The mausoleum of Abu Mansur Maturidi
Abu Mansur Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Mahmud al-Maturidi as-Samarkandi was born at the end of the IX century in Samarkand. He is one of the significant figures of Islam, an Islamic theologian, expert in Muslim jurisprudence (fikh), interpreter of the Koran (mufassir), thinker. He was a follower of the Hanafi Madhhab, one of the four canonical legal schools in Sunni Islam. He is best known as the founder (eponym) of Maturidism, a dogmatic and philosophical trend in Islam, the Sunni school of Kalam. This current interpreted the dogmas of Islam. Its main provisions were a rationalistic interpretation of the holy scriptures of the Koran, freedom of choice between two opposites, faith in the verbal recognition of God, and not in the observance of religious rites.
Abu Mansur Maturidi was educated in Samarkand, where he later taught himself.
After his death, in 944, he was buried at the Chokardiza cemetery in Samarkand, where more than 3,000 scholars of theology were also buried. After his death, a tombstone was erected over his grave, which was destroyed in 1940.
In 2000, on the occasion of the 1225th anniversary of the birth of the great Muslim theologian, the first President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, put forward an initiative to erect a mausoleum on the site of the destroyed tombstone. So, in the center of the old city of Samarkand, not far from Registan Square, the mausoleum of Abu Mansur Maturidi, amazing in its beauty, appeared.
A gate in the form of an arch, built of burnt brick and decorated with majolica of various shades of blue and yellow flowers in the form of plant ornaments, leads to the territory of the mausoleum. The arch stands on two columns, also made of burnt brick. Under the arch there are forged gates of black color, in the same style the fence around the perimeter of the mausoleum territory is made. In the center of the garden, to which the gate leads, there is a square-shaped mausoleum, each of the walls of which is 12 meters long. The mausoleum is made of burnt brick, columns are located at its corners, facades are decorated with majolica patterns, mosaics and ganch carvings. The windows located on the facades are decorated with wooden lattices, and carved wooden doors lead inside the mausoleum. The dome of the mausoleum is blue, hemispherical, double, its outer part is ribbed. The dome is decorated with majolica, and its drum is decorated with 24 arches. The height of the mausoleum building itself is 12 meters, and together with the dome – 15 meters.
Inside the mausoleum there is a white tombstone in the form of a white tombstone made of marble. The gravestone is decorated with the sayings of the theologian, which are carved on it.
The total area of the mausoleum is 4 hectares. In addition to the mausoleum building itself, there are graves of other theologians in its garden. So, in the west of the mausoleum there is a small building with a domed vault, and in the north there is a sufa with tombstones that date from the IX to the XVIII century. There are gazebos in the garden, where pilgrims and travelers can comfortably sit.
The mausoleum of Abu Mansur Maturidi is one of the buildings that was built in Samarkand during the independence of Uzbekistan, but nevertheless it is in no way inferior in its splendor to older architectural ensembles.