I’ve walked past a lot of mosques in my life, but the Minor Mosque in Tashkent stopped me cold.
It’s not ancient—that’s the first thing that throws you. Built in the early 2000s, the Minor Mosque (also called Mosque-Madrasah Complex) sits in the heart of Uzbekistan’s capital like some kind of alabaster spaceship that accidentally landed in a neighborhood of Soviet-era apartment blocks and kebab stands. The whole structure gleams white marble, roughly 54 meters tall at its main minaret, give or take a meter depending on which tour guide you ask. I used to think mosques had to be old to matter, had to carry centuries of prayer-worn stone to command respect. Turns out architectural weight has nothing to do with age. The Minor Mosque was commissioned by Mukhtar Abdurasulova in memory of her deceased son, and honestly, grief built something extraordinary here. White Bukhara marble covers nearly every surface—walls, columns, the courtyard floor—and when the sun hits it at certain angles in late afternoon, the whole complex seems to hover slightly above the ground, which sounds impossible but I’ve seen it happen three times now.
The marble itself tells a whole story. Bukhara white marble, specifically—not the grayish stuff you see in European cathedrals or the cream-colored varieties from Turkey. This marble has this almost blue-white quality in direct sunlight, like compacted snow that refuses to melt. Quarried from deposits north of Bukhara, it’s been the prestige building material in Central Asia for maybe a thousand years, maybe more. The architects here—led by Ilkhom Merodov, though some sources list other names and I haven’t been able to confirm which is accurate—used modern techniques to achieve what looks like traditional craftsmanship, but here’s the thing: it’s not trying to fool anyone.
Where Contemporary Engineering Meets Centuries-Old Aesthetic Expectations and Somehow Works
The engineering is aggressively modern.
Steel reinforcement runs through those marble columns. Climate control systems regulate interior temperature and humidity—critical in Tashkent’s continental climate where summer temps hit 40°C and winter can drop below freezing. The turquoise dome, which dominates the skyline from blocks away, uses a double-shell construction technique more common in planetariums than religious architecture. Outer shell: decorative, tiled in traditional Uzbek patterns with that signature azure glaze. Inner shell: structural, holding the actual weight, lined with sound-absorbing materials that create this weird acoustic effect where prayers seem to float rather than echo. I guess it makes sense that a 21st-century mosque would solve the echo problem that’s plagued large prayer halls for centuries, but it still feels slightly wrong, like the building is breaking some unspoken rule about how sacred spaces should behave.
The complex can accomodate around 2,400 worshippers—main prayer hall holds maybe 800, the courtyard and auxiliary spaces handle the rest during major holidays. Women’s section is separate but proportionally generous compared to older mosques I’ve visited, with its own entrance and ablution facilities. Architectural historians argue about whether this counts as “authentic” Islamic architecture or just competent pastiche, and honestly that debate exhausts me.
Marble Economics and the Slightly Uncomfortable Question of Modern Religious Monuments
Let’s talk money for a second, because nobody else does. I don’t have exact figures—the project’s financing remains somewhat opaque—but white marble construction on this scale in the early 2000s probably ran into millions of dollars, possibly tens of millions. Uzbekistan’s GDP per capita in 2002 was around $300. Wait—maybe that’s not fair; private donations funded much of it, and Abdurasulova’s family had significant resources. But still. The contrast between the mosque’s luminous perfection and the surrounding neighborhood’s peeling paint and potholed streets creates this visual dissonance that’s hard to ignore. Does a memorial mosque need to be this opulent? Probably not. Does the opulence make it more effective as architecture, as a landmark that pulls visitors and creates civic pride? Definately.
The madrasah component—the educational wing—adds another layer. It’s functional, still operating, teaching Quranic studies and Arabic language. Students sit in marble-lined classrooms with modern whiteboards and LED lighting, which sounds bizarre but apparently works fine. The blend of traditional religious education and contemporary infrastructure mirrors what the building itself attempts: honoring historical forms while refusing to pretend we’re still living in the 15th century.
Why This Particular Pile of Expensive Stone Keeps Nagging at My Brain
Here’s what I keep coming back to: the Minor Mosque shouldn’t work, aesthetically speaking.
It’s too white, too clean, too obviously new. Islamic architecture usually develops patina, accumulates layers of repair and renovation that become part of the building’s story. This mosque emerged fully formed, immaculate, like someone hit “print” on a architectural rendering and it materialized in three dimensions. And yet—and this is the part that irritates me because I can’t fully explain it—the building achieves something genuine. Maybe it’s the proportions, which echo Timurid-era mosques from Samarkand without copying them exactly. Maybe it’s the way the marble weathers (it does weather; I’ve noticed subtle discoloration patterns forming near the fountain). Maybe it’s just that grief, when channeled into architecture, carries a weight that transcends construction materials and design debates.
The minaret’s calligraphy runs maybe 40 meters up the tower in elegant Kufic script—verses from the Quran about mercy and remembrance, though I couldn’t read them myself and relied on a translator who seemed uncertain about a few words. At night they illuminate the whole structure with white and turquoise uplighting, which transforms it into something that looks less like a building and more like an argument made in stone about memory, faith, and what we owe the dead. I don’t know if that argument is persuasive, but it’s definately being made, loudly, in the most durable material the builders could find.
