ULUSLARARASI .. .. .

TURK DUNYASI INANÇ . . .

MERKEZLERI KONGRESI . .

BILDIRILERI

23-27 EYLÜL 2002

MERSİN

ANKARA - 2004

The religious centers in the territory of Kyrgyzstan are

cultural and religion heritages of the Turkic world

Asanbek TOKTOGULOV

ı. The Great Silk Road and ancient caravanserai, located along the Road

The Great Silk Road is considered as one of the religious centers of the

Turkish world during the 15 centuries, beginning in the 2nd century BC. This Road was not only a major trade artery but also a political and hurnanitarian one. It spread scientific discoveries, philosophies and religious principles and

established diplamatic ties. People exchanged not only cornrnodities but ideas as well. Christian monks and Muslim dervishes moved with merchants and soldiers along this route. The influence of the Great Silk Road explains the phenomenon that in Central Asia people built temples of all the known world's religions-Zoroastrianism, Buddhism, Christianity and Islam. The Silk Road sped up the development of material and spiritual culture. Tribes living along the route learned writing earlier than their neighbors. The Turlde

language dominated among Arabian, Chinese, Tibetan, Indian and Persian dialects. It was a language of international cornrnunication in Central Asia .

which exists to present days. The dialogue between time and civilization along the Great Silk Road appeared in various forms. Not only through thou­sands of trade operations and during long conversations in caravanserais while drinking tea, but also with swords on a battlefield. Countries along the G~eat Silk Road carried out tough politics' determined by their economic interests. This route saw the birth and ruin of great empires and huge cities

and the migratian of who le nations. This ro u te was an arena for conquest and plunder. Aşian nomads moved to the West and tried to take control of new territories. At the same time, local tribes were becoming urbanized, adapting

a settled way of life and building new cities and fortresses.

The Great Silk Road is a mirror of human history, full of tragedy and progress, destruction and creativity, cruelty and humanity.

One of the unique caravanserai "Tash Rabat" along the Silk Road was

build in 9-14 centuries which is decorated bY. ancient Ko sh oy Korgon vil­

lage( big fortress belongs to the 12-14 centuries and differs with its size and

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building). The archaeologists that the suppose caravanserai "Tash Rabat"

was built at the site of Turkic tribe th~t lived there during _the period of the

Karakhanids dynasty. For centuries caravans with Chinese silk and other

commodities were traveling from the east to the west along the Great Silk

Road through this Saray "Tas h Ra bat". Usually caravan ro u tes started in

Kashgar, crossed Tien Shan and went along the southern shore of Issyk-Kul

and the Chue valley, thenon to Samarkand and farther to Byzantine.

Today Great Silk Road is again becoming a key artery for comrnunica­

tions. It has alıeady played.an histarical role. Now this route faces the new

challenges of integration.

2. The Mausoleum of Shah Fazi is an outstanding monument of early Islam architecture in the territory of Kyrgyzstan.

The Dzhalal-Abad region in the south of Kyrgyzstan ia known not only

on account of its abundant natural resources but also for the large number of

its histarical archaeological sites, which are evidence of the establishment

and development of religion and, in their day, were of enormous signifıcance

in the spiritual and cultural development not only of the local population but

also far beyand their boundaries.

There are several places in the Dzhalal-Abad oblast, which are consid­

ered as holy in the Islamic world and played and continue to play a consid­

erable role in the establishment and development of the culture of the peoples of the Central Asia

a. As history testifies, one of the places in Central Asia where Islam

grew and from which it spread is Safıd-Bulan village area in the Ala-Buka

district of Dzhalal-Abad oblast.

In the 7th and · 8th centuries Arab e~pansion began, with the aim of

spreading Islam to Central Asia. At the time of the early campaigns from 644

to 704, the Arabs, crossing the whole of Iran and Iraq, penetrated deep into

the Maverannakhr region as far as the the Fergana valley and reached the set­

tlement of Safıd-Bulan. This place had at all times been considered in the

Islamic world ·as one of the most holy. The twelve-thousand strong Arab

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anny was headed by the nephew of the ·prophet Moharnmed, Moharruned

Zharir. Here as the Friday noontide prayers were being offered, in the

mosque building alone, the heads of 2 700 of the closest followers of the

prophet Mohammed had been cut off. These severed heads were all buried in

one place. called Kallyak.hana, "o/hile the bodies were buried elsewhere.

These facts were confirmed by excavations carried out by Russian scholars

in the 1980s.

In the cause of Islam alone, tens of thousands of people perished here.

This shows what a tragic price was paid for the spread of Islam in Central

Asia. In Safıd -Bulan, three holy places are venerated:

ı. The mosque, where the tragedy was played out at the time of the

rnidday Friday prayers and which, as a result, came to be known as

the Mosque of perdition (Kyrgan mechet).

2. The place where Kozho-Alamadra-the standard-bearer of Islam- per

is h ed.

3. The centurles-old Shah Fazı mausoleum, named after a histarical

figure, the son of Mo hammed Zharir, the great-grandson of the

prophetMohammed.

In pre-Soviet times, Safıt-Bulan was a religious center in Central asia,

being a region where the cultures and civilizations of the peoples of Central

Asia interacted.

Shah Fazı mausoleum is situatcd in the north-east suburbs of Safet­

Bulan village, Ala-Byka rayon(district), Jalal-Abad oblast (province). It was

built in XI-XIII century in the territory of the ancient cemetery.

Today; this unique mausoleum is in a dilapidated condition. As a mon­

ument to the history and culture of the peoples of Central Asia, Shah Fazı

mausoleum deserves to be included among the monuments of the world her­

itage, under the auspices of UNESCO.

To solve the problems connected with resurrecting the age-old history

and architecture of the region, a General fund has been set up for the restara­

tion of the SAFIT-BULAN SHAH FAZL histarical memorial complex.

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b. There is the Padishah Ata kumbez (mausoleum) in a unique

juniper-covered ravine of the same_ name in the Aksy region.

Padishah Ata is known in the Islamic world by the name of Said

Kamaliddin Salman al-Farisi, and is looked upon as the holy man

third in importance after the prophet Mohammed himself and his

immediate successors (Abu Bakr Sadyk, Umar, Usman and Ali).

Padishah Ata, who came from the Iranian city of Isfahan, was the

principal adviser of the prophet Mohamrned himself.

There is also Arslanhop in the Bazar-Kurgan region. At Arislanhop are

the biggest walnut forests in the world, spreading over an area of rnore

than 32 000 hectares. It is a favorite place for tourists and pilgrims and

here there dozens of guest houses,rest and convalescent homes and the

people living in the Fergana Valley take their holidays here.

We mentioned above holy places which have unique natural wealth,

acknowledging their İnıportance in the spiritual and cultural renais­

sance of the population of the area and of the whole of Central Asia.

Similar renewal and restcration work is being carried out in these holy

places, where arrangements are being rnade for pilgrims to carry out

their rituals in the normal way and for visitors to rest.

Thanks to the independence and policy of openness of Kyrgyzstan,

thousands of people from the cities and countries of Central Asia and

far beyond its borders are making pilgrimage to the places where the

companions-in-arms and successors of the great prophet Mohammed

are buried.

Our aim is to resurrect these historical, cultural and architectural rnon­

uments so that they can, as in the past, continue to attract the attention

of the general public, which will pravide an opportunity for people to

rningle and to discover beauty. We hope that through farniliarity with

this smail part of the histoncal and cultural heritage of our forefathers,

visitors to these unique creations of rnankind will open up a path to the

treasure7house of world civilization. ·

3. Sacred Mount Sulaiman in Osh

The Mountain of Suleiman (That-i Suleiman) in Osh is the most popular

pilgrimage place of all Central Asia and is known by some as th " Second

Mecca". It attracted thousands of the pilgriı"Tls at the festival of Kurban

Bairam. In 1959 the Mufti in Ta~hkent published a special fatwa against pil­

grimagesto the mountain. However, during Khrushev's mavement against "

relics of the past", the so-called House of Babur w as blown up at night in

1963. In the archives it was noted that the House was destroyed inaccordance

to "num~rous requests of the working people", and that the streams of pil­

grims, conning to the mountain disturbed the " well deserved rest of common

citizens." In 1988 a Society for the Restaration of the House of Babur was

formedunder the auspices of local businessmen. They quickly built a struc­

ture, based on 1920's photograph ofMazar Suleiman and decorated it in the

spirit of modern Uzbek artists of the Fergana Valley. Regarding the hujra

itself,it is stili unknown what it looke like and where on the mountain it was

built. Hopefully. scientists and scholars w ili soo n be in the position to further

o ur knowledge of this mysterious topic ...

Three thousand-odd years ago, during the bronze epoch, on the slope of

Suleiman-Tash mountain· appeared the Osh settlement, the remains of which,

some earthen houses, were excavated by Kyrgyz archaeologists.

There are several variants of Sulaiman mountain's name. According to

the histoncal resources this holy place was named as Bara-Kuk:h in farce,

which means "separate located or beautiful mountain" named by Zahreddin

Habur.

The first mentioning of Sacred Mount was an early information of

Chinese sources about Guyshan Chen city surraunding the holy mountain in the Fergana V alley during the fırst century of A.D. Present name, connected

to the Muslim legend about the arrival of the prophet Solamon was known

later by Arabian souces in XVll century written by Mahmud ibn Vali.

Mo u nt consists of 1140 m.,long and 560 m of width, oriented from East

to the W esr. It is 1119-1175 m of above sea level. In 2000 this hole place was included to the preliminary list of World Legacy Coınmittee under the

UNESCO as a world legacy monuments.

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The following criteria were implemented:

Sacred Mount Sulaiman attracts_with the fantasticality of it's outline, location and majesty. Its south side is opened to the people but north part is naked and severe. This side has a lot of caves and grottos. Histerical and archaeological monuments, located at the Mount, are dating in a widest chronological diapason: from mezzo-Neolithic age to later middle ages and ethnographical contemporary period. As natural sanctuary it was functioned obviously from the Bronze age-ll and the early I-st millennium of BC.

All fıve peaks and cave~ have their own names and appropriated legends. In general, micro toponymy of the Sacred Mount Sulaiman attracts various stages of the histerical development of South Kyrgyzstan and Fergana Vali ey. The earliest names of holy caves and places were of Iranian deri va­tion, then Turkic, Arabian, the latest were Russian names. The main spiritu­al places and petrogliphes of the Mount are actively used by present people for the purpose of treatment and magic healing. According to the archeolog­ical and histerical investigations, made at the third peaks of Sacred Mount Sulaiman there are soine suppositions that this place was the spiritual -ideo­logical center of CHOUST tribes of Fergana V all ey in XII-VITI centuries of BS. There is supposition that this part of mountain was the place of settle­ment for spiritual attendants. Some materials of Choust culture, to · which belongs Osh settlement, discovered a certain interchanges with the monu­ments of western regions of China .

. Epigraphy, i ncluding cue, written at tlıe rocks and burial stones are the evidences of Middle age monuments and tombstones dated from X to XVI cc .. Adaptation period of the Mount to the Islam is about X-Xll c .. Majority of Islamic buildings and mosques were destroyed during the Soviet time ,built at that period. After the destnıction of almost 154 ancient mosques Osh city lost much of its past charm. At the place of extant buildings of XYI­XYIIT c.c. - Ravat Abdullahan andAsaf -ibn-Burhia Mosques have rernnants of menumental religious works.

Mount Sulaiı:nan - Too is an unique place as natural sanctuary, which has no analogies of its long term of spiritual utilization, accessibility, wide performance, loftiness and south orientation.

EssentüıJly, Sulaiman - Too is considered as an unique religious moun­tain which was recognized as the object of the natural and culturallegacy.

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4. Burana Tower, Barskhan cities and Uzgen settlement are the homelands of the Great medieval scholars.

The flourishing of the Khanate of the Karakhanids, the largest Turkic

state on the Tien Shan, came in the 9th century. Majestic Islamic architecture

became fırmly established there; and the towns grew in numbers. The earli­

est Turkic poetry momıment, the didactic poem

" Kutadgu Bilig" by Yusuf Balasaguni, was written in this particular

time anda dictionary of ancient Turkic dialects, Divan Lugat-at Turk" was

composea by Makhmud Kashgari. His home city, Barskan, standing on he

Lake oflssyk-Kul's shore, has a chan5e to become an international tourism

center, which was the famous center of religious, cultural and naturalland­

scape. This holy place preserves local histarical and architectural monuments

of Karakhanid dynasties. Great medieval cities as Baskanin Issyk-Kul Lake

and SUIAB in Chui Valley, where the Burana Tower was built, and the

Usgen settlement in Osh oblast have been home to different peoples, cul­

ttıres, and faiths- Islam, Buddhism and Christianity. Written monuments

found at these cities used Runic, Arabic and Syrian writing. Stone Age set­

tlements, ancient burial mounds, remnants of ancient cities, stone figures,

petroglyphs, dried beds· of irrigation canals and ancient rock drawings,

founded at the surraunding places of theses cities are the highly valued his­

toncal monuments of Turkic world legacy.

Every histarical monument has its own original story, being the souı·ce

of valuable information about the past and people who built and preserved it.

Uİıfortunately, we are gradually loosing them. Many religious buildings:

mosques, Christian churches and other spiritual places were destroyed by

Soviet government. At present the local authorities do not understand the

value of what they are loosing. Currently, some ancient settlements and pre­

historic sites are intensively destroyed by road construction. Soil from these

sites is used for making bricks. Local farmers use these territories for grow­

ing crops. So at the end of this report my appeal to all participants is how to

preserve these our world legacy. They must be protected and reconstructed

on the joint level of Turkish collaboration. W e need special agencies of inter­

national and Turkic world' support for protection these histarical momı­

ments, ancient settlements and d welling ruins.

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