Location – Khatlon region, Kulob. In Kulob Central Park.
Right in the centre of Kulob, near the Museum of Regional Studies, surrounded by centuryold sycamores, is the mausoleum of the prominent 14th century poet, philosopher and thinker Mir Said Ali Khamadoni.
His son Muhammad, sisters, relatives as well as the former custodian of the mausoleum and mosque, Sheikh ShohiToliqoni from the Afghan town of Taloqan, are also buried here.
The mausoleum was built from baked bricks and consist of a domed structure with asymmetric design. The main entrance is on the south-east side. The central room, with a portal entrance and dual dome in its northeast section, is the core of the structure and the oldest part, dating back to the late 14th century. A mosque and shrine were later added to the existing building. In the 1970s the mausoleum was restored. Professionals that participated in the restoration works were anxious that their repair work preserve the mausoleum in the same way it was made over the course of five centuries, when local architects used their own techniques of construction and decoration.
Next to the mausoleum is an epitaph on a marble headstone which is decorated with a geometrical ornamental pattern, in the form of an oval prism 176cm long, 35-38cm wide and 51cm high and weighing about a ton. According to legend, it was delivered to Kulob from India by elephants. There are several lines in Persian on the eastern end of the headstone. Most of the epitaphs were made in Arabic.
The epitaph of the western end contains the family tree of the person to whom the headstone was dedicated, and this is important from a historian’s viewpoint. It was the son of the Khatlon ruler – Amir Muhammad bin ShaikhAbdulloh. The mausoleum is now a place of pilgrimage for the local population and visitors from other regions of the country.
