This is a necropolis of mausoleums climbing back in time from the northeast fringe of Tamerlane's capital over the old city wall and onto the southern slope of ancient Afrosiab. This is Samarkand’s most moving and beloved site, the stunning avenue of mausoleums (working hours 8am-7pm Apr-Oct, 9am-5pm Nov-Mar) contains some of the richest tilework in the Muslim world. In the 14th and 15th centuries, it developed into an architectural testing ground whose celebration of ceramic art, unrivalled in Central Asia, makes this street of the dead perhaps the most visually stunning sight in a city of superlatives.
The name, which means ‘Tomb of the Living King’, refers to its original, innermost and holiest shrine – a complex of cool, quiet rooms around what is probably the grave of Qusam ibn-Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet Mohammed who is said to have brought Islam to this area in the 7th century. Legend traces its history back to 676, when Kussam-ibn-Abbas arrived to convert Zoroastrian Sogdiana to Islam. The success of his preaching provoked a gang of fire-worshippers to behead him whilst he was at prayer. It appears the Arabs established Kussam, who probably never saw Samarkand, into the cult of Shah-i-Zinda (the Living King) by adapting a pre-lslamic mythical ruler, maybe Afrosiab himself, reigning beyond death beneath the earth. The Mongol conquest flattened the surrounding complex but left Kussam's grave alone, as Moroccan traveller ibn-Battuta reported in 1333: "The inhabitants of Samarkand come out to visit it every Sunday and Thursday night. The Tartars also come to visit it, pay vows to it and bring cows, sheep, dirhams, and dinars; all this is used for the benefit of the hospital and the blessed tomb."
A shrine to Qusam existed here on the edge of Afrosiab long before the Mongols ransacked it in the 13th century. Shah-i-Zinda began to assume its current form in the 14th century as Timur and later Ulugbek buried their family and favourites near the Living King. Excavations at mausoleum of Kusam ibn Abbas have revealed there is a body inside (that of a middle-aged man), but his exact identity is unknown.
The Timurid aristocracy continued the tradition of building mausoleums near the sacred site, often on earlier remains. These works display the creative wealth of the empire in surprising harmony, for no mausoleum repeats another. Their modest size permits an intimacy impossible in more grandiose projects. When American diplomat Schulyer visited the saints grave in 1876 he heard of "a prophecy that he was to appear in f 868 to defeat the Russians; but Samarkand was occupied, and Shah Zindeh appeared not, so that his fame has of late somewhat fallen off." Worshippers still flocked to the necropolis until Soviet conversion into an anti-religious museum forced visitors to cloak their beliefs with secular trappings. Independence has restored sanctity to the street, holy men to its mosques and pilgrims to its tombs.
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