Sacred & Spiritual Places in Central Asia
Central Asia has been a crossroads of faiths for millennia. Zoroastrian fire temples gave way to Buddhist monasteries along the Silk Road, and from the 8th century Islam took root and flourished, producing a distinctly Central Asian tradition of Sufi mysticism and monumental shrine architecture. Bukhara alone was once said to hold so many scholars and saints that its light shone upward to heaven.
The region’s spiritual heart is its mausoleums and shrines. The tomb of the Sufi poet Khoja Ahmed Yasawi in Kazakhstan is a pilgrimage second only to Mecca for many Central Asian Muslims, while Sulayman Mountain in Osh has drawn worshippers for thousands of years across changing religions. Samarkand’s Shah-i-Zinda and Bukhara’s Chor-Bakr are cities of the dead where the living still come to pray.
Today these places blend devotion and history. Ordinary Uzbeks and Kazakhs mingle with foreign visitors beneath the great domes, and the atmosphere of quiet reverence at the shrines is often more memorable than the architecture itself.
_(5658826884).jpg?width=600)
.jpg?width=600)
