Travels Into Bokhara (Volume 1 of 3) / Being the Account of A Journey from India to Cabool, Tartary, and Persia; Also, Narrative of a Voyage on the Indus, From the Sea to Lahore, With Presents From the King of Great Britain; Performed Under the Orders of the Supreme Government of India, in the Years 1831, 1832, and 1833

by Sir Alexander Burnes

CHAP. X.
BOKHARA.

The city of Bokhara.

Tradition assigns the foundation of the city of Bokhara to the age of Sikunder Zoolkurnuen, or Alexander the Great, and the geography of the country favours the belief of its having been a city in the earliest ages. A fertile soil, watered by a rivulet, and surrounded by a desert, was like a haven to the mariner. Bokhara lies embosomed among gardens and trees, and cannot be seen from a distance; it is a delightful place, and has a salubrious climate; but I cannot concur with the Arabian geographers, who describe it as the paradise of the world. Ferdoosy, the great Persian poet, says “that when the king saw Mawuroolnuhr, he saw a world of cities.” Compared with Arabia and the arid plains of Persia, this may be true, but some of the banks of the Indian rivers have a like richness, beauty, and fertility. The circumference of Bokhara exceeds eight English miles; its shape is triangular, and it is surrounded by a wall of earth, about twenty feet high, which is pierced by twelve gates. According to the custom of the east, these are named from the cities and places to which they lead. Few great buildings are to be seen from the exterior, but when the traveller passes its gates he winds his way among lofty and arched bazars of brick, and sees each trade in its separate quarter of the city; here the chintz sellers, there the shoemakers; one arcade filled with silks, another with cloth. Every where he meets with ponderous and massy buildings, colleges, mosques, and lofty minarets. About twenty caravansarais contain the merchants of different nations, and about one hundred ponds and fountains, constructed of squared stone, furnish its numerous population with water. The city is intersected by canals, shaded by mulberry trees, which bring water from the river of Samarcand, and there is a belief among the people, which deserves to be mentioned, that the loftiest minaret, which is about 150 feet high, rises to the level of that famous capital of Timour. Bokhara is very indifferently supplied with water, the river is about six miles distant, and the canal is only once opened in fifteen days. In summer the inhabitants are sometimes deprived of good water for months, and when we were in Bokhara the canals had been dry for sixty days; the snow had not melted in the high lands of Samarcand, and the scanty supply of the river had been wasted before reaching Bokhara. The distribution of this necessary of life becomes therefore an object of no mean importance, and an officer of government is specially charged with that duty. After all, the water is bad, and said to be the cause of guinea worm, a disease frightfully prevalent in Bokhara, which the natives will tell you originates from the water; and they add, that these worms are the same that infested the body of the prophet Job! Bokhara has a population of 150,000 souls; for there is scarcely a garden or burying-ground within the city walls. With the exception of its public buildings, most of its houses are small, and of a single story; yet there are many superior dwellings in this city. We saw some of them neatly painted with stuccoed walls; others had Gothic arches, set off with gilding and lapis lazuli, and the apartments were both elegant and comfortable. The common houses are built of sun-dried bricks on a framework of wood, and are all flat roofed. A house in an eastern city commands no prospect, for it is surrounded with high walls on every side. The greatest of the public buildings is a mosque, which occupies a square of 300 feet, and has a dome that rises to about a third of that height. It is covered with enamelled tiles of an azure blue colour, and has a costly appearance. It is a place of some antiquity, since its cupola, which once was shaken by an earthquake, was repaired by the renowned Timour. Attached to this mosque is a lofty minaret, raised in the 542d year of the Hejira. It is built of bricks, which have been distributed in most ingenious patterns. Criminals are thrown from this tower; and no one but the chief priest may ever ascend it, (and that only on Friday, to summon the people to prayers,) lest he might overlook the women’s apartments of the houses in the city. The handsomest building of Bokhara is a college of the King Abdoolla. The sentences of the Koran, which are written over a lofty arch, under which is the entrance, exceed the size of two feet, and are delineated on the same beautiful enamel. Most of the domes of the city are thus adorned, and their tops are covered by nests of the “luglug,” a kind of crane, and a bird of passage that frequents this country, and is considered lucky by the people.

Historical sketch of it.

Bokhara would not appear to have been a large city in ancient times. Its remoteness from all other parts of the Mahommedan world has given it a celebrity, and besides it was one of the earliest conquests of the caliphs. It may be readily imagined, that the numerous offspring of the first Commanders of the Faithful would seek for distinction in its distant and luxuriant groves. Its name was widely spread by the number of learned and religious men it produced; and the affix of “Shureef,” or holy, was soon added to it by its Mahommedan conquerors. It is considered the sure mark of an infidel to say, that the walls of Bokhara are crooked; but strange to add, the architecture is so defective, that I doubt if there be a perpendicular wall in the city. The priests of the present day assert that, in all other parts of the globe, light descends upon earth; but, on the other hand, that it ascends from the holy Bokhara! Mahommed, on his journey to the lower heaven, is said to have observed this fact, which was explained to him by the angel Gabriel, as the reason for its designation. Besides the palpable absurdity of the tale, I shall only mention that the affix of holy is much more modern than the days of the prophet, since I have seen coins which did not bear it, and were less than 850 years old. Bokhara existed as a city in the days of Kizzil (Alp?) Arslan. It was destroyed by Jengis Khan, and threatened by Hulakoo, his grandson; and we have an anecdote of the negotiations with that destroyer, which, I think, I remember as being told of some other place. The people sent forth a sapient boy, accompanied by a camel and goat. When he appeared before the conqueror, he demanded a reason for selecting such a stripling as their envoy. “If you want a larger being,” said the youth, “here is a camel; if you seek for a beard, here is a goat; but if you desire reason, hear me.” Hulakoo listened to the wisdom of the boy—the city was spared and protected; and he granted permission for their enlarging its fortifications. The present walls were built by Ruheem Khan, in the age of Nadir; and, since the equity of its rulers keeps pace with its increasing extent, Bokhara bids fair to be a greater city in modern than in ancient times.

Colleges of Bokhara.

I now availed myself of the acquaintance which I had made with the Moollah on my road from Kurshee, to visit his college, which was one of the principal buildings of that description in Bokhara, the “Madrussa i Cazee Kulan.” I received the fullest information regarding these institutions from my host and his acquaintance, who produced his tea-pot, and gossiped for a length of time. There are about 366 colleges at Bokhara, great and small, a third of which are large buildings that contain upwards of seventy or eighty students. Many have but twenty, some only ten. The colleges are built in the style of caravansarais; a square building is surrounded by a number of small cells, called “hoojrus,” which are sold, and bear a value of sixteen tillas, though in some it is so high as thirty. A fixed allowance is given to the professor, and each of the resident students; the colleges are well endowed; the whole of the bazars and baths of the city, as well as most of the surrounding fields, have been purchased by different pious individuals for that purpose. It is understood by the law, that the revenues of the country are appropriated to the support of the church; a fourth of the sum is distributed on that account in Bokhara; and the custom-house duties are even shared by the priests. In the colleges people may be found from all the neighbouring countries except Persia; and the students are both young and aged. After seven or eight years’ study, they return to their country with an addition to their knowledge and reputation; but some continue for life in Bokhara. The possession of a cell gives the student a claim to a certain yearly maintenance from the foundation, as well as the revenues of the country. The colleges are shut for half the year by order of the King, to enable their inmates to work in the fields, and gain something additional to their livelihood. What would the fellows of Oxford and Cambridge think of mowing down wheat with the sickle? The season of vacation is called “tateel,” that of study “tuhseel.” The students may marry, but cannot bring their wives to the college. In the season of study, the classes are open from sunrise to sunset; the professor attends constantly; and the scholars dispute in his presence on points of theology, while he guides their debates. One person says, “Prove there is a God!” and about five hundred set arguments are adduced: so is it with other matters. The students are entirely occupied with theology, which has superseded all other points: they are quite ignorant even of the historical annals of their country. A more perfect set of drones were never assembled together; and they are a body of men regardless of their religion in most respects beyond the performance of its prayers; but they have great pretensions, and greater show.

Rigour of Mahommedanism.

I have already mentioned the rigour of the Mahommedan law, which is enforced in Bokhara. A few additional instances will further illustrate it. About twelve years since, a person who had violated the law proceeded to the palace, and, in the presence of the King, stated his crime, and demanded justice according to the Koran. The singularity of an individual appearing as his own accuser induced the King to direct him to be driven away. The man appeared the following day with the same tale, and was again turned out. He repaired a third time to the palace, repeated his sins, and upbraided the King for his remissness in declining to dispense justice, which, as a believer of Mahommed, he intreated, that it might lead to his punishment in this world instead of the next. The Ulema, or congress of divines, was assembled: death was the punishment; and the man himself, who was a Moollah, was prepared for this decision. He was condemned to be stoned till dead. He turned his face to Mecca, and, drawing his garment over his head, repeated the kuluma, (“There is but one God, and Mahommed is his prophet!”) and met his fate. The King was present, and threw the first stone: but he had instructed his officers to permit the deluded man to escape if he made the attempt. When dead the King wept over his corpse, ordered it to be washed and buried, and proceeded in person to the grave, over which he read the funeral service. It is said that he was much affected; and to this day verses commemorate the death of this unfortunate man, whom we must either pronounce a bigot or a madman. An incident similar to the above happened within this very year. A son who had cursed his mother appeared as a suppliant for justice, and his own accuser. The mother solicited his pardon and forgiveness; the son demanded punishment: the Ulema directed his death, and he was executed as a criminal in the streets of Bokhara. A merchant lately imported some pictures from China; which were immediately broken, and their value paid by the government; since it is contrary to the Mahommedan laws to make the likeness of any thing on the earth beneath. On some subjects their notions of justice are singular. An Afghan plundered a caravansarai, and was sentenced to die; but permitted to purchase his blood according to the law if he exiled himself from Bokhara, because he was a foreigner. Before the arrangement had been completed, a second robbery occurred by a party of the same nation: the clergy decreed their death; and since they thought that the punishment of the first offender, together with the others, would present a more salutary and impressive example, they returned the blood-money, cancelled the pardon, and executed all the offenders.