Forty Steps of Shahi Zinda

Shah-i-Zinda is the astonishingly beautiful and magnificent architectural ensemble of ancient Samarkand. The ancient monument conceals many a secret and, like the legendary sphinx, presents a riddle at the very start in its forty-step entrance stairway. The stairs are a test, visitors are told: if they count the same number of steps on the way up as on the way down then that is a sign of virtue. Many tourists try it out and count the ancient steps, but most are unaware that in doing so they are following profound and ancient spiritual traditions.
Over twelve centuries ago, Arab warriors and missionaries entered Samarkand, spreading word of the new Islamic faith to the residents of Sogdiana who at that time followed a number of different religions. Kusam, the son of Abbas (the true uncle of the Prophet) was among these newcomers to Samarkand.

The Arabs knew that Kusam was held in high regard by the Prophet ("resembling me both in heart and temper"), but they could not save him from an arrow fired by one of the resisting town dwellers. Legend has it that Kusam did not die, but was saved by the grace of God, mantled by Holy Khizr and taken to jannah alive. Thus he slipped through his enemy's fingers and his body was never found.
The story about the mysterious disappearance of Kusam ibn Abbas endured, and drew pilgrims and dervishes to the place where the "grace of God once again filled holy Samarkand with its light". When visitors became too numerous, a mosque and symbolic mausoleum (cenotaph) were erected.
Soon it was proclaimed that three visits to the mausoleum of the Prophet's cousin together with the fulfillment of various rituals and prayers could serve as a substitute for the obligatory pilgrimage to Mecca, if the pilgrim had no opportunity to journey to Arabia. Shah-i-Zinda became even more popular, Mecca being a journey of some 3,000 kilometers fraught with fatigue, privations and difficulties.
It was at this time that the stairway to the Shah-i-Zinda complex became a symbol of the great transformation of the human spirit, a path to God. From then on, instead of proceeding straight to the shrine, pilgrims followed a forty-day prayer ritual, which culminated in reaching the top level of the complex.

People came to Shah-i-Zinda for forty days, taking one step a day as they quietly cited verses from Koran and reflected on their intentions and on God. Some of them followed a similar path inwardly, sitting under the roof of the iwan (terrace) at the foot of the stairway. Only after forty days were they at liberty to enter the street to the upper mosque of the complex and main mausoleum.
That was in daytime; at night, Muslim mystics - Sufis - took the pilgrims' place and performed their liturgy - the focused citation of the names of Allah (Ruler of the Worlds, Most Merciful, Savior, Creator...). Depending on the spiritual school to which they belonged, these prayers could either be silent or spoken out loud.
A legend tells how Bakhauddin Nakshbandi, the leader of the most powerful Sufi Order, who lived in Bukhara in the fourteenth century (over six centuries after Kusam's miraculous escape in Samarkand), spent his forty-day prayer in Shah-i-Zinda. Daily praying to God and going up step by step, he reached the upper level of the stairway. At that moment he saw a man on a white horse riding at him at full speed. The horseman, gazing attentively into the face of the master, suddenly stopped his horse and spoke with the great Sufi.
Awestruck pilgrims observing from below watched how, after the conversation, the unknown horseman swung his horse round and disappeared in the direction from which he had appeared so suddenly. According to the legend, it was Kusam ibn Abbas himself, putting the great master to the test at the end of his voyage.
The architectural complex gained popularity among Sufis. Regular prayers began to be performed there on Thursday and Friday nights. The Russian ethnographer Sergei Maslovski (Mstislavskiy), who visited Samarkand in the late nineteenth century, wrote about how he took part in one such prayer session disguised as a dervish: at night, Sufis of the Kadiriya Order gathered in a circle at the upper mosque of Shah-i-Zinda and sang prayers, sometimes in chorus, sometimes one by one, slowly swinging, the sounds echoing under the ancient domes and arches. Maslovski described how the participants gradually fell into a trance, while the mosque was alive with an outpouring of psychic and spiritual energy, overwhelming worshippers and creating indefinable sensations of the divine presence.
Nowadays, night prayers at Shah-i-Zinda are no longer practiced, but Sufis continue to visit the complex. Often in private, without attracting attention, they sit by the steps of the stairway, at the upper or lower mosque and silently pray, repeating divine names.
Do not disturb them. Concentrate on your own path, focusing on your own spiritual growth and intentions, as you enter one of the most revered places in Samarkand.
That very intention - to be close to God, and the spiritual principle of vigilance along on e's path of learning - is at the root of the advice given at the stairway -"Count the steps to learn about yourself..."