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Sheykh Tair Taj Al-Huda mausoleum
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  • Address:
    Mirza Alakbar Sabir, Shamakhi, AZ5615
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In south-east side of Shamakha city, in Geyler village there is a grandiose monument on the ancient Shamakha-Javad-Ardabil road which goes to Near East. Local people call this monument Piri-Mardakan. This is a magnificent architecture complex. Since XVII century it attracted attention of a number of scientists and travelers coming to these places, including German traveler Adam Oleari.

In different scientific literatures this monument was simply mentioned as "Pir" or "Tomb "until the recent times. But in the time of fundamental investigations, a caravanserai, a cell mosque and other social buildings were found around the monument. Based on these findings, the monument could be included into the list of dervishes’ place kind of monuments. It is possible to say that the tomb is in good condition at present. The construction has been located on a high mountain. It was possible to see it from each side of the village. There are several legends about the person buried in the inside of this complex building, which witnessed centuries’ history. One of them is such: "There was a man named Pirmardakan who came first to this place, lived here and did some field cropping. He used to bring stones from a far away quarry, builds for himself a tomb with his honest wage and plants a garden in his yard. After a long life he died and was buried in the inside of the tomb according to his will. After his death the garden and the building were ownerless and destroyed...”

The tomb plane repeats prevalent cupola tombs’ structure. So, this construction was related to kinds of tombs with castles-cupolas. Since such cupola tombs kind monuments were temple kind of constructions, pilgrims would come to the place where a person was buried and fulfill religious ceremonies. Therefore these types of tombs were used as mosques.

The Tomb was constructed of limestone. Green-blue walls were built using well polished stones. Two rows consist of the stone wall. Also, the cupola part consists of two rows of stone. The tomb part inside of the cloister for dervishes was built in a form of a square and the arches in the corners make it octagonal; the top had been covered with a pyramid form cover. Tomb"s height is 4.7 meters.

Three rooms were added on to the tomb from the east side. The biggest 4.4x7.3 meter sized room was built for praying. The other two rooms have been destructed.

Investigators thoroughly studied this architecture complex once again in 1978; the inscriptions had been investigated anew.

The inscription on the grave stone (sized 0.81 x 0,56 meters) was cleaned from the cement plaster and had been read.

Six rows of suls writing in Arabic language narrate that the grave belonged to sheikh, imam, and scientist Tair Taj el-Huda Mardakani ibn Ali. "Allah" word had been written 13 times in the border surrounding the words, inside of the panels. The date is not mentioned in the inscription, but from the second inscription it was possible to determine the date of the monument.

On the left side of the entrance another inscription was found. Only two lines of the inscription remained safe. The writing mentioned the name of Shirvanshah III Menuchohr’s son I Ferrukhzad. He died in 1203-1204.

After the text of these inscriptions was determined, the investigators faced a divergence of opinion. Some of them say that the Tomb building has been constructed on grave of the person whose name was mentioned in the first inscription according to Shirvansah Ferrukhzad’s order what proves a high reputation and great fame of scientist buried there.

But other investigating historians come to conclusion that the inscription speaks about the construction date of the monument or the grave of Shirvanshah. Because it is known that Shirvanshah I Ferruxzad ibn Menuchohr died in 1203-1204. But because not all the inscription writing remained, it is impossible to determine exactly.

Years were passing and the name of the person buried in the tomb and the name of the tomb were passing from mouth to mouth and got distorted; investigators suppose that "Mardakani" arrived to "Mardakan". Medek is the name of place in the South Azerbaijan in 27 km south-east from Hasanabad. Investigators said that the affixes "an" and "i" indicated sheikh’s origin from Madak. Taj al Hudan was a notable scientist of his time; "Momin", "Sheikh" were his nicknames; he also had a post of "imam", therefore people call him imam of Khanagah.

It was not an accident that Imam lived and carried out his activity in Shirvan. As it is known, XII century is a period of developing science and literature in Azerbaijan including Shirvan. Also, handicraft and trade had developed in Shirvan. There were "Dar el-Edibi" and "Assembly of Poets "hobby groups in Shamakhy which gathered together poets, writers and scientists of that time. It is enough to mention that great masterly and thinker Khagani Shirvani and his uncle Kafieddin Omer ibn Osman, who was a great scientist, doctor and philosopher lived and worked in Shamakhy in that time; they presented inexhaustible pearls to the world of science and literature.

There was a small yard in the opposite side of the Tomb which contained another entrance into the cell. The investigations determined that there were two entrances into the tomb. The entrance from the yard has decorated according to rich architecture techniques. There was a praying hall in the left side of the cell. It was possible to enter here from the yard too.

There was an altar on the south wall of the Mosque. In the time of investigation, two sheikh’s graves have been found in the cell, who had been Shirvanshah’s servants. Two grave stones have been found; the writing on a comparatively small grave revealed that a scientist whose name was Tajaddin and a sheikh have been buried there (XII century). The writing on a bigger grave revealed that Sheikh Zakhraddin who lived in XVIII century had been buried there.

From these and another graves around it is possible to arrive at such conclusion that the tomb (cloister for dervishes) was functioning in XII-XIII centuries and this complex was one of religious centers that had been belonging to Sufis for a certain period of time.

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