In the summer of 1903, Russian artist Konstantin Mishin set out from Ashgabat toward Merv in search of impressions, traveling along the railway that stretches along the Kopetdag ridge. He stepped off the train at the Dushak station and continued his journey in a two wheeled horse drawn cart, covering more than forty kilometers in several hours along a tiring, jolting and dusty road. The local shrine of Meana baba was the purpose of his trip. It can still be seen from afar today. Rising above the foothill plain stands a solitary domed structure, built nearly ten centuries ago on the very spot where, according to tradition, a Sufi lodge – khanaqa – once stood. It was founded by the legendary sheikh Abu Said Abul Khair, known in the Turkmen tradition as Meana baba. In the history of Islamic mysticism, there are few figures of such significance, recognized by their contemporaries and exerting immense influence on the spiritual life of later generations.
During that journey, Mishin made two oil sketches in which we see, in the hazy distance, the silhouette of the architectural complex captured from different angles. The first painting depicts an arched vault and a dome on a high drum. These are the ruins of a mosque built in the 15th century opposite the mausoleum of Abu Said, whose appearance has not changed since then, which is depicted in the second painting. The mosque, stylistically close to the famous masterpieces of Timurid Samarkand, collapsed twenty years after the artist’s visit, so his sketches have now become an important historical document.
In addition to these, the archive of the Institute for the History of Material Culture of the Russian Academy of Sciences preserves a single surviving photograph of this mosque, taken in 1896 by Valentin Zhukovsky, a professor at St. Petersburg University. It shows that only half of the dome remained, yet the quality of the image allows one to discern every brick and important structural detail of the building. Another of his photographs shows the facade of the mausoleum of Abu Said. In the foreground stands a large group of Turkmens together with a Russian officer in a white tunic who accompanied the professor on that trip. Their small figures reveal the scale of the monument, which suffered greatly over time but did not lose its majestic bearing.
After visiting Meana baba, Zhukovsky studied the epigraphic inscriptions on the mausoleum, and three years later he published the hagiography (life) of Abu Said in the original language, composed in the 12th century by his direct descendant Muhammad al Munavvar. Thanks to this source, it is reliably known that the great Sufi sheikh was born in 967 and died at the age of 83 in the medieval town of Mehne, or Maykhana. It was located near the modern settlement of Meana in the Kaakhka district of Akhal province. In the 10–11 centuries this region was called Khaveran. It is frequently mentioned in medieval geographical works as Deshti Khaveran or Khaveri Sahra, which in Persian literally mean the same thing - “the eastern steppe.”
During Abu Said’s childhood, Mehne was a flourishing town in a densely populated oasis between the foothills of the Kopetdag and the Karakum Desert, stretching roughly from present day Tejen in the east to the village of Yashlyk in the west. The largest city of this region and its administrative center was Abiverd, located not far from Mehne. Like all of Khorasan, Khaveran in the 10th century was part of the Ghaznavid state, whose capital – Ghazna – was located on the territory of modern Afghanistan.
Nowadays, almost nothing remains of Mehne, at least on the surface. Only gentle mounds can be seen on the site of former quarters across an area of more than 50 hectares, and between them the directions of the main streets are still visible. However, the fame of Mehne’s illustrious native has grown ever wider. It has spread not only beyond his homeland but far beyond the borders of the Islamic world.
Europe learned of Abu Said in the mid 19th century thanks to the English translation of the prose work Nafahat al uns by the 15th century Persian poet Abd al Rahman Jami – one of the key texts in the history of Sufism. In 1916, the eminent Orientalist, Professor Agafangel Krymsky, published nine quatrains (rubaiyat) in Moscow that were attributed to Abu Said in the translation by academician Fyodor Korsh.
Abu Said Abul Khair is remembered in the history of Sufism not only as the founder of a practical school of the mystical path, but also as a precursor of Omar Khayyam in spiritual poetry. The complete collection of his rubaiyat, published in Iran, contains 720 stanzas. He was the first preacher to use the recitation of poetry during ecstatic rituals, accompanied by music and dance. A distant echo of this tradition is now the “whirling” dance of the Mevlevi dervishes in Konya and other cities of Turkey. What explains the enduring vitality and magnetic power of the legacy of the elder from Mehne? In his book Abu Said Abul Khair: Reality and Legend, Swiss Orientalist Fritz Meier wrote that in Christianity, where images are permitted, an icon or depiction of a saint may serve as a “window to heaven,” through which the believer finds himself “in the radiance of heavenly light.” In Sufism, this role is played by a living teacher or his image. “Whoever seeks the path to God must take it through the dervishes, for they are the gate to Him,” Abu Said noted.
At birth, the future sheikh received the name of Fazlallah (Grace of God). His father’s name was Ahmad, nicknamed Abul Khair (the Good). By profession he was an attar (apothecary) and owned a shop in Mehne. He became the first pir (spiritual mentor) to his son, whom he took from childhood to Sufi gatherings in their native Mehne. After receiving spiritual education from prominent theologians of Merv, Serakhs and Nishapur, Abu Said returned to Mehne and settled in an old, abandoned quarter on its outskirts. Becoming a recluse, he lived there as an ascetic, devoting himself to strict mystical practices and living in near starvation. Later, he purchased this plot and built a khanaqa on it, where his followers settled and where he delivered his sermons and held discussions about God and faith. It was believed in Sufi circles that Abu Said possessed the gift of performing miracles. The story of his friendship with Avicenna (Ibn Sina) is especially popular. Although their philosophical views differed, it did not prevent them from admiring each other’s talents. “What I understood through experiments, he grasped through contemplation,” Ibn Sina said of Abu Said.
Meanwhile, events were unfolding in Khorasan that would later influence the course of history throughout the Near and Middle East, including the Caucasus and Asia Minor. Discontent among the population of Khorasan grew due to the excessive taxes imposed by the Ghaznavid government. The Oghuz Turkmen tribes were the first to refuse to pay tribute to the sultan’s treasury. Direct confrontation began between them and the Ghaznavids. The Oghuz Turkmen army, led by brothers Toghrul Beg and Chaghri Beg of the Seljuk lineage, decisively defeated the main forces of the Ghaznavid sultan Masud in the battle of 1040 near the town of Dandanakan (between Merv and Mehne) and took full control of Khorasan. Seeking a blessing for further campaigns, the brothers went to the very lodge on the outskirts of Mehne to visit the elder Abu Said. Receiving his support, they believed in their destiny and began their victorious march westward into Byzantine lands, which led to the formation of the vast empire of the Great Seljuks.
The sultans of this dynasty always remembered and honoured the sheikh from Mehne. After his death, a magnificent mausoleum – one of the most significant architectural works of the 11th century – was erected over his grave. Over its thousand year history, the monument endured a succession of upheavals and wars that swept across Khorasan, including the fierce Mongol invasion. Yet despite the destruction, the mausoleum of Abu Said was restored again and again. Dynasties changed, state borders shifted, centres of political and cultural life moved thousands of kilometers away from the abandoned town of Mehne, but the grave of the great sheikh remained an object of special reverence for both the population and the ruling elites. This is eloquently evidenced by the traces of endless repairs and even major reconstructions, which could only have been carried out with the support of those in power. A complex of structures grew around the mausoleum, intended to serve the continuous flow of pilgrims.
In the 20th century, the architectural ensemble of Meana baba also attracted the interest of scholars of Islamic art and architecture. Its first researcher was Academician Alexander Semenov, who published a brochure titled A Muslim Mystic and Seeker of God of the 10th–11th Centuries in Ashgabat in 1905, and who led the Khaveran Expedition of the Institute of Turkmen Culture in 1926 and 1929. Numerous Arabic inscriptions of the mausoleum were deciphered and translated into Russian by a member of this expedition, Professor Alexander Schmidt. Twenty years later, the monument was studied in detail by architectural historians Galina Pugachenkova from Tashkent and Anna Pribytkova from Moscow. Later, it was written about by Professors Oleg Grabar and Leonard Harrow (USA), Lisa Golombek (Canada), Robert Hillenbrand (United Kingdom), Thomas Leisten and Sergey Khmelnitsky (Germany). According to Dr. Mukhammed Mamedov, author of a monograph on the Meana baba complex, the mosque and mausoleum were once connected by side wings that housed the cells of dervishes, with a spacious courtyard in the centre. In other words, it was a classical khanaqa, similar to those preserved in many cities of Khorasan.
The virtuoso perfection of brickwork, the emergence of complex structural forms and the luxurious ornamentation of walls with decorative cladding are the characteristic feature of monumental buildings of the Seljuk period. Creation of double and even triple layered domes was a major achievement of architectural thought in the 11–12 centuries. At that time, the corporation of master builders from Serakhs gained wide renown in Central Asia. They were invited to construct prestigious buildings in many cities of the region. Among the rare surviving examples of their work is the mausoleum of Abu Said.
From an architectural standpoint, it represents in many respects a milestone in the creative development of the portal domed group of mausoleums in Iran and Central Asia. The main facade features a very tall pishtaq portal with a pointed arch; the side facades have blind arcades. The dome is of double shell construction, but the outer shell is clearly later and not at all in the spirit of the elegant Seljuk domes. The tall pillar rising above it is all that remains of the original dome, which was apparently covered with bricks glazed in a sky blue hue.
During the years of independence, interest in the personality, life and legacy of Abu Said has grown significantly in Turkmenistan. Conferences have been held, many scholarly and popular articles have appeared in the press, and books have been published, including al Munavvar’s work translated into Turkmen. Beginning in 2005, specialists of the National Administration of Turkmenistan for the Protection, Study and Restoration of Historical and Cultural Monuments and the State Historical Cultural Reserve “Abiverd” carried out a series of measures to strengthen the load bearing structures of the Meana baba mausoleum and to further study its architectural and artistic qualities. Work to clean centuries old patina and conserve the mosaic decoration of the portal has been completed very recently.
Having survived the 20th century, when access to this area was closed to foreigners, the mausoleum has once again become open to all. Over the past thirty years, thousands of tourists and pilgrims have visited it, especially from Iran, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and India, where Sheikh Abu Said Abul Khair is among the most revered saints. The flow of visitors from Russia is growing, as well as from Ashgabat and other Turkmen cities and villages. More and more people are discovering this shrine and the unique monument of a distant past.