The Bibi-Khanym Mosque

The Bibi Khanym is a congregational mosque, masjid-i jami` in Persian, built by Emperor Timur-i Leng between 1399 and 1404 in Samarkand, present day Uzbekistan. Emperor Timur remarkably expanded his small tribe into the Timurid Dynasty, which lasted from 1370 to 1507. Timur showed great leadership skills and also had an interest in architecture. The results of his artistic interests are especially apparent in Samarkand, the capital of the Timurids during Timur’s reign where art, architecture, and culture flourished. The Bibi Khanum exemplifies the vision that Timur held for Samarkand because of the monument’s dominant and massive nature. Although today the mosque is different from the time of the Timurid Dynasty because of the renovations over the years, the Bibi Khanum is still a testimony to the unbelievable and intricate architecture of the times. The Bibi Khanum congregational mosque is an exceptional example of Timur’s style of grand building and incredible embellishments expressed throughout the Timurid Dynasty.

Timur succeeded in expanding his rule from India to Anatolia before choosing Samarkand as his capital, which would soon become recognized as a center for arts among the Timurids. Tamerlane, the name by which Timur was known in Europe, is derived from his Persian name, Timur-i Leng. The word Timur is Turkish for "iron" which was fitting for him because he rose as a leader from a small Turko-Mongol tribe to become a ruler of an expanding empire. Timur was born in 1336 in Shahr-i-Sabz, i.e., "the Green City", located about fifty miles south of Samarkand. He was the son of a chief in the Barlas tribe, one of the many Turko-Mongol tribes. Despite having been injured in his right leg during his mid-twenties - an event t...

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...t ambitious building project initiated during his reign and it is still standing today. Timur aimed to exceed the Mongol Empire and achieve dominance over the entire Islamic world. Setting his capital in Samarkand, Timur created the center of art and culture where many of his beautiful works were built. The Timurid world was characterized by increasing elaboration of geometric design, as seen in the Bibi Khanum mosque. As Golombek and Subtelny note, the decorative veneer “applied over a surface area than ever before in Islamic Architecture characterizes the Timurid architecture.” Unfortunately once the monument was finished it began falling apart, but by the 1990s the Soviets had reconstructed the mosque greatly. However, the Bibi Khanum Mosque is still an amazing vision of a the great emperor Timur’s aspirations and a glance back in time to the Timurid dynasty.