Pir Huseyn Khanqah

The Pir Huseyn Khanqah (Azerbaijani: Pir Hüseyn xanəgahı), also known as the Pirsaat or Pirsaatchay Khanqah (Azerbaijani: Pirsaatçay xanəgahı) and the Pir Huseyn Mausoleum, is a fortified Sufi khanqah and shrine complex of the 13th–14th centuries on the left bank of the Pirsaat River near the villages of Qubalıbalaoğlan and Navahı in Hajigabul District, Azerbaijan, about 126 kilometres southwest of Baku. It grew up around the grave of the Qalandari sheikh Pir Huseyn ibn Ali, who lived in the 11th century, and was built and endowed under the Shirvanshah Fariburz III (r. 1225–1255) at the crossroads of the medieval routes between Baku and Salyan.

The complex is best known for its interior decoration in the Ilkhanid tradition of Iran: a monumental carved stucco mihrab dated 1266–67, and an extensive programme of lustre tiles made in Kashan in 1282–85 that covered the walls and cenotaph of the sheikh's tomb chamber. The tiles were stripped from the building between 1907 and 1913 and are now mostly held by the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, with smaller groups in Tbilisi and Baku; the mihrab was removed in the 1960s and is displayed in the Nizami Museum of Azerbaijani Literature in Baku. It is one of the earliest dated Ilkhanid-period monuments with both carved stucco and lustre-tile revetments, and the most northerly building known to have preserved a monumental carved stucco mihrab.

The sheikh and the early complex

The site's sanctity derives from the grave of Sheikh al-Husayn ibn Ali, known as Pir Huseyn Rawanan, a sheikh of the Qalandariyya who died in the 11th century; Azerbaijani scholars have placed his death in 466/1074–75. His tomb has sometimes been misidentified as that of the Qara Qoyunlu ruler Pir Husayn Abu Sa'id.

The earliest dated inscription at the site is a stone slab of 603/1203–04, later inserted into the minaret, which names the architect Shahzada Habibullah ibn Sheikh Hajji Muhammad. The formation of the complex took place between about 1203 and the mid-13th century. The most plausible sequence is that a burial structure over the sheikh's grave was followed by a second mausoleum for an unidentified person, after which a larger enclosed complex—mosque, vestibule, the sheikh's tomb, service rooms and stables—was laid out around them. The long inscription in the entrance portal, dated 641/1243–44, records that the khanqah was built during the reign of the Shirvanshah Fariburz III by his official Sharaf al-Dawla wa'l-Din Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Barwandi, who established its waqf. The complex is thus one of the few Sufi monuments of the period that documents its own patronage by state officials acting with the ruler's sanction.

The minaret was a separate, later project. Its inscriptions date it to around 654/1256–57, again mention Fariburz III, and name a second architect, Shams al-Din Muhammad ibn Abi al-Abbas, followed by the signature of Muhammad ibn Ibrahim, probably the head of the stonemasons' workshop.

Redecoration under the Ilkhanids

Two later interventions gave the interior its Ilkhanid character. In 665/1266–67 a monumental carved stucco mihrab was installed on the qibla wall of the mosque, covering the original modest carved-stone niche. Roughly a decade later, between 681/1282 and 684/1285, the tomb chamber and cenotaph of the sheikh, and probably parts of the mosque, were revetted with lustre tiles. The tile frieze records that the tomb was "rebuilt" by Umar ibn Muhammad al-Shirzadi al-Qazvini in 684/1285; his nisba suggests family or political ties to Qazvin in Iran, which may have helped him secure the commission from the Kashan workshops. A further inscription on the portal dated 800/1397–98 suggests repairs around that time.

Rediscovery, dispersal and conservation

The ruined site was brought to scholarly attention in 1858 by the Russian numismatist Ivan Bartolomeyev, whose letter prompted Bernhard Dorn to spend two days there in April 1861 and publish its dated inscriptions. In 1907 S. Ter-Avetissian surveyed the building, producing a plan, sketches and photographs that constitute the last record of the decoration in place. The entire ceramic revetment was removed between 1907 and 1913 and passed through dealers in Saint Petersburg, Baku and Paris; pieces from the Stieglitz Museum and the Moscow Asian Museum were eventually consolidated in the Hermitage, and a fragment has been identified in the Victoria and Albert Museum. V. Sysoyev, who published the site in 1925, recorded the dado in place and gave the only measurement of its height. The site was excavated in 1939–40, and in 1946 Vera Kratchkovskaya published a monograph reconstructing the tile programme from the pieces in Leningrad and Tbilisi, without having visited the site herself.

The monument suffered further damage from the Soviet-era dam on the Pirsaat River. A restoration campaign was carried out in 1956–1965, and the stucco mihrab was dismantled and taken to Baku for preservation in the 1960s. The khanqah is registered as an architectural monument of national importance. The complex underwent major conservation and reconstruction in the 2010s; the portal inscription, long kept in Baku, was reinstalled on the rebuilt structure, and life-size photographs of the tiles now in the Hermitage were mounted around the mosque entrance.