Ak-Mosque (17th century)

The mahallas and guzars — Khiva's small residential quarters — traditionally had their own neighbourhood mosques. The Ak Mosque, Uzbek for the white mosque, is a classic example. It stands in the ensemble by the eastern gate of Ichan-Kala, next to the baths of Anush Khan; the foundations were laid in 1657.

Building, though, was put off until the middle of the nineteenth century — the inscriptions on the doors, covered in ornamental and epigraphic carving, say as much. They also name the craftsmen: Nur Muhammad, son of Adin Kalandar, and Kalandar, son of Seyd Muhammad.

Inside is a domed hall with three galleries — a prayer house with a minaret and a mihrab, the niche in the wall facing Mecca. The minaret is topped by a dome with a spire. Tall many-columned iwans run around three sides of the central domed chamber, and the mosque's chief value lies exactly in those wooden columns, each carved differently. The windows are closed with openwork ganch grilles.

The name is explained two ways: by the ganch finish of the walls, and by the mosque's leading place among the small quarter mosques. Scholars add a third — that the name carried over from an earlier mosque on this site, whose remains survive beneath the present vaults.