Kyrgyzstan & Uzbekistan, May/June 2008
We camped in a yurt opposite Tash Rabat an isolated ‘caravanserai’ 15 kilometers off the main Silk Road and what is still a main national road. The function of this building which dates back to the 10th century, has never been fully explained. It could not have been a straightforward caravanserai because it lies so far off the road in a remote, cul-de-sac of a valley, and there is no courtyard for pack animals which was obviously a central feature of a caravanserai. One of the meanings of the verb ‘rabata’ in Arabic is “to be garrisoned”, and Tash Rabat has two large halls each with a raised platform, ostensibly where the soldiers slept. Garrisoned caravanserais in Central Asia were relatively common due to banditry but this still does not satisfactorily explain the lack of space for animals or why it was built so far from the road. North African ‘ribats’ on the coast were built as defensive structures, (see Girl Solo in Arabia/Tunisia/Pearl of the Sahel) but also came to have the additional meaning of being retreats where pious men lived on charity usually extended by the local ruler. This desolate place is much more likely to have been some kind of a religious retreat but why was it built in the middle of nowhere especially if soldiers were needed to protect it?
The splendidly isolated Tash Rabat
In the 10th century, Islam had already arrived in this area principally via the ruling Turkic Karakhanids who held sway until another Turkic tribe, the Seljuks, gained ascendancy in the 11th century. But by the 15th century after the Uzbeks had ousted the Ferghana-born Babur, great-great-great grandson of Tamerlaine and founder of the Moghul dynasty in India, the Kyrgyz were in decline, and Buddhism re-appeared with the Dzungarians, ethnic Tibetan Mongolians, who briefly ruled this area as well as Kashgar. (See previous post, the Silk Road II.) There have been oft-repeated assertions that Tash Rabat was a Buddhist temple and this interpretation may stem from the Dzungarian era, however the high iwan portal and dome over a covered hall with examples of squinches, is a classic early example of Seljuk 11th century architecture albeit more crudely constructed than one finds further west along the Silk Road. The present structure is said to date back only to the 15th century which is even more surprising, unless it was built by the occupants themselves who were not trained masons. Given this area’s history of constant incursion, perhaps it was an outpost from which early warning of impending invasion could be relayed, or were the soldiers protecting Sufi adepts in the time of the Buddhist Dzungarians? Tash Rabat remains shrouded in mystery.
