Mausoleum of Hazrati Imam (Kaffal Shoshiy), Tashkent

The Mausoleum of Kaffal Shashi, also known as Hazrat Imam (Hastimam), is an architectural monument and a final resting place of the prominent Islamic leader of the 16th century, Imam Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Ali ibn Ismail al-Kaffal ash-Shashi, revered by Muslims around the world. The sons of Hazrat Imam and his students are also buried here.

The mausoleum was built by the architect Ghulam Husayn in 1541-42; later, the entire Hazrat Imam Complex was built around it. The actual date of the construction and the name of the architect are inscribed, in Arabic, above the front entrance. Other inscriptions, on the basement, have not been preserved, much as the original crypt.

The building features an asymmetric domed portal – khanaka – with residential cells (hujras) intended to provide shelter for dervishes (members of Muslim religious orders) and pilgrims. The complex also includes a mosque, and a kitchen, called oshkhona. To the south of the main building is a small courtyard with a burial ground (sagan).

The mausoleum is clad in hard-burned tiled bricks, decorated with majolica, and is topped with a large blue dome. The windows are decorated with ganch panjara.

Both sides of the mausoleum adjoin chillahona (underground cell). Nearby is the house where Khoja Ahrar Vali, one of Kaffal Shashi's followers, used to live.

During the Soviet period, when the authorities fought against Islam, the mausoleum of Kaffal Shashi was closed. Despite that, worshipers continued to visit it. In 1945, the Council of People's Commissars of the Uzbek SSR issued a decree placing the mausoleum under the jurisdiction of the Spiritual Administration of Muslims of Central Asia and Kazakhstan.