Sacred places of Termez.

"Sometimes one day,
spent in others
places gives more
than ten years
living at home"

Anatole France, French writer of the XIXth - XXth centuries.

Visiting the monuments of the Surkhandarya region.

The mausoleum of Ak-Astana-Baba is less known than the Bukhara mausoleum of Samanids. This is far from regal, rather a very modest, but full of internal dignity architectural monument. The mausoleum is located near the village of Telpek-Chinar in the north-east of the Surkhan-Darya region of Uzbekistan and is considered one of the burial sites or visits (“Kadam-zhoya”) of St. Abu Hurair, an associate of the Prophet Muhammad.
It traditionally dates from the 10th to 11th centuries. In terms of its architecture, the monument represents the classical orthodox form of the Islamic mausoleum: a cuboid brick volume is crowned with a white pointed dome.
The decor, unlike the Bukhara mausoleum, is practically absent, and it would seem that the semantic program is exhausted, but ... On the southeast wall on the right side of the entrance to the Mausoleum there are two amazing round signs. Until now, they did not pay attention.
The signs are based on the composition of extremely rare for the decor of Central Asia heptagonal stars. They are not part of the ornament, completely autonomous and self-sufficient. In the center of the right sign is a spiral plant. Around it, the sun-like sign is a circle with seven wavy rays.
The “sun” is framed by a seven-pointed star. The center of the left sign also contains a spiral-shaped plant, framed by a solar circle. Outside is a more complex seven-figured figure with a star in the center. Her “niches” are occupied by images of plant type: sprouts, petals. 
These signs do not fit into the well-known set of symbols characteristic of the cultures of Central Asia. Their typology is polar to the symbolism of the Samanid mausoleum. Here, as it were, the “Samanid” quadrature is denied. She contrasted with the heptagonal star, spiral, naturalistic elements.
In our version, the characteristic spiral formation in the center of signs can embody Life (Soul) in all its manifestations, including the plant, animal worlds and humanity. This is the “spiral of Life”, which is associatively associated with the spiral type of development of individual plants, for example, a fern, or spiral horns - the unconditional symbol of well-being, wealth, and life in these places.
The sun-like sign with curved rays is a symbol of cosmic fire, cosmic energy, and the sun. It may even represent a more complete embodiment of the semantics of the well-known solar signs in the form of “vortex rosettes”.
This sign is still used in Surkhandarya’s Suzanne embroidery. This is a symbol of the sky rotation, i.e. space traffic symbol. The seven-pointed star can be interpreted as a symbol of harmony, a harmonious device of the cosmos.
For the ancients, the number “seven” is physically related to the structure of the world. This is the number of days of the week of the lunar month, seven heavenly bodies. Sprouts, leaves, petals seem to represent small plant forms and, apparently, express different levels of life development.
The arrangement of iconic symbols within a geometric composition can express a certain relationship between them. Such relationships characterize Ak-Astana-baba signs as cosmograms. The right sign seems to express the general model of the Universe (Cosmos).
This is the sign of Macrocosm, in the center of which is Life (Soul), developing in a spiral. The universe is in motion (the rotation of the sky). The source of the movement is a certain cosmic fire (the Sun), which is animated and has a Life sign inside.
In Ibn Sina’s metaphysics there is the same conclusion: “The force that moves the heavens is infinite and incorporeal. It is an intangible rational force. ” Cosmos is harmonious (the harmony of the number 7) and closed (the world is finite).
Perhaps the right sign is the “male” sign. It is more rational, similar to a geometric crystal; its “spiral sign” contains dots - “spores of life”. On the other hand, it has become, complete, dead sign. The symbol of the Sun-Fire can be interpreted as an eschatological World Fire.
Then here is encrypted information about the death of the World (Death): Life is limited to the limits of the “Fire” in which the World will perish. The left sign expresses the general model of the existence and development of Life (the Soul) in the Universe. This is the sign of the microcosm (Soul, Man).
The development of life has inner cosmic energy. Life spreads in space in circles from the center: the outer circle in life forms is simpler than the inner one. The harmonious structure of Life is expressed by the fact that each elementary “sprout” takes its place in the “matrix of life”.
The development of life is limitless - the sign is open. Probably the left sign is “feminine”, it is a constructive, life-creating sign. There are no disputes, but there are sprouts of life. It is a symbol of creation (and possibly the Creator = God), i.e. becoming a developing world.
This is a sign of life, not death. Since here the “germs” of a new life are outside the symbol of fire, the left sign may be a symbol of the Renaissance. In this interpretation, the combination of two complex signs denotes the universal philosophical formula of "unity and struggle of opposites."
This is the relationship, the unity of male (right) and female (left) beginning as the basis of life. The influence of the Far Eastern philosophical tradition, where the idea of ​​“yin” and “yang” plays an important role, is not excluded.
Another way to decipher the combination of two characters is the unity of what has become and is becoming, death and life, physical end and spiritual rebirth. And finally, the creation and its Creator. Thus, in the capacious signs of Ak-Astana-baba given a concise description of a coherent and original philosophical system.
It contains the ideas of the evolution of life, the development of a spiral, harmony and irrationality of life (the soul) and the cosmos, material finiteness and spiritual infinity, death and rebirth of the living. And so in all respects the signs of Ak-Astana-baba are far from folk art, but a highly intellectual product of a developed culture. I wonder what?
The seven-pointed star seems to indicate quite definitely the Ismaili sect of the Shiites, also called “seven-hearts” (eng. - seveners), who are known to limit the number of imams to seven. The history of mankind was considered by them as seven cycles between the prophetic messages.
The number 7 plays a decisive role in cosmology and Ismaili cosmogony. The preacher of the 10th century from Maverannakhr an-Nasafi claimed that the absolute God separated himself from the creative World Mind, which produced the World Soul by emanation.
The World Soul produced seven cosmic "spheres." Then, by “transforming the spheres,” 7 components of the world arose: earth, water, air, ether, and later plants, of them animals, of them man. The symbol of the World Soul of an-Nasafi can be the "spiral plant" Ak-Astana-baba, the symbol of the divine emanation is the "sun-fire".
In the right sign, the World Soul creates seven spheres - the "heptagonal star". In the left creates the main components of life.

Authority:
"Temuriylar davri madanii Yedgorniklari". Tashkent, 2003, pp. 66 – 74. Bulatov M.S., Arapov A.V., Tuychieva Yu.G. Cosmograms of the early Islamic mausoleums of Central Asia.