Jami Mosque
Jami Mosque in Bukhara, Uzbekistan
The Jami Mosque is located within the Ark Fortress in the historic center of Bukhara. It is usually visited immediately after entering the citadel: the building stands near the ceremonial part of the fortress and is connected to the main route through this complex. For visitors, this is a convenient opportunity to see not a separate monument, but part of an entire ensemble that for a long time was the political and ceremonial center of the city.
The mosque was built in the 18th century as a congregational mosque and combines an enclosed winter prayer hall with an open iwan. Particularly notable are the carved wooden columns of the iwan and the decorative design traditional for Bukhara. The interior decoration mainly dates to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the building was renovated and expanded.
The history of the mosque is also connected with a later reconstruction in the early 20th century. Bukhara craftsmen took part in the decorative work, including Usta Shirin Muradov, known for ganch carving. Thanks to this, the mosque is interesting not only as a religious building, but also as an example of local artistic traditions in interior decoration.
Today, the building is used as a museum exhibition space of the Bukhara State Architectural and Art Museum-Reserve. It presents the theme of Bukhara's written culture from the 18th to the early 20th century, so a visit to the mosque makes it possible to become acquainted at the same time with the architecture of the Ark and with the history of the city's scholarship, record-keeping, and manuscript tradition.
Jami Mosque on the map
Bukhara, Old City of Bukhara: Mosques
Kalyan Mosque, Magoki-Attari Mosque
Jami Mosque and the Museum of Bukhara's Written Culture
Features of Bukhara architecture and a museum exhibition have been preserved here.
An iwan on carved columns inside the Ark Fortress
Inside the mosque, attention is usually drawn to the iwan, the open part of the building supported by wooden columns with carving. The enclosed hall and the iwan show how seasonal prayer spaces were combined in Bukhara architecture. It is worth taking a closer look at the decoration of the walls and niches: here you can see ganch work characteristic of the region and details that appeared during the renovations of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
The building now houses a museum exhibition dedicated to the written heritage of Bukhara. For visitors, this is an opportunity to see the space of a historic mosque in a different context, as part of a story about manuscripts, documents, book culture, and urban education. The visit usually takes little time, so it is easy to include in a walk around the entire Ark complex.
Nearby are other sites of the Ark Fortress, and beyond its walls are Bukhara's Registan Square and the old city with madrasahs, mosques, and trading domes. The easiest way to get here is on foot from the center of Bukhara, since the citadel is located in a well-known part of the historic district.
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