Hakim at-Termezi Mausoleum

On the high bank of the Amu Darya, at the south-western edge of the Old Termez site, stand the blue domes of a restored tomb. This is the mausoleum of Hakim at-Termezi — the sage of Termez, in full Abu Abdullah ibn Hasan ibn Bashir. He was a major theorist of Islamic Sufism, a scholar and the founder of a dervish order.

He was born in 824 in the village of Bus near Termez. By tradition, when the boy was ten an old man appeared to him and blessed him to study the Qur'an, the life and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad and the interpretation of his sayings — and that set his course.

As a young man he made the hajj to Mecca and stayed in Arabia, becoming a pupil of al-Bukhari, the great scholar of hadith. A man of unconventional mind, at-Termezi rethought the interpretation of the Qur'an and the hadith and offered his own view of the substance of faith. He set it out in his best-known work, the Great Collection, which describes the life, character and even the appearance of Muhammad. Elsewhere he writes on the meaning of Muslim rites, the love of seeking truth, and Sufism.

At-Termezi lived to a hundred and twelve and was buried in the courtyard of a khanaka — a Sufi lodge built in the eleventh century on the site of a ruined Buddhist temple. An underground cell served him as home, prayer room and place to meet his pupils. A mausoleum was raised over the grave in the eleventh century, with a chillakhana beside it for seclusion during the fast. It was at first an austere building with a dome finished in carved ganch. Under the Timurids a new tomb chamber appeared, with a monumental white marble gravestone, a masterpiece of stone carving.

For Termez's 2,500th anniversary in 2001 the mausoleum was almost entirely restored. Hakim at-Termezi is regarded as the city's patron, and his tomb is a place of pilgrimage for Muslims from around the world.