Merv - Mausoleum of Muhammad ibn Zayd

The mausoleum of Muhammad ibn Zayd on the outskirts of the Seljuk capital – Merv, built around 1112. The mausoleum of Muhammad ibn Zayd is located west of Sultan Qala and is a remarkable monument from the early 11th century.

The name of the mausoleum is known as the Mausoleum of Muhammad Hanafiah. Muhammad Hanafiah was a real person and an ancestor of Khoja Ahmad Yassawi. According to genealogy, Muhammad Hanafiah’s father was Hazrat Ali Murtaza, the nephew and son-in-law of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.V), and his mother was Hanifa, the second wife of Hazrat Ali.

From them Muhammad Hanafiah was born and after twelve generations Khoja Ahmad Yassawi joined their family. Muhammad-ibn-Zayd became famous in his homeland for organising an uprising against the Arab caliphs, which was unfortunately brutally put down and the leader himself executed.

His head was cut off and a mausoleum was built on the spot where he was buried, which has since grown into a magnificent architectural complex. The mausoleum of Muhammad Hanafiah is made of rough stone at its core (with square sides of 8.5 m).

The entire volume is clad in fired bricks on the outside, and inside are rows of sails and a frieze inscription, carefully deciphered by Professor Masson, made of ornamental fired bricks.

The inscription dates it precisely to 1112 – 1113 and links it to the names of Muhammad Sayyid ibn Zayd, who was buried there, and Sharaf id-Din Abu Tahir, governor of Merv province, on whose orders the mausoleum was built in 1112.

Subsequently, the mausoleum with the dome was rebuilt and repaired several times. Another mausoleum and a mosque were built on either side. At the beginning of our century, the dome of the old structure collapsed. In 1937 it was restored by craftsmen from Bukhara – Kurban and Yusuf. Located to the west of the mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar, the mausoleum of Muhammad-ibn-Zayd in Merv can be seen from afar amidst the greenery of the trees.

This low mausoleum, with its large dome harmoniously closing it, conveys a sense of peace and tranquillity. In its shade and among the surrounding trees, there is a feeling of coolness. One of the tamarisk bushes, considered sacred, is decorated like a Christmas tree with colourful scraps of cloth.

Nearby, in front of the entrance to the mausoleum, was a large sardoba, of which only a deep brick-lined pit remains, but no water. There is also no trace of the above-ground covering of the sardoba.

Muhammad Sayyid ibn Zayd lived in the eighth century and was considered a direct fifth-generation descendant of Hazrat Ali. The mausoleum over his tomb was built much later – in 506 Muslim calendar, in the XII century.

It was built of mud bricks and faced with a masonry of burnt bricks. It is a typical Khorasan architectural style with a central dome without a portal. The main façade with the entrance arch in the centre has a decoration of moulded stones.

The mausoleum has three large arches combined with narrow arched niches. The decorative panels are a jumble of beautiful brick patterns. There are beautiful ornamental paintings on the plastered walls of the interior, and above, up to the dome, there is a band of embossed brickwork, patterns and inscriptions in relief.

Laconicism and harmony are part of the architectural language of this memorable mausoleum, which is as old as the majestic Sanjar Mausoleum. The mausoleum has been freed from several layers of amateurish restorations.

The room contains a comparatively rare multi-lobed mihrab form. Intense colours were used in painting the mihrab leaves. Each of the 12 leaves of the “shell” was in bright colours, with white flowers with five petals and a yellow core scattered on a coloured background.

The mihrab is in a rectangular niche that was also once covered by a polychrome painting with a red frieze band at the top, containing an Arabic inscription underlined by a blue wide band.

Small fragments of the mural are barely recognisable. The walls of the laconic, prismatic space below the row of sails are finished with a brick frieze with a relief inscription in brick against the background of a fine carved plant ornament in alabaster.

The dome sails are also finished with a beautiful and each individual ornamental brickwork of fired bricks.