Magok-i-Attari Mosque

Magok-i-Attari Mosque is a historical mosque in Bukhara, Uzbekistan. It is forming a part of historical religious complex of Lyab-i Hauz. The mosque is located in the historical center of Bukhara, about 300 meters southwest of Po-i-Kalyan, 100 meters southwest of the Toqi Telpak Furushon trading dome and 100 meters east of Lyab-i Hauz. It is a part of UNESCO World Heritage Site Historic Centre of Bukhara. Today, the mosque is used as a carpet museum.HistoryIt is speculated as built in the 9th to 10th-century on the remains of a Zoroastrian temple from the pre-Islamic era. Before the Arab conquest there was a bazaar on the site of Magok-i Attari. It was a market for idols, potions and spices – attar (perfumes) and other goods. Besides this, there was formerly a Temple of the Moon (Mokh) close to this place. Before the construction of the first synagogue Jews in Bukhara had shared a place in a mosque with Muslims. Some say that Bukharian Jews and Muslims worshipped alongside each other in the same place at the same time. Other sources insist that Jews worshipped after Muslims. The mosque is also notable for being one of the oldest surviving mosques in Central Asia and one of the few surviving buildings in Bukhara from the time before the Mongolian invasion. In the 12th-century, when Kara-Khanids reigned in Bukhara, the mosque was substantially rebuilt and re-dressed. It also received a new main facade in the south. In the middle of the 15th-century, it was restored and a new portal with iwan was built in the eastern ground. At the beginning of the 1930s the mosque was restored again.