Safed Bulan
Safed Bulan
The village of Gulistan is located in the South of Kyrgyzstan, in the region of Ala Bukin of Djalal Abad oblast, at the confluence of the Padsha Ata and Chanach Sai rivers. It is the home of one of the most important Moslem shrines in Kyrgyzstan - Safed Bulan and the mausoleum of Shah Fazil.
It is still an operating Sufi mosque and pilgrimage site.
A complex consists of the mausoleum itself, (along with several others), several vaults, a necropolis - about 700m from the main mausoleum and including a collection of 2700 heads – and a mosque – as well as the holy mountain Archa Mazar.
The walls of the mausoleum are 160cm thick and the central cupola is almost 16 m tall. The interior is decorated with decorative panels, rosettes and relief inscriptions with Quranic texts and inscriptions in Farsi. Ibn-Nasir’s tomb stands in the middle surrounded by Islamic grave stones or kayrak.
Shah Fazil ruled the Ferghana valley for some 16 years and is reputed to have brought Islam to Central Asia. Actually, according to the tradition, this distinction probably belongs to his father, Dzharir, a grandson of the Prophet Mohammed. Jarir travelled preaching the new religion but encountered some resistance so the army of Arabs that he had brought with him were busy spreading an enforced adoption of the religion.
Here in the Ferghana valley, however, his alliance with the local communities was to be sealed by his marriage to the daughter of a local governor. The locals had schemed on using the bride to obtain information about the invader but they were foiled by the fact that the girl fell in love with her husband and refused their entreaties. So they resorted to bribing one of the servants who informed them that the Arabs would be at their weakest on Fridays, during the time of Prayer.
So, the rebels burst in upon the Arabs whilst they were at prayer, and although some were able to escape, some 2700 prisoners were taken and quickly despatched – beheaded.
Bulan was a woman, (a black woman), who searched the corpses for the body of her lover. Despite it being forbidden she collected the skulls of the fallen and washed the blood from them in the nearby stream and buried them. According to tradition, in recognition of her good deeds, Allah turned her white, (although more secular historians have come up with alternative explanations for her transformation), and this led to the name given to the shrine Safed Bulan, which means White woman. After her gruesome task was completed she stayed on and lived out her life in the village looking after the graves of the fallen warriors. After her own death, she was buried nearby and a special mausoleum was erected in her honour.
Jarir escaped the slaughter and returned to Arabia. Here he had a son, Fazil, and eventually met his end when he was poisoned.
Fazil learned of the treachery which had befallen his father and decided to seek revenge. He came to Central Asia and stayed on, ruling the country for 16 years before, like his father, he was poisoned at a feast. The mausoleum was reputedly built by his son as his last resting place, around 1050 AD.
Although historians regard this story as just a legend, (as there is no account of such incidents in other sources), archaeologists have discovered evidence of as large battle dating from this period nearby.
Under Islamic tradition, the dead are not to be disturbed and so, although the faithful made pilgimages and prayed at the site, there were no attempts to excavate it. During the Soviet period, however, several tombstones were removed to museums in Tashkent and St. Petersburg. One of them is said to record that body of one of the prophet Mohammed’s relatives was buried on the site.
The site underwent major restorations in 1978 and 1996. Apparently the restorations made things worse in that they used concrete instead of traditional materials – resulting in damage to the microclimate inside. The US government has given a grant for new work to be undertaken to correct the damage.
It is claimed that this is the site of the first mosque to be constructed in Central Asia. Apparently, there is now also a new twenty-first century mosque opened on the site.
Bishkek