Mosques in Kazakhstan

The Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi is a vast brick building with a turquoise ribbed dome and a huge unfinished portal, still showing the wooden scaffold beams Timur’s builders left in it. Inside are some 35 rooms: the tomb chamber, a mosque, a library, a well room and the central hall under the main dome, which holds a giant bronze cauldron for holy water cast in 1399. It was taken to the Hermitage in St Petersburg in 1935 and returned in 1989.

The mausoleum stands in a walled citadel with smaller tombs and a reconstructed bathhouse, and Turkistan has rebuilt the area around it with a new visitor quarter and fountains lit at night. Entry to the grounds is free and a small fee covers the interior. Turkistan has its own airport, and trains run from Almaty, Astana and Shymkent, about two and a half hours away by road.

Pilgrim custom says you visit the tomb of Arystan Bab, Yasawi’s teacher, before Yasawi himself. The mausoleum, rebuilt in the early 20th century, stands near the ruined Silk Road city of Otrar, about an hour south of Turkistan. Combine it with the Otrar ruins and, closer to Turkistan, the walled city of Sauran; the Kazakhstan historic sites page covers both.

Astana built its mosques big. The Astana Grand Mosque, opened in 2022 on the edge of the new city, has four minarets about 130 m tall and room for tens of thousands of worshippers, with a prayer hall of painted domes and pale columns. The Hazrat Sultan Mosque, opened in 2012 near the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation pyramid, is a white mosque in classical Central Asian style. The older Nur-Astana Mosque of 2005 stands on the left bank; its minarets are 63 m high, one metre for each year of the Prophet’s life.

All three are free and open to visitors outside prayer times, and Hazrat Sultan often has guides who show non-Muslims around. Allow an hour for each.

The Central Mosque in Almaty, finished in 1999, is the city’s main mosque: white marble walls, a blue tiled dome and a big courtyard a short walk uphill from the Green Bazaar. It is busy on Fridays and calm on weekday mornings, when you can sit in the courtyard in near silence before walking down to the bazaar for lunch. Not far away stands the wooden Orthodox Ascension Cathedral in Panfilov Park, a reminder that Kazakhstan has a large Christian minority.

The Jarkent Mosque in Jarkent, about 30 km from the Chinese border, was built in the late 19th century (sources give dates between 1887 and 1895) for the local Uyghur and Dungan community by a Chinese architect, Hon Pik. It looks like a Buddhist temple from the outside, with sweeping curved roofs and a pagoda-style minaret, and like a mosque inside, with carved and painted wood. It is now a museum with a small fee. Jarkent is about 300 km from Almaty, three to four hours by road, an easy stop on the way to the Khorgos border or Altyn-Emel.

Outside Taraz, the small tomb of Aisha Bibi from the 11th or 12th century is covered in carved terracotta tiles in some 60 patterns, and local legend makes it the grave of a girl who died on the way to marry the ruler of Taraz. It is a favourite stop for wedding parties. In the Mangystau desert near Aktau, the Sufi underground mosques of Beket Ata and Shakpak Ata draw pilgrims who sometimes stay overnight in the guesthouses. Beket Ata is several hours’ drive into the desert, so it is a full-day trip or an overnight with a driver.

In the north, the blue-domed Mashkhur Jusup Mosque is the landmark of Pavlodar, and the Zhakiya Kazhi Mosque is the main mosque of Kokshetau, on the road to the parks covered on our Kazakhstan national parks page.

Non-Muslims are welcome in nearly all of Kazakhstan’s mosques and shrines. Take your shoes off at the prayer hall, cover shoulders and knees, and if you are a woman cover your hair; big mosques lend scarves and wraps at the door. Avoid the five daily prayers, which last 15 to 30 minutes, and especially Friday midday prayers, when the big mosques fill up. Photography is usually allowed in the courtyards and often inside if you ask, but never of people praying. Women pray in a separate section and may be asked to stay out of the main hall. At shrines, pilgrims walk around the tomb, leave small donations and sometimes say a prayer led by a caretaker; it is fine to watch quietly. For wider etiquette, see the first-timer’s guide.