Ulugbek Madrasah on the Registan

Muhammad Taraghay, known as Ulugbek (“great ruler”), was a grandson of Timur. He governed Samarkand for about forty years while his father Shahrukh ruled the empire from Herat, and he spent much of that time not on conquest but on science. He founded madrasahs in Samarkand, Bukhara and Gijduvan, and an observatory on a hill outside Samarkand whose star catalogue was one of the most accurate before the telescope.

The Registan madrasah was his first great building in the city. It faced a khanaka (Sufi lodge) that he built opposite, and together with a caravanserai and mosques they turned the square into a monumental centre. Ulugbek became ruler of the whole empire in 1447 but was overthrown and killed in 1449 at the order of his son.

The madrasah follows the classic plan of Central Asian colleges: a tall entrance portal (pishtaq) leads to a square courtyard surrounded by two storeys of student cells, with lecture halls and a winter mosque in the corners. Four domed halls once rose over the corners, and four minarets stood at the outer corners; two survive.

The portal is the highlight. Its arch is framed by mosaic panels of interlaced stars and polygons in blue, turquoise and white, a style that suits a building dedicated to geometry and the sky. Inscriptions in Kufic and thuluth script run around the facade. Much of the tilework was restored in the 20th century, but the design follows the original.

In 1932 Soviet engineers straightened the north-east minaret, which had been leaning dangerously, using a system of cables and jacks. It is one of the better-known episodes of the Registan’s restoration.

Contemporary sources say the madrasah had around fifty cells and over a hundred students. Its teachers included Qazi-zada Rumi, a mathematician from Anatolia, and later Ali Qushji, who continued Ulugbek’s astronomical work and later took this tradition to Istanbul. Ulugbek himself is said to have lectured here. The curriculum combined Islamic law and theology with mathematics, astronomy and philosophy, reflecting the intellectual life of Timurid Samarkand.

The madrasah is on the west (left) side of the Registan when you face it from the viewing platform. Today its cells hold craft shops, and the courtyard is a quiet place compared with the square. Look up at the inner facades of the courtyard, which keep more of their original tile than the outer walls. The portal faces east, so morning light falls directly on it and is the best time for photographs.

The combined Registan ticket covers this madrasah, Sher-Dor and Tilya-Kori. To complete the Ulugbek story, visit his observatory and museum on the Tashkent road and his tomb in the Gur-Emir mausoleum.

The madrasah is one part of a wider story you can follow across the city. Ulugbek’s observatory, on a hill about 3 km north-east of the Registan, held a giant meridian arc used to measure the positions of the stars; its underground section survives, with a small museum. His star catalogue, the Zij-i Sultani, listed over a thousand stars and was later translated and studied in Europe.

Ulugbek is buried in Gur-Emir beside his grandfather Timur. When his remains were examined in 1941, they confirmed the chronicles’ account that he had been beheaded. For Uzbeks he is a symbol of the scientific golden age of Central Asia, and his name appears on universities, streets and the national observatory. Visiting the madrasah, the observatory and his tomb on the same day gives a full picture of the man who shaped 15th-century Samarkand.

The madrasah shares the Registan with Sher-Dor and Tilya-Kori, all on one ticket. Gur-Emir, where Ulugbek is buried, is a ten-minute walk to the south-west, and his observatory is about 3 km north-east, a short taxi ride past Afrasiyab. Tashkent Street leads from the Registan to Bibi-Khanym and Siab Bazaar in about 15 minutes. A guide can link all these sites into one Ulugbek-themed walk.