Shahi-Zinda

Geneses of Shahi-Zinda necropolis on the slope of the Afrasiab hill is connected with Kusam ibn Abbes, the cousin of Prophet Muhammad. We know that he took part in the first Arab campaigns to Maverannahr. According to a legend, Kusam was mortally wounded at walls of Samarqand and escaped under the ground where he continuous to live Hence, the name of the necropolis - Shahi-Zinda - "alive king". The martyr Kusam ibn Abbes had obtained a status of Islamic saint and patron of Samarqand by the 10^th-11^th century. In the 12^th-15^th centuries a complex of mausoleum and mosques had been growing along the path leading to Kusam's mausoleum, which exquisite beauty as if denied the death.