Muhammad Amin Khan Madrasah
Khorezm is one of the pearls of medieval architecture in Central Asia. Every ruler of this ancient city has left his mark on the architecture.
Muhammad Amin Khan, the seventh ruler of the Khanate of Khiva from the Kungrat dynasty. An urban planner, commander and diplomat who established ties with Russia, the Ottoman Empire, Iran and Afghanistan. Muhammad Amin Khan is known for the centralization of his state and the pacification of nomadic tribes. On his initiative, the largest madrasah of Khiva was built.
It took the best Khiva craftsmen three years to build the madrasah. The Khan set them the task: to erect a madrasah that would surpass all other buildings of Khiva in scale. Muhammad Amin Khan wanted to see not just a madrasah, but the most majestic and large-scale building of the city that would bear his name.
Its main facade is decorated with an outer courtyard, which is surrounded by walls and a domed entrance to the building. The massive walls of the building are 1.5 m thick. The entrance to the madrasah is decorated with a Peshtak characteristic of Central Asian buildings (a richly decorated portal niche, in the form of a vertical rectangle with a pointed arch, whose height exceeds the height of the building itself), 25 m high and decorated with a rectangular frame. On the sides of the peshtak there are hujras (rooms for madrasah students) on two floors, and the facade ends with two guldasta towers.
Peshtak is richly decorated with inscriptions in the style of nastalik, white letters on a dark blue background, which were composed by the Khorezm poet, translator and historian Agyakhi. The decor of the peshtak around the inscriptions is completed by majolica tiles. Crowning these patterns is a majestic inscription, which, according to legend, was composed by Muhammad Amin Khan himself: “This beautiful structure will stand forever for the joy of posterity.”
After passing through peshtak, the visitor of the madrasah enters a spacious lobby (miyankhana), above which, on the second floor, there was an extensive library.
The five-domed entrance of the madrasah leads to a courtyard surrounded on four sides by aivans, along the perimeter of which there are hujras of two floors. A distinctive feature of Muhammad Amin Khan madrasah from other madrasahs of that time in Central Asia is that each of its hujras is divided into two rooms. There were 125 such hujras in the madrasah, where 260 students could live and study at the same time. Also in the madrasah there are rooms for classes – darskhana and its own mosque.
The decor of the building is dominated by baked clay - majolica, glazed brick and elaborate carvings covering each door. Also, unlike other buildings in Khiva, Muhammad Alim Khan Madrasah has the richest tiled cladding.
After the construction of the madrasah was completed, Muhammad Alim Khan initiated the construction of an 80m high minaret, which was to become the tallest minaret not only in Central Asia, but also in the whole world, overtaking the Kalyan minaret in Bukhara (46m) and the Kutub Minar in Delhi (78m). However, the death of the khan destroyed his grandiose plans and the minaret, located next to the madrasah, remained unfinished, today it is called Kalta Minor and is one of the many attractions of Khiva.
Muhammad Amin Khan Madrasah is one of the main tourist attractions of Khiva, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.