Imam Bukhari Memorial Complex

The Imam Bukhari Memorial Complex in the village of Hartang near Samarkand in Uzbekistan is the burial place of Muhammad ibn Ismail al-Bukhari (810-870 CE) — the great Iranian-Central Asian hadith scholar whose collection Sahih al-Bukhari is considered by Sunni Muslims to be the most authoritative compilation of the sayings and actions of the Prophet Muhammad after the Qur'an itself. Bukhari was born in Bukhara (from which he takes his name) and spent much of his life travelling across the Islamic world collecting and verifying hadith, before settling and dying in the small village of Khartank near Samarkand. His tomb — long known to the local Bukharan religious community but a relatively modest local site for over a thousand years — was substantially redeveloped after Uzbek independence into a major monumental religious complex inaugurated in 1998 with funding from the Uzbek government and various international Muslim donors. The complex now includes the Bukhari mausoleum proper with its golden-domed tomb chamber, a working mosque accommodating approximately fifteen hundred worshippers, a museum of Bukhari's life and work, a library of Islamic religious manuscripts, and an Islamic studies institute. The complex has become one of the most visited religious sites in Uzbekistan and a major destination for Sunni Muslim pilgrims from across the broader Muslim world — particularly Turkish, Indonesian and Arab pilgrims travelling through the historic Silk Road cities of Bukhara, Samarkand and Khiva.