The mausoleum of the medieval saint Sheikh Ay-Khoja ibn Taj-Khoja ibn Mansur, popularly known as Zangi-Ata (or Zangi-Ota, Zangi Ota), is located in a village bearing the same name, Zangi-Ata, situated fifteen kilometers southwest of the outskirts of modern Tashkent. Near the village, on the banks of the Salar River, archaeologists have discovered a clay settlement dating back to the 2nd century BCE, considered one of the earliest urban settlements in the ancient Chach oasis.
The cult of Zangi-Ata retains many characteristic features of ancient folk beliefs—not of sedentary farmers but of nomadic pastoralists. It took shape at the end of the 13th century, a tumultuous historical period. Following the devastating Mongol invasions, Central Asia was plunged into anarchy and bloody internecine conflicts. Rulers in some regions changed more frequently than the seasons, packs of stray dogs and jackals roamed the ruins of destroyed settlements, and diverse bands of robbers terrorized abandoned caravan routes. For urban artisans and merchants, these were bitter times of pogroms, endless extortion, and ruin. Yet, in the vicinity of the ruined cities, peasants continued to cultivate the land and tend their livestock.
According to legend, Saint Zangi-Ata spent his entire life as a shepherd. He herded communal flocks, driving them in the summer to lush mountain pastures in the Western Tien Shan and, as winter approached, to the reed thickets along the banks of the Syr Darya, Chirchik, and Salar rivers. In those days, the work of a shepherd was considered both responsible and honorable, and such a person commanded respect among his people. Zangi-Ata strengthened his authority through timely use of practical wisdom, compassion, and good deeds. He not only successfully increased the primary wealth of his people—herds of cattle and sheep—but also served as a spiritual shepherd to the human community. He resolved disputes, comforted hearts, guided people in faith, healed the sick, and even performed miracles. It is no wonder that he was recognized as a saint, a patron of pastoralism, which was then seen as a pious symbol of human life itself.
Ethnographers have noted that the cult of Zangi-Ata as a patron of shepherds is widespread in many regions of Central Asia, such as Khorezm. Variations of this cult, such as the veneration of Sange, the patron of cows, are still found among Turkic peoples in Western Siberia. Sufi traditions explain this by stating that Zangi-Ata, in his mature years, lived as a dervish and, during his distant travels, converted thousands of people to Islam from the Volga to the Altai.
However, from a historical perspective, it is more likely that the cult of the saint merged in the popular consciousness with the veneration of ancient deities who patronized pastoralism. In the Zoroastrian pantheon, which dominated the Chach region until the Arab conquests of the 8th century, there was a special deity, Geush Urvan, or the Soul of the Bull, to whom people prayed for permission to slaughter domestic animals. Pastoral cults were naturally widespread among the nomadic Turkic peoples. When the Karakhanids arrived in the Tashkent oasis from the steppes of Semirechye at the end of the 10th century, the holy ascetic Abu Bakr Kaffal Shashi converted many of them to Islam, primarily tribal leaders and nobility. However, the majority of ordinary people from the nomadic tribes of Karluks, Chigils, and Yagmas adhered to the old shamanistic religion and venerated their own gods. It can be assumed that the cult of Zangi-Ata may have inherited some features of these folk beliefs, brought from the slopes of the Altai to the walls of Tashkent.
Nevertheless, Zangi-Ata is considered a real historical figure with his own biography. This biography is reflected in the shezhere (genealogical tree) of Turkic nomads and in written sources such as the Tarikh-i Aminiya by Mulla Musa Sayrami. Moreover, in the Sufi tradition, Zangi-Ata is recorded as the fifth sheikh of the Yasawiyya order, the followers of the great mystic Ahmad Yasawi. The shezhere traces Zangi-Ata’s lineage back to Arslan-Bab, the spiritual mentor of Yasawi and a legendary long-lived figure who once stood before the Prophet Muhammad himself.
A folk legend claims that when the future Zangi-Ata, then simply Ay-Khoja, was born, his parents immediately took him to Yassy (now the city of Turkestan in South Kazakhstan) to seek the blessing of the great teacher Ahmad Yasawi (1103–1166). According to the legend, the miraculous infant supposedly performed a prayer at the feet of Saint Ahmad, who was moved to tears and prophesied that the child’s tomb would be built before his own. This fantastical episode may have a basis in real events, as the presumed years of Ay-Khoja’s infancy could have coincided with the final years of Ahmad Yasawi’s life. Although Ay-Khoja likely received his first Sufi teachings not from Ahmad Yasawi but from his father, Taj-Khoja, who was also a sheikh of the Yasawiyya order. Later, according to tradition, Zangi-Ata had several teachers and countless disciples.
The Sufi tradition attributes to Zangi-Ata the creation of his own spiritual practice, the Zikr Zangi or Shepherd’s Zikr. The remembrance of God’s names (zikr) is one of the central mysteries of Sufi mystics. However, in the Middle Ages, there were fundamental disagreements among followers of different Sufi schools about how this remembrance should be performed. These disagreements reflected broader differences in views on the path of spiritual seeking and the proper way of life for spiritual seekers. For example, followers of the Naqshbandiyya order, which emerged in an urban Persian-speaking environment, practiced the silent zikr khafi—the mental repetition of God’s names, imprinted in the heart. This practice was taught from the age of 7 or 8 under strict guidance. The founder of the order, the famous Sheikh Baha-ud-Din Naqshband (1318–1389), avoided condemning other forms of zikr. For instance, he said of the vocal zikr jahri: “We do not practice it, but we do not condemn it.”
However, the authoritative Naqshbandiyya sheikh Ubaydullah Khodja Ahrar, who lived 200 years after Zangi-Ata, unequivocally stated that the remembrance of God’s names should be silent and performed in complete solitude. He believed that the life of Sufi followers should not be a display of piety through asceticism, hermitage, or dervish wanderings. Instead, they should seek God in worldly affairs—crafts, household management, public service, charity, and education. These views reflected the general mood of the era, when the Timurid Empire and its successor states replaced the turbulent times of the past.
But in the time of Ahmad Yasawi and Zangi-Ata, who preached Sufism to Turkic nomads and semi-settled peasants, the social atmosphere was different. Ahmad Yasawi spent many years in seclusion in an underground cell, proclaiming his prophetic verses (hikmats) from there. His followers, including Zangi-Ata, though recognized as spiritual guides, often lived as detached dervishes, practicing the vocal zikr jahri. The Yasawiyya order used the zikr-i arra—the saw zikr, which recalls the suffering of the Quranic prophet Zakariya, who was saved from his enemies by hiding in a tree trunk, only to be sawed apart. This loud zikr, imitating the sound of a saw and the martyr’s groans, bears a certain resemblance to shamanic rituals. Additionally, during the coldest part of the year, members of the Yasawiyya order engaged in hours-long collective recitations of Quranic texts and hikmats of Ahmad Yasawi, culminating in a mystical trance. Often, this zikr was accompanied by an inspired rhythmic dance (raqs).
According to folk tradition, the Shepherd’s Zikr was revealed to Zangi-Ata as a divine inspiration. This occurred as he was returning with his flock from a mountain pasture, singing and skipping down the slope with his staff on his shoulders and his hands resting on it.
It was believed that vocal zikrs disappeared in the 20th century, as Sufi practices were banned and persecuted during the Soviet era. However, during an expedition from 2003 to 2005, researchers from the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan, led by Dr. Adham Ashurov, documented the performance of all types of vocal zikr, including the Zikr Zangi, in the mountainous regions of the Fergana Valley, in Baysun in southern Uzbekistan, and in southern Kazakhstan.
The name Zangi-Ata means “Black Father,” likely referring to the sun-darkened skin of the shepherd who spent his days under the open sky. However, in local dialects, the word zanji can also mean “ladder,” adding a symbolic layer to his name. Additionally, the shezhere interprets his name as an indication of his ancestors’ close kinship with Arab nobility, possibly originating from Yemen. (In those times, dark skin was considered a distinctive feature of Arabs.)
According to tradition, Zangi-Ata lived to a ripe old age and died in 1258. His memorial complex began construction during the lifetime of Emperor Timur (Tamerlane) and by his personal order. The construction is still shrouded in myths.
In 1397, Timur achieved a series of victories over the Chagatai rulers of Moghulistan—his dynastic rivals in the struggle for power in Central Asia. After this, he made a pilgrimage to the city of Yassy to the tomb of Ahmad Yasawi, who by then was already considered the patron saint of all Turkic peoples. To bolster his state claims with the authority of the saint, Timur ordered the construction of a mausoleum for Ahmad and a massive khanqah—a guesthouse for wandering dervishes and pious pilgrims. The same year marks the beginning of the construction of Zangi-Ata’s mausoleum near Tashkent. Thus, it can be said that the prophecy of Sheikh Yasawi began to come true, as he had foretold that Zangi-Ata’s tomb would be built before his own.
In the village of Zangi-Ata, we recorded the following legend. It tells that when the foundation and walls of Ahmad’s mausoleum in Yassy began to be built, every evening a huge, ferocious bull would appear from nowhere, attacking the builders and destroying everything they had erected during the day. This calamity was reported to Timur, who, after consulting with wise men, learned of the saint’s words spoken to the parents of the boy Ay-Khoja, the future Sheikh Zangi-Ata. The emperor then ordered that Ahmad Yasawi’s will be fulfilled, and both mausoleums began to be constructed simultaneously. For obvious reasons, the smaller of the two mausoleums—Zangi-Ata’s near Tashkent—was completed faster.
The legend of the bull underscores the significance of Zangi-Ata’s cult as a patron of pastoralism. As for Timur’s decision to build mausoleums for the saints, it was likely driven by political considerations. Timur visited Tashkent several times, and in 1365, he suffered a defeat in the “Mud Battle” against Chagatai forces near the Chirchik River. After eventually overcoming his enemies, the cunning ruler sought to secure the loyalty of local elites by marrying the daughter of one of Moghulistan’s rulers. To win the favor of the common people, whose beliefs and customs he understood well, Timur initiated the construction of mausoleums for the two most revered saints in the region. Timur, who officially styled himself as Gurgan (son-in-law of the Mongol khan), aimed to follow in the footsteps of Genghis Khan but in reverse—from West to East. He planned a major military campaign into Mongolia and China, and it was crucial that his rear remained secure, free from discontent or rebellion.
In late 1405, Timur led his troops from Samarkand into the northern steppes. However, due to unusually severe winter frosts, he was forced to halt the campaign almost at its outset. Most of the army retreated to winter quarters in Tashkent. The 70-year-old commander decided to spend the winter in a tent in the steppe but suddenly fell seriously ill and died. By then, the mausoleum of Ahmad Yasawi was nearly complete, while the portal of Zangi-Ata’s mausoleum was still being finished and decorated under the supervision of Timur’s grandson, the ruler of Samarkand, Muhammad Taraghay ibn Shahrukh Mirza Ulugh Beg (1394–1449), who also sought political compromise with the rulers of Tashkent. The construction and decoration of the mausoleum and its surrounding area continued almost uninterrupted for six centuries. The last structure of the memorial complex in the village of Zangi-Ata—a small minaret—was built in the 20th century. In the 21st century, the entire complex underwent a comprehensive restoration and reconstruction under the decision of the government of independent Uzbekistan.
Today, on Fridays and weekends, hundreds of people from Tashkent, the Tashkent region, and other parts of Central Asia flock to the village of Zangi-Ata for ziyarat (pilgrimage). In the northwest of Uzbekistan, in the Khorezm region, folk traditions take on an even more archaic character, and the legends and cults associated with Anbar-Bibi appear even more fantastical. There, she is called Anbar-Ona and is often conflated with the ancient goddess of water and fertility, Anahita. According to the Soviet ethnographer Gleb Snesarev, in Khorezm, salt and bread are offered to Anbar-Ona during boat crossings of the Amu Darya River. One of her sons, Khubbi, is considered the patron of underwater currents, calming whirlpools and floods and saving fishermen.
Until recently, the mausoleum of Zangi-Ata near Tashkent appeared even more exotic than the famous family tombs of the Timurids in Samarkand or Shahrisabz. Located in close proximity to a modern metropolis of three million people but effectively in a rural backwater, the monument lacked the ostentatious polish of its more famous counterparts. The temples and rural cemetery here were not adjacent to tourist hotels or bustling avenues but neighbored simple one-story homes and plowed fields, where, as in the time of Zangi-Ata, people continue to grow their crops and herd livestock.
In 2015, under a government decision, the memorial complex in the village of Zangi-Ata underwent a comprehensive reconstruction and restoration. The main buildings of the architectural ensemble were decorated in the style of the 15th–17th centuries. Some additions made in the early 20th century, including a small minaret, were completely demolished. The reconstruction included replacing the domes, building a new, much taller minaret from earthquake-resistant materials, and creating a park area with decorative alleys, lawns, fountains, and pavilions. As a result of these extensive works, the memorial complex, in the view of the authorities, acquired a “historically authentic appearance, reflecting the planning, structural, and stylistic uniqueness of the architectural school of the Tashkent region.” To an outside observer, this is hard to dispute. In places of worship, it is not the structures but the site itself that is considered sacred. Buildings, even in past centuries, were often radically altered based on the prevailing notions of beauty and improvement held by local residents and rulers at the time.
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