Qosim Sheikh mosque

The Qosim Sheikh complex stands in Karmana, in the Bukhara region, built around the grave of the sixteenth-century Sufi elder Qosim Sheikh Azizon, a respected figure of the Yassawiyah order remembered for mediating between rival Central Asian rulers and for defending Karmana's fortress. Construction of its khanqah, the lodge that sheltered and instructed dervishes and pilgrims, began in 1558 under the Bukharan ruler Abdulla Khan II, who supported the shaykh politically and militarily. The mosque's facade rises as a tall arched portal covered in Arabic inscriptions, and its dome sits on a drum faced with turquoise majolica tiles, while the interior walls, columns and arches carry carved white gypsum ornament typical of Bukharan religious architecture. The site gained further historical weight when Abd al-Ahad, the last emir of the Bukharan Emirate, who died in 1910, was buried nearby, his grave eventually marked with a marble tomb.