Theme: Samarkand Plan: Etymology History Geography People

Shia Muslims
According to some data, about 1 million people in the Samarqand Vilayat are Shiites (mostly Shia Twelvers). The population of the Samarqand Vilayat is more than 3,720,000 people (2019). There are no exact data on the number of Shiites in the city of Samarqand. Samarqand Vilayat is one of the two regions of Uzbekistan (along with Bukhara Vilayat), where a large number of Shiites live. In other regions of Uzbekistan there are few Shiites. In Samarqand, there are several Shiite mosques and madrasas. For example, the largest of them are the Punjabi Mosque and the Punjabi Madrassah, the Mausoleum of Mourad Avliya. Every year, Shiites of Samarkand celebrate Ashura, as well as other memorable dates and holidays of Shiites. The total number of followers of Shiism in Uzbekistan is not officially announced, but is estimated at "several hundred thousand." According to WikiLeaks, in 2007-2008, the US Ambassador for International Religious Freedom held a series of meetings with Sunni mullahs and Shiite imams in Uzbekistan. During one of the talks, the Imam of the Shiite mosque in Bukhara said that about 300 thousand Shiites live in the Bukhara Vliayat and another million in the Samarqand Vilayat. The Ambassador slightly doubted the authenticity of these figures, emphasizing in his report that the data on the number of religious and ethnic minorities by the government of Uzbekistan are considered to be a very "delicate topic" in order not to provoke interethnic and inter-religious contradictions. All the ambassadors of the ambassador tried to emphasize that traditional Islam, especially Sufism and Sunnism in the regions of Bukhara and Samarqand, is characterized by great religious tolerance and tolerance towards other religious movements, including Shiites^[47][48][49]
Shiites in Samarqand are mostly Samarqandian Iranians, who call themselves Irani. Most Iranians began to move to Samarqand since the 18th century. Some of them arrived in Samarqand in search of a better life, some were forcibly brought in by the Turkmens who had stolen them, who sold them in Samarqand as slaves, some arrived in the army as soldiers, and remained to live in Samarqand. Mostly they came from Khorasan, Mashhad, Sabzevar, Nishapur, Merv, and also from Iranian Azerbaijan, Zanjan, Tabriz, Ardabil. Shiites are also Azerbaijanis and some Tajiks living in Samarkand. Also Shiites in Samarkand are local Azerbaijanis, as well as a small part of Tajiks and Uzbeks.

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Panjab Shia Mosque

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Panjab Shia Madrasa

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Murad Avliya Shrine