Shergazi-Khana Madrasah (18th century)

The Shergazi Khan madrasah is among the oldest in Khiva. It stands at the centre of Ichan-Kala, directly before the entrance to the mausoleum of Pahlavan Mahmud. The ground has settled over time, and the entrance now sits two metres below street level.

Building began in 1718 on the orders of Shergazi Khan, and the work was done by prisoners he had taken in a successful campaign into Khorasan. For that victory the khan received several resounding titles — Lion of God and Sun of the World — and the madrasah was to crown his achievements.

He promised the prisoners their freedom as soon as the building was finished, then did everything he could to delay its completion. In 1720, when the khan came once again to inspect the unfinished madrasah, the enraged slaves killed him. Shergazi Khan's own mausoleum is here, built onto the west side of the main front.

Locally the madrasah is called Maskani Fazilan, the abode of knowledge: many well-known poets and scholars studied here, and not only Khivan ones.

The building is single-storey; only the entrance portal has two floors. Inside is a courtyard divided into four iwans, with fifty-five cells in all and a hall for lectures.

Records show the madrasah was repaired several times, yet by the start of the twentieth century it was in a sorry state. Serious restoration came only in the Soviet period, when conservators recovered at least part of its former richness.