Бұхара қаласы: тарих, мәдениет және архитектура ескерткіштері

City in southwestern Uzbekistan

Bukhara (/b//ʊ/'/x//ɑːr//ə/ buuKHARə; Uzbek and , ; بخارا) is the seventh largest city in Uzbekistan by population, with 280,187 residents as of 2020. The mother tongue of the majority of people of Bukhara is the Tajik dialect of the Persian language, although Uzbek is spoken as a second language by most residents. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and the city has existed for half that time. Located on the Silk Road, the city has long served as a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion. Bukhara served as the capital of the Samanid Empire, Khanate of Bukhara, and Emirate of Bukhara. It was the birthplace of the scholar Imam Bukhari. The city has been known as "Noble Bukhara" (Bukhārā ye sharīf). Bukhara has about 140 architectural monuments. UNESCO has listed the historic center of Bukhara (which contains numerous mosques and madrasas) as a World Heritage Site.

The exact name of the city of Bukhara in ancient times is unknown. The whole oasis was called Bukhara in ancient times, and probably only in the tenth century was it finally transferred to the city. According to some scholars, the name dates back to the Sanskrit vihāra (Buddhist monastery). This word is very close to the word in the language of the Uyghur and Chinese Buddhists, who named their places of worship the same way. Very few artifacts related to Buddhism have survived into the modern day in the city. But, numerous Arabic, Persian, European and Chinese travellers and historians noted the place and Uzbekistan itself to be once populated by mostly Buddhists and few Zoroastrians. Indeed, the first Islamic text on Bukhara relates to the first Arab invader of Bukhara, Ubaidullah bin Ziad, who noted Bukhara to be a Buddhist country with Buddhist monasteries ruled by a queen regent acting on behalf of her son. According to other sources (such as Encyclopædia Iranica), the name Bukhara is possibly derived from the Sogdian βuxārak ("Place of Good Fortune"), a name for Buddhist monasteries. which has been replaced in Chinese by the modern generic phonetic spelling Bùhālā (布哈拉). In the 19 20th centuries, Bukhara was known as Bokhara in the English publications as exemplified by the writings and reports on the Emirate of Bukhara during the Great Game. Muhammad ibn Jafar Narshakhi in his History of Bukhara (completed AD 943–44) mentions: text=Bukhara has many names. One of its names was Numijkat. It has also been called "Bumiskat". It has 2 names in Arabic. One is "Madinat al Sufriya" meaning—"the copper city" and another is "Madinat Al Tujjar" meaning—"The city of Merchants". But, the name Bukhara is the original name and more known than all the other names. In Khorasan, there is no other city with so many names. Since the Middle Ages, the city has been known as Buḫārā / بخارا in Arabic and Persian sources. The modern Uzbek spelling is Buxoro. The city's name was mythologized as Albracca in the Italian epic poem Orlando Innamorato, published in 1483 by Matteo Maria Boiardo.

The history of Bukhara stretches back millennia. Along with Samarkand, Bukhara was the epicentre of the Persian culture in medieval Asia until the fall of Timurid dynasty. By 850, Bukhara served as the capital of the Samanid Empire, and was the birthplace of Imam Bukhari. The Samanids, claiming descent from Bahram Chobin, rejuvenated Persian culture far from Baghdad, the centre of the Islamic world. New Persian flourished in Bukhara and Rudaki, the father of Persian poetry, was born and raised in Bukhara and wrote his most famous poem about the beauty of the city. For this purpose, Bukhara had continuously served as the most important of cities in many Persianate empires, namely Samanids, and Turkic empires Karakhanids,Khwarazmids, and Timurids. The influence of Bukhara in the wider Islamic world started to diminish starting from the arrival of another Turkic dynasty of Uzbeks in the 16th Century. Agha Mohammad Khan Qajar was the last Persian emperor who attempted to retake the city just before his assassination, and by the 19th century the city had become a peripheral city in the Persian and the Islamic world, being ruled by local Emirs of Bukhara, who were the last Persianate princes before the fall of the city to the red army. At the beginning of the 11th century, Bukhara became part of the Turkic state of the Karakhanids. The rulers of the Karakhanids built many buildings in Bukhara: the Kalyan minaret, the Magoki Attori mosque, palaces and parks. Bukhara lies west of Samarkand and was previously a focal point of learning eminent all through the Persian and the Islamic world. It is the old neighborhood of the incomparable Sheik Naqshbandi. He was a focal figure in the advancement of the mysterious Sufi way to deal with theory, religion and Islam. It is now the capital of Bukhara Region (viloyat) of Uzbekistan. Located on the Silk Road, the city has long been a center of trade, scholarship, culture, and religion. During the golden age of the Samanids, Bukhara became a major intellectual center of the Islamic world, and was renowned for its numerous libraries. The historic center of Bukhara, which contains numerous mosques and madrassas, has been listed by UNESCO as a World Heritage Site. Genghis Khan besieged Bukhara for 15 days in 1220. As an important trading centre, Bukhara was home to a community of medieval Indian merchants from the city of Multan (modern day Pakistan) who were noted to own land in the city. For several centuries, the cities of Bukhara av Khiva were known as major centers of the slave trade, and the Bukhara slave trade, alongside the neighboring slave trade in Khiva, has been referred to as the "slave capitals of the world". Bukhara was the last capital of the Emirate of Bukhara and was besieged by the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. During the Bukhara operation of 1920, Red Army troops under the command of Bolshevik general Mikhail Frunze attacked the city of Bukhara. On 31 August 1920, the Emir Alim Khan fled to Dushanbe in Eastern Bukhara (later he escaped from Dushanbe to Kabul in Afghanistan). On 2 September 1920, after four days of fighting, the emir's citadel (the Ark) was destroyed and the red flag was raised from the top of Kalyan Minaret. On 14 September 1920, the All Bukharan Revolutionary Committee was set up, headed by A. Mukhitdinov. The government—the Council of People's Nazirs (see nāẓir)—was presided over by Fayzulla Xoʻjayev. The Bukharan People's Soviet Republic existed from 1920 to 1924 when the city was integrated into the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. Fitzroy Maclean, then a young diplomat in the British Embassy in Moscow, made a surreptitious visit to Bokhara in 1938, sight seeing and sleeping in parks. In his memoir Eastern Approaches, he judged it an "enchanted city" with buildings that rivalled "the finest architecture of the Italian Renaissance". In the latter half of the 20th century, the war in Afghanistan and civil war in Tajikistan brought Dari and Tajik speaking refugees into Bukhara and Samarkand. After integrating themselves into the local Tajik population, these cities face a movement for annexation into Tajikistan with which the cities have no common border.

Po i Kalyan Complex. The title Po i Kalan (also Poi Kalân, پای کلان meaning the "Grand Foundation") belongs to the architectural complex located at the base of the great minaret Kalân. Kalyan minaret. More properly, Minâra i Kalân, (Persian/Tajik for the "Grand Minaret"). Also known as the Tower of Death, as according to legend it is the site where criminals were executed by being thrown off the top for centuries. The minaret is the most famed part of the ensemble, and dominates over historical center of the city. The role of the minaret is largely for traditional and decorative purposes—its dimension exceeds the bounds of the main function of the minaret, which is to provide a vantage point from which the muezzin can call out people to prayer. For this purpose it was enough to ascend to a roof of mosque. This practice was common in initial years of Islam. The word "minaret" derives from the Arabic word "minara" ("lighthouse", or more literally "a place where something burn"). The minarets of the region were possible adaptations of "fire towers" or lighthouses of previous Zoroastrian eras. The architect, whose name was simply Bako, designed the minaret in the form of a circular pillar brick tower, narrowing upwards. The diameter of the base is , while at the top it is The tower is high, and can be seen from vast distances over the flat plains of Central Asia. There is a brick spiral staircase that twists up inside around the pillar, leading to the landing in sixteen arched rotunda and skylight, upon which is based a magnificently designed stalactite cornice (or "sharif"). Kalân Mosque (Masjid i Kalân), arguably completed in 1514, is equal to the Bibi Khanym Mosque in Samarkand in size. The mosque is able to accommodate twelve thousand people. Although Kalyan Mosque and Bibi Khanym Mosque of Samarkand are of the same type of building, they are different in terms of art of building. Two hundred and eighty eight monumental pylons serve as a support for the multi domed roofing of the galleries encircling the courtyard of Kalyan Mosque. The longitudinal axis of the courtyard ends up with a portal to the main chamber (maksura) with a cruciform hall, topped with a massive blue cupola on a mosaic drum. The edifice keeps many architectural curiosities, for example, a hole in one of domes. Through this hole one can see foundation of Kalyan Minaret. Then moving back step by step, one can count all belts of brickwork of the minaret to the rotunda. Mir i Arab Madrassah (1535–1536). The construction of Mir i Arab Madrasah (Miri Arab Madrasah) is ascribed to Sheikh Abdullah Yamani of Yemen—called Mir i Arab—the spiritual mentor of Ubaidullah Khan and his son Abdul Aziz Khan. Ubaidullah khan waged permanent successful war with Iran. At least three times his troops seized Herat. Each of such plundering raids on Iran was accompanied by capture of great many captives. They say that Ubaidullah khan had invested money gained from redemption of more than three thousand Persian captives into construction of Mir i Arab Madrasah. Ubaidullah khan was very religious. He had been nurtured in high respect for Islam in the spirit of Sufism. His father named him in honor of prominent sheikh of the 15th century Ubaidullah al Ahrar (1404–1490), by origin from Tashkent Region. By the thirties of the 16th century the time, when sovereigns erected splendid mausoleums for themselves and for their relatives, was over. Khans of Shaibanid dynasty were standard bearers of Koran traditions. The significance of religion was so great that even such famed khan as Ubaidullah was conveyed to earth close by his mentor in his madrasah. In the middle of the vault (gurhana) in Mir i Arab Madrasah is situated the wooden tomb of Ubaidullah khan. At his head is wrapped in the moulds his mentor, Mir i Arab. Muhammad Kasim, mudarris (a senior teacher) of the madrasah (died in 1047 hijra) is also interred near by here. The portal of Miri Arab Madrasah is situated on one axis with the portal of the Kalyan Mosque. However, because of some lowering of the square to the east it was necessary to raise a little an edifice of the madrasah on a platform. Lab i Hauz Complex (or Lab e hauz, لب حوض, meaning by the pond) Ensemble (1568–1622) is the name of the area surrounding one of the few remaining hauz, or pond, in the city of Bukhara. Several such ponds existed in Bukhara prior to Soviet rule. The ponds acted as the city's principal source of water, but were also notorious for spreading disease, and thus were mostly filled in during the 1920s and 1930s by the Soviets. The Lab i Hauz survived owing to its role as the centerpiece of an architectural ensemble dating back to the 16th to 17th centuries. The Lab i Hauz ensemble consists of the 16th century Kukeldash Madrasah, the largest in the city, along the north side of the pond. On the eastern and western sides of the pond are a 17th century lodging house for itinerant Sufis, and a 17th century madrasah. There is also a metal sculpture of Nasruddin Hodja, the quick witted and warm hearted man, who forms the central character of many children's folk stories in Central Asian, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, sitting atop his mule with one hand on his heart and the other with an 'All OK' sign above his head. Bahoutdin Architectural Complex is a necropolis commemorating Shaykh Baha ud Din or Bohoutdin, the founder of Naqshbandi order. The complex includes the dahma (gravestone) of Bahoutdin, Khakim Kushbegi mosque, Muzaffarkan mosque, and Abdul Lazizkhan khanqah. The site is listed on the UNESCO World Heritage Site tentative list on January 18, 2008.

About 140 mile (225 km) west of Samarkand in south central Uzbekistan, Bukhara is located on the Zeravshan River, at an elevation of 751 feet (229 m).

Bukhara has a typically Central Asian cool arid climate (Köppen BWk). The average maximum afternoon temperature in January is , rising to an average maximum of around in July. Mean annual precipitation is
Water was important in the hot, dry climate of Central Asia, so from ancient times, irrigation farming was developed. Cities were built near rivers, and water channels were built to serve the entire city. Uncovered reservoirs, known as hauzes, were constructed. Special covered water reservoirs, or sardobas, were built along caravan routes to supply travelers and their animals with water. However, the heavy use of agrochemicals during the Soviet era, diversion of irrigation water from the two rivers that feed Uzbekistan, and the lack of water treatment plants have caused health and environmental problems on a large scale.

Bukhara International Airport has regularly scheduled flights to cities in Uzbekistan and Russia. The Turkmenistan border is about 80 km away with the nearest city there being Türkmenabat, connected via the M37 highway which continues to other places in Turkmenistan including Ashgabat. The city is also served by railroad links with the rest of Uzbekistan, and is a hub for roadways leading to all major cities in Uzbekistan and beyond, including Mazar i Sharif in Afghanistan via the M39 highway. The city of Samarkand is 215 km to the east of Bukhara.

Bukhara city is the largest transport hub after Tashkent in Uzbekistan. Inside the city there is facility of bus transportation. There are over 45 bus lines. Majority of them have been equipped with ISUZU buses but some buses are being brought from China. By the number of buses and bus routes facilities Bukhara is the largest after Tashkent in Uzbekistan.

Bukhara recorded a population of 279,200 in the year 2019. Bukhara (along with Samarkand) is one of the two major centers of Uzbekistan's Tajik minority. Bukhara was also home to the Bukharan Jews, whose ancestors settled in the city during Roman times. Most Bukharian Jews left Bukhara between 1925 and 2000. Ali Akbar Dehkhoda defines the name Bukhara itself as meaning "full of knowledge", referring to the fact that in antiquity, Bukhara was a scientific and scholarship powerhouse. In the Italian romantic epic Orlando innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo, Bukhara is called Albracca and described as a major city of Cathay. There, within its walled city and fortress, Angelica and the knights she has befriended make their stand when attacked by Agrican, emperor of Tartary. As described, this siege by Agrican resembles the historic siege by Genghis Khan in 1220.