Tours to Shopan ata mosque on Mangistau. 

"A horseman named Musa once met two girls who were trying in vain to lift a stone well lid. The horseman helped them and watered their sheep. Then the girls invited Musa to the home of his blind father, who kept the young man as a shepherd. Nine years later, Musa decided to leave the old man, but the old man asked Musa to stay for another year, promising to give him all the white lambs of the future offspring for his efforts. The following year, all the lambs were born white. Then the old man married Musa to his youngest daughter and named the young man Shopan ata - the patron saint of sheep."

E. Barkaliev. "Monuments of Material Culture of Mangistau and Ustyurt." Article "Legends and Life." Newspaper "Lights of Mangyshlak".

Sights of Shopan ata mosque on Mangystau.

Underground mosque Shopan ata is located at an altitude of 126 meters above sea level, in western part of ancient necropolis of same name, 8.2 kilometers north-east of Ulkuduk valley, 20.4 kilometers north of village of Senek, 48.9 kilometers north-east of city of Ozen, 35.9 kilometers north-west of Mount Bokty in Karakiya district of Mangistau region. 
Necropolis is one of largest in Mangistau. It has more than 4,000 burials of different times and types. Gravestones date from the Xth - XIIth centuries to the present day. Early Muslim burials are represented by monuments of the beltas and pyramids type, primitive stone fences, as well as mausoleums, saganatams, sandyktasy, ushtasy, composite koytasy with kulpytasy.
Shopan ata Mosque-Tomb is carved into a rock massif located in a ravine and may have appeared before the cemetery. This structure had a religious and cult purpose; this can be judged by its architecture. The rooms are divided into three main groups.
The central position is occupied by a rectangular hall (7.1 - 5.1 meters), a kind of khanaka. A gentle staircase, located in the southwestern corner of the central hall, has now turned into a gentle ramp. In the upper part there is a prayer room and two burial chambers.
The rounded western wall of the prayer room has collapsed, so it is difficult to determine whether it was fenced with railings or was an open area. The burial chamber, in which, according to legend, Shopan ata himself was buried, is located in a depression in the rock, this is a small vaulted building.
A long, now blocked-up corridor led to the second burial chamber, located in the northwestern corner of the mosque complex, where, according to legend, the grave of his daughter is located. Along the entire width of the southern and western walls of the central hall, two spacious rooms were cut out for visiting pilgrims.
Along the northern wall, dishes are placed - cauldrons, samovars, teapots, kumgans, buckets and other household utensils. During the day, the room is lit through a round skylight with a diameter of 1.2 meters, which is slightly offset from the center of the ceiling.
A long wooden pole, hung with strips of fabric and argali horns, comes out through the hatch to a height of more than one meter. The place where the pole stands is considered sacred. The room of the mosque, located on the eastern side of the central hall, is connected to it by a doorway and a manhole window.
Due to weathering, the northern wall of the mosque is badly damaged. The rock walls of the entire mosque complex are roughly hewn and have no decorative elements. Apparently, such a harsh environment corresponded to the spirit of asceticism of the mystic hermits.
A little later, apparently, a second mosque was built, located to the east of the first and having a separate entrance. Its prayer hall is located transversely and is oriented with a mihrab to the south. In front of the northern entrance to this mosque, on the side of the cemetery, there grows a mulberry "sacred tree" with a large crown, providing dense shade and coolness in the summer.
To the east of it, along the bank of the ravine, several more chambers for group burials were cut out. For many centuries, the underground complex was a place of pilgrimage for the nomads of Mangyshlak. There is no reliable historical information for its exact dating; the name Shopan Ata does not appear in the known written sources.
History of research of underground mosque Shopan ata.
For the first time, the monument was studied in 1951 - 1952 by an architectural expedition led by M. Mendikulov, and in 1977 - 1978 by an expedition of the Ministry of Culture of the Kazakh SSR. As a result, these two expeditions took topographic and architectural measurements of the monument.
In 2000, under the guidance of restorers Saduakas Agitayev and Turlan Eskuat, employees of the Scientific Research Institute "KazProektrestavratsiya" carried out restoration work on the monument. In 1982, by the decision of the Council of Ministers of the Kazakh SSR, the underground mosque Shopan ata was accepted for state registration and protection at the republican level. 
Legend about Shopan ata.
But legends about him are widespread among the local population. One of them says that Shopan ata was a student of the famous Sheikh Khoja Ahmed Yassawi. One day, Khoja Akhmed gathered his disciples and ordered them to shoot their arrows through the shanyrak, a hole in the roof of his yurt.
Wherever the arrows landed, they would preach the ideas of Sufism. Shopan Ata's arrow reached Mangyshlak and fell on a small mountain near the village of the rich cattle breeder Bayan. A few months later, Shopan ata arrived in these parts, found his arrow and hired himself out as a shepherd to Bayan.
Bay soon realized that his shepherd was not an ordinary person, gave him his daughter in marriage and patronized them. At the foot of the mountain where the arrow fell, Shopan ata built an underground mosque. Based on the historical information and folk legends provided, the Shopan ata mosque complex can be dated to the end of the XIIth - beginning of the XIIIth century, when the first preachers began to penetrate Desht-i-Kipchak.
Geographical coordinates of underground mosque Shopan ata: N43°32'56 E53°23'26

Authority:
Murat Kalmenov. "Underground mosques of Mangistau. Almaty. Publishing house "Orkhon". 2009. 160 p.

Photos by:
Alexander Petrov.