Muhammad Rahim Khan Madrasah

The Kungrat dynasty, which ruled the Khanate of Khiva for a long time, was famous for its wise rulers, each of whom left an indelible mark on the history of Central Asia. However, as the most enlightened representative of this dynasty, Seyid Muhammad Rahim Khan II is world famous. Belonging to a family originating from the Prophet Muhammad, through his daughter Fatima and her son Hussein, Khan was the eleventh ruler of the Kungrat dynasty. Seyid Muhammad, who received a brilliant education at the Arab Muhammad Khan madrasah, a student of the poet, historian and translator Agakhi, the last independent ruler of the Khanate of Khiva, poet and composer, wanted to achieve enlightenment in his country by raising the culture of citizens. During the reign of Muhammad Rahim Khan, musical notation was created for the first time in Khorezm. Khan himself was famous for his poetic works, which he wrote under the pseudonym Firuz. Seyid Muhammad Khan was a powerful patron of science and art, it was under him that more than 15 madrassas were built and began to function, where students studied not only religious, but also secular sciences.

One of the madrasahs, which was built from 1871 to 1876 on the initiative of Muhammad Rahim Khan, at his personal expense, bears his name to this day. The madrasah is one of the largest in Khiva. Its outer courtyard is surrounded by a facade, which is represented by a blank wall on three sides, and from the inside, along the perimeter of this wall there are one-story hujras (rooms for madrasah students), which are crowned by domes of burnt brick. The entrance to the madrasah is decorated with a peshtak (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), which, like all other facades of the building, tympanums of arches and hujras, is decorated with majolica in blue and white tones. The facade is bounded by guldasta towers. After passing through peshtak, the visitor will get into a spacious lobby (miankhana), flanked by study rooms (darsakhana), also crowned with domes of burnt brick, and on the second floor above the lobby there was an extensive library (kitabkhana). Along the perimeter of the courtyard of the mosque, which is surrounded on four sides by aivans on wooden columns, there are hujras of 2 floors, in the amount of 75 pieces, which could accommodate 152 students. All four facades of the building are decorated with portals, which are richly decorated with majolica. Above the entrance of each of the portals, in addition to the patterns, the texts of verses of chronograms are applied. 

In addition, the building complex includes a winter and summer mosque.

The madrasah building has been restored several times, but its most extensive restoration occurred in 1994. Today, one of the attractions of Khiva, the Madrasah of Seyid Muhammad Rahim Khan II, attracts many tourists from all over the world and is included in the UNESCO World Heritage List.