Chashmai Ayyub

Bukhara, Uzbekistan

Tradition relates that the Prophet Ayub (Job) struck his staff into the ground on the site of this shrine, creating a well (chashmah), to whose water believers were attracted for its healing powers.

The standing multiple domed structure is rectangular, arranged on an east-west axis. Remains of a large pishtaq and flanking towers on the eastern facade indicate that an entrance iwan with a high rectangular screen originally formed a monumental facade, now lost. Four domed chambers are laid on the east-west axis; the muqarnas vault of the westernmost chamber covered with a tall cylindrical drum above which sits a tent dome. This rear chamber may have originally been a tomb tower, the other chambers added in later construction phases. The chamber immediately adjoining it houses the actual well. The fragment of a carved terracotta inscription on the wall by the well notes a construction date of 1379-1380/781 AH; this inscription may have been relocated from an earlier section of the structure.


Sources:

Golombek, L. and Wilber, D. eds. 1988. The Timurid Architecture of Iran and Turan Princeton: Princeton University Press, 226-227