Mir-i-Arab Madrasa, Bukhara

Mir-i-Arab Madrasa, Bukhara (Uzbekistan)

The construction of Mir-i-Arab Madrasah is credited to Sheikh Abdullah Yamani of Yemen in 1535. Also known as Mir-i-Arab he was considered the spiritual mentor of Ubaydullah-khan and his son Abdul-Aziz-khan. Prior to the construction of the madrasah Ubaydullah-khan was waging war against Iran. He managed to seize control of Herat several times resulting in the capture of a great many captives. Eventually Ubaydullah-khan sold three thousand of these Persian captives in order to provide funding for the construction of the Mir-i-Arab Madrasah. The interior of the Mir-i-Arab serves as evidence of some of the burial traditions of the time period. By the 1630s sovereigns no longer erected splendid mausoleums for themselves and for their relatives. Khans of the Shaibanid dynasty were standard-bearers of Koran traditions and religion became so consequential that even a famed Khan in Ubaydullah was buried next to his mentor in his madrasah. As such the wooden tomb of Ubaydullah-khan is situated in the middle of the vault in the Mir-i-Arab Madrasah.