Muyi Muborak Madrasah is said to have some hair of the Prophet Muhammad’s hair preserved in it. It is also famous for a great Islamic relic kept in its library: the Uthman Koran. This codex, in Kufic script, dates back to the 8th century and is believed to be the world’s oldest Koran copy. It once belonged to Uthman ibn Affan, the third Caliph (of the four Righteous Caliphs who succeeded the Prophet Muhammad), and still has blood drops on its pages…

According to legends, the manuscript was brought to Samarkand from Iraq by either Tamerlane (Timur) or the famous Sufi Khodja Akhrar. It was kept in a Samarkand mosque for about four centuries till 1869 when Russian Turkestan Governor General Konstantin von Kaufman sent it to the Imperial Library in St. Petersburg. Vladimir Lenin gave it to the Muslims of Ufa, Bashkortostan, Russia, after the October Revolution, and then, in 1924, the codex returned to Uzbekistan, where it has been kept in Tashkent ever since.

This image is special as it's officially not allowed to take pictures inside the library because of the old Koran underneath the dome. We managed to sneak this one though, but thought it inappropriate to take one of the Koran itself..