AZRAT KHUSSAN ATA COMPLEX

In the middle of a cemetery, this complex of mausoleums and mosques was built between the 9th and 16th centuries. Its origin is the wise Azrat Khussan Ata, who died there. Born in the city of Turkestan (now in Kazakhstan), in the ninth century according to the imam of the mosque, in the eleventh according to Soviet scholars, he would have gone as far as Mecca and returned here, in Poudina, to teach the Koran near an old tree near a basin he would have built. It is also here that, a few centuries later, Baha Al-Din Naqchband, the founder of the Sufi order in Central Asia, whose mausoleum is a few kilometres from Bukhara, is said to have come to learn here. Around the tomb of Khussan Ata, votive cloth and a ponytail bear witness to his high degree of wisdom. The main mausoleum houses the remains of the holy man and his daughter. The other three, again according to the Imam, contain those of Khussan Ata's brother and his sons, then those of the second brother and his wife, and finally those of the first brother's daughters. On the side of the Soviet researchers, one would rather consider that these are the tombs of nobles of the region. Whichever version you subscribe to, this site seduces by its timeless character and by the different aspects of its architecture, which spans some ten centuries. Moreover, the crossing of the village of Poudina and the reception of the old turbaned imams would be enough in themselves to justify the displacement.