Prayer Times in Samarkand, Uzbekistan

Praying in Samarkand

Samarkand, the turquoise-domed jewel of the Silk Road, is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in Central Asia — 2,750 years old, and the city where paper-making reached the Islamic world in 751 AD. Around 550,000 people live among monuments that defined an era: the Registan square's three madrasas, the Bibi-Khanym Mosque's massive portal, and the Shah-i-Zinda necropolis, a street of blue-tiled tombs called the most beautiful cemetery in the world.

The Bibi-Khanym Mosque, built by Timur in 1399 and named for his wife, was once among the largest mosques on earth — its 41-metre portal still dwarfs visitors. Samarkand's Islamic heritage runs through its madrasas: Ulugh Beg's 15th-century observatory-madrasa taught astronomy when Europe was in the dark ages. At 39.6°N, Samarkand has fierce continental seasons: summer Fajr near 3:30 AM with Maghrib past 7:55 PM, winter Fajr around 6:25 AM with freezing dawns and Maghrib near 5:15 PM. During Ramadan, the Registan is floodlit at night, and the old city's bakeries sell the region's famous round non bread — stamped with intricate patterns — for iftar and sahur. The Afrosiyob Museum holds the famous 7th-century murals of the Sogdian palace, depicting ambassadors from China, India and Byzantium.