Day 10

 Today was the last day of our practice and adventure.  We visited one of the memorial complex of the Islamic saints of Bakhauddin Nakshband.

If you want to seed of good it will grow into seven ears and then yield seven hundred good deeds. 

Nakshbandi

    

Northeast of Bukhara in the village of Kasri Orifon is one of Sufism's more important shrines (working hours 8am-7pm), the birthplace and the tomb of Khazreti Mohammed Bakhauddin (Baha-al-din, Uzbek: Bahovuddin) Nakhshbandi (1318-1389), the founder of the most influential of many ancient Sufi orders in Central Asia, and Bukhara's unofficial 'patron saint'.

Bakhauddin (The Decoration of Religion) was born a few kilometres from the present complex in the town of Kasri Orifon into a family of metalworkers, from where he took the name Nakhshbandi (Engraver of Metals). He came under the early influence of Abdul Khaliq Gijduvani and as a married man spent 12 years in the employ of Tamerlane's nephew Khalil Sultan after which, according to the Encyclopedia of Islam, he devoted himself to "the care of animals for seven years and road-mending for another seven". This last vocation is not quite as bizarre as it may sound, for Nakhshbandi espoused a life of hard work, self-reliance and modesty, encouraging all his pupils to learn a trade as he himself had done. 

His 11 principles of conduct were based on a retreat from authority, spiritual purity and a rejection of ostentation or ceremony, principles that were stretched to their limit by the Nakhshbandi brotherhood's early rejection of communism in the 1920s and subsequent tacit support for the basmachi revolt.Entering the complex through the main, east entrance, you'll walk towards a 16th century khanaka covered by a huge dome, now a Juma (Friday) mosque. In front of it is a precariously leaning minaret. Two more mosques surround Bakhautdin's tomb in the courtyard to the left. The lovingly restored aivan here is one of the country's most beautiful.The tomb itself is a simple 2m-high block, protected by a horse-mane talisman hanging from a post. Tradition says that it is auspicious to complete three anticlockwise circumambulations of the tomb. Back in the main courtyard you'll spot more locals walking anticlockwise around a petrified tree. Legend has it that this tree sprouted where Bakhautdin stuck his staff, upon returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca. He then added drops of holy water from Mecca to a nearby well. Faucets near the minaret continue to supply this well's water to pilgrims, who splash their faces with it and bring it home by the jugful for good luck.