Imam Bokhari mausoleum in Uzbekistan

Imam Bukhari mausoleum in Uzbekistan

Hartang, Uzbekistan

 Samarqand, somarkand

 

An article written for the Wildlife & Environment Magazine
Editor: Syed Khurshid Ali

An Uzbekistan visit: Historical notes and environmental issues


There were several reasons why I was in Uzbekistan. One, I wanted to travel through each and every country of Central Asia and Uzbekistan was one of them.  Two, the historical cities of Samarqand and Bokhara, important Silk Route stopovers and trading posts, make Uzbekistan a must see destination for a history student. Three, I wanted to visit the mausoleum of Imam Bokhari. This last tourist attraction has a remarkably interesting story associated with it, but first the environmental issues faced by Uzbekistan.  

Uzbekistan, the land of the Uzbeks, was a part of the Russian Empire when the Union turned socialist in nature in 1917; the republic remained a part of the Union till 1991. During the Soviet rule, grand projects were initiated to bring barren land to produce food crops. One such project was the use of Amu Darya water to irrigate land. The Amu Darya originates from the mountains separating Central Asia from China, goes through Tajikistan, becomes the natural border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan, goes through Turkmenistan, and then enters Uzbekistan to finally drain in the Aral Sea. The termination part should be mentioned in the past tense. During the Soviet rule, several irrigation canals were taken out of the Amu Darya. The diversion of Amu River water stopped all inflow from that river into the Aral Sea and the sea started shrinking. First the sea divided into two parts: North Aral and South Aral Sea with a land bridge between them, and then gradually South Aral Sea completely disappeared; with it was gone its precious marine life and the livelihood of fishermen of the region. The UN called the shrinkage of the Aral Sea, “one of the largest ecological catastrophes of our time.”

Over two centuries after the inception of the Industrial revolution—the historical moment when we started to use natural resources and our tools and machines to play with the nature on a grand scale--we human beings must learn our place in the grand scheme of things. We are a part of the environment we live in; other parts of nature are of equal value. We must learn from the animals how to take from the nature what we absolutely need. We can benefit from the nature without tweaking the natural setup too much, and whenever we play with nature we must think far ahead because the negative consequences of hurting the natural balance may come to haunt us in the future.

Back to the enthralling story that revived the importance of Iman Bokhari. Most Muslims understand how instrumental Imam Bokhari was in resurrecting Prophet Muhammad’s sayings, but few know how Indonesia’s Sukarno ‘resurrected’ Imam Bokhari.

Imagine you are living in the 1950s. It is the height of the Cold War. The world is divided between the Soviet and the American camps, but there are several countries in the third world that do not want to be aligned with either of the two superpowers. Both the USA and the Soviet Union want to woo the nonaligned countries to their respective camps. With such a desire Nikita Khrushchev invites Indonesian president Sukarno to visit the Soviet Union. The meeting goes very well. After Moscow, Soekarno lands in Toshkent where Soekarno has a strange request. He wants to visit the grave of Imam Bokhari. The Soviet officials look at each other with disbelief. Imam Who? The non-Uzbek officials are surprised someone so renowned in the Islamic history is resting in peace somewhere in the Soviet Union. The officials soon find out the ninth century Islamic scholar is buried in the town of Hartang, near Samarqand. They discover that the neglected scholar’s grave is in bad condition. In fact, there is no headstone and Imam Bokhari’s sepulcher is identified through oral history. Overnight, restoration work is carried out to make the grave worth visiting, and next day, Sukarno goes to Imam Bokhari’s burial and offers Fatiha.  

After Sukarno’s visit, many leaders from the Muslim world, visiting the Soviet Union, made the ritual of visiting the grave of Imam Bokhari. After gaining independence, Uzbekistan paid special attention to its historical monuments. A modern mausoleum was built over Imam Bokhari’s grave. Today, Imam Bokhari’s final resting place is a big campus with a mosque and a madrassa besides the tomb.