AZRAT KHUSSAN ATA COMPLEX

The Azrat Khussan Ata ensemble is one of those lost sites whose particular tranquillity is characteristic of monuments ignored by tourist circuits. In the middle of a cemetery, this complex of mausoleums and mosques linked by small passages was built between the th and th centuries. At its origin we find the wise Azrat Khussan Ata who died there. Born in the city of Turkestan (currently in Kazakhstan), in the ninth century according to the imam of the mosque, to the eleventh according to Soviet researchers, he would have been to Mecca and would have returned here, in Poudina, teaching the Koran near an old tree near a basin he would have built. It is also here that, a few centuries later, it would come to the attention of Baha Al Din Naqchband, the founder of the Sufi order in Central Asia, whose mausoleum is located a few kilometres from Bukhara. Around the tomb of Khussan Ata, votive tissue and a horse tail testify to his high degree of wisdom. The main mausoleum houses the remains of the holy man and his daughter. The other three, still according to the imam, include those of the brother of Khussan Ata and his sons, and that of the second brother and his wife, finally that of the first brother's daughters. On the side of the Soviet researchers, it is believed that they are the noble graves of the region. Whatever version we subscribe to, this site impresses with its character over time and by the different aspects of its architecture that covers ten centuries. Moreover, the crossing of the village of Poudina and the reception of old enturbannés imams alone would suffice to justify displacement.