Dahbedi complex

The Dahbedi complex lies in the village of Dahbed just outside Samarkand, built around the burial site of the sixteenth-century Naqshbandi Sufi teacher known as Makhdumi Azam, whose descendants and followers were interred in the same precinct over the following centuries. The main surviving memorial building, dating largely from the early twentieth century, is a rectangular structure fronted by a wooden aivan with carved columns and a ceiling decorated in traditional Uzbek and Tajik ornamental patterns. A small minaret and a low inscribed stone pillar stand in the adjoining courtyard, shaded by old trees. More than fifty tombstones inside the complex carry Arabic and Persian inscriptions, several belonging to noted scholars and religious figures, and researchers have in recent years worked to document and translate them. The site falls within the UNESCO-listed "Samarkand, Crossroads of Cultures" designation covering the city's wider historic monuments.