khavandi Takhur). His father, the renowned Sheikh Umar Vali Bogustani, hailed from the lineage of the second righteous caliph, Umar. In his youth, he was a wandering dervish and a follower of the Sufi master, Hasan al-Bulghari. After many years of wandering, he settled in a secluded mountain valley, located one hundred kilometers northwest of Tashkent, which subsequently became the domain of the Bogustan ishans, and has retained the name Charvak until today. Havendi Takhur repeated his father’s spiritual journey, spending many years on distant travels as a novice of the Yasaviya Sufi order. Upon returning to his homeland, he chose Tashkent as his place of residence, where he soon gained great respect among the townspeople for his diverse scholarship, which was complemented by his gentle nature, compassion, and sense of justice.
Having become a sheikh—the mentor of the Sufi order—Havendi Takhur often reminded his followers of his favorite saying by Ahmad Yasavi, which stated that the spiritual qualities of a seeker of truth are directly proportional to his patience towards the rudeness of the ignorant. In addition to his role as a spiritual guide, the sheikh engaged in charitable work, persuading the wealthy and influential to not neglect the fates of widows and orphans, whose numbers were quite significant during those troubled times. The love and respect of the residents of Tashkent for the holy ascetic were so great that after Havendi Takhur’s death in 1355, he was buried with great honors in a place that had been venerated long before the city itself was founded. This site once featured mineral springs, ponds, and a grove of giant saurs—coniferous trees from the cypress family. Folk legends linked this grove to the name of the famous Greek commander, Alexander the Great (336-323 BC).
According to tradition, Iskander Zul-Qarnayn (the Two-Horned) fell ill during his military campaign in Central Asia as he traveled with his army from the conquered Samarkand to the north, suffering from the poor water he drank in the steppe alongside his soldiers. On the advice of magicians, he was taken to be treated with water from a sacred spring in the oasis of Chach, and in gratitude for his healing, Alexander ordered the establishment of a grove of long-lived saurs around the spring, the saplings of which were brought at his command from the mountain slopes of the Tien Shan.
During the lifetime of Sheikh Havendi Takhur, the sacred grove, the mineral springs, and the ponds still flourished. According to tradition, the spiritual mentor delivered his sermons and discussions with students in this cool place, where he was eventually buried after his death. Historians believe that the mausoleum of Havendi Takhur was built in the late 14th century by the order of Emperor Timur, who finally conquered the Tashkent region in 1397 and began constructing large cult buildings here to strengthen his power through an ideological alliance with the local Muslim clergy and to win the sympathies of the common people.
The original structures did not survive after a series of strong earthquakes. The building underwent multiple reconstructions and restorations but has retained its original architectural appearance, which is reminiscent of the medieval style. It is a single-domed cubic structure made of light yellow burnt brick, featuring a small portal on the facade, devoid of external decoration. The memorial complex also includes the mausoleum built in the 16th century for the ruler of western Moghulistan, Yunus Khan, and the mausoleum of Kaldyrgach-bi, created in the 18th century at the burial site of the famous Kazakh judge Tole-bi from the Dulat clan.
The mineral springs in the Shaykhontur district of Tashkent have long dried up, which has a scientific explanation. Tashkent is located in a zone of high seismic activity, and thus the outlets of geothermal waters change their positions depending on the shifting of the Earth’s crust. The grove of giant saurs with their already dried trunks lasted until the early 20th century. In 1924, it was completely cut down by the first Komsomol members of the Uzbek SSR, who, with the zeal of newly converted fanatics, took up the fight against the superstitions and prejudices of their ancestors.
To this day, only a mummified part of a single tree trunk has survived, preserved inside the dome of the mausoleum of Havendi Takhur next to the saint’s gravestone.
2014, specialists from the dendrochronological observatory of the Berlin Institute of Archaeology, at the request of the historical and educational society “Marakanda,” analyzed a sample from this tree and concluded that this cypress could have begun to grow around 1367 and died in 1631. This means that the sacred grove could have been planted in the early 14th century—either after the death of Havendi Takhur or in the last years of his life—rather than a thousand years earlier, during the Asian campaigns of Alexander the Great, which occurred in 329-327 BC.
Western historical sources do not contain any mention that Alexander the Great ever visited the Tashkent region—the ancient oasis of Chach. Aside from literary works, there is no clear evidence of the Greek commander’s conquest of Samarkand. Current scientific archaeology acknowledges only that during his campaigns across the conquered former satrapies of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, Alexander crossed the Amu Darya River, married the daughter of one of the nobles of Bactria, the beautiful Roxane, and then moved northward, engaging in military confrontations with Scythian tribes. At the end of his campaign, he founded the border fortress of Alexandria Eschata on the banks of the Syr Darya, near the modern city of Khojent in the Sughd region of Tajikistan.
The trend of ancientizing revered sites and the legends associated with them is generally characteristic of “folk Islam” in Uzbekistan. There are revered places linked by tradition to the names of the biblical patriarch Job, King David, Noah, and even Adam. Iskander Zul-Qarnayn is also highly revered as a character mentioned in the text of the Quran. Muslim tradition attributes to this historical king a belief in the One God, a struggle against paganism, and the construction of an insurmountable wall somewhere in the far East that protected the civilized world from the invasions of the terrible tribes of Yajuj and Majuj until the Day of Judgment. The overarching message of the Quranic narratives about Iskander Zul-Qarnayn is that the great historical achievements of Alexander the Great were made possible only through the grace granted to him by Allah. Thus, local legends about him do not contradict the very spirit of Islam.
The belief in the sacred grove in Tashkent may have two explanations. There may have been, and most likely was, a sacred grove at the burial site of Sheikh Havendi Takhur. It is possible that it was even venerated before the arrival of Islam in the oasis of Chach. The mountain cypresses, brought from the vicinity of Bogustan—the native village of Sheikh Umar Vali and Havendi Takhur—could have been planted by the preacher himself or by his closest followers who were arranging his mausoleum. However, popular traditions preferred to preserve not this act in memory but rather an older legend, using it to amplify the authority of the beloved saint. For in the minds of ordinary people, there exists the notion that the older the event, the greater its glory, spiritual elevation, and proximity to sacred traditions.
It is worth noting separately that the memorial complex of Havendi Takhur, located almost in the very center of modern Tashkent, is situated on the territory of the Tashkent Islamic University under the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan. As a result, the complex is completely fenced and guarded, with a single entrance that opens only during university hours. The mausoleum of Havendi Takhur is predominantly visited by organized tourist excursions, scholars, or representatives of the clergy and Sufi brotherhoods. Today, there are not many ordinary pilgrims who come here.
@ Andrey Kudryashov / “Fergana”
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