Uzbekistan’s Center for Islamic Civilization in Tashkent brings together centuries of Islamic heritage, scholarship, science, and culture, showcasing historic exhibits and the achievements of figures such as Babur, Al-Biruni, Al-Khwarizmi, Avicenna, and Alfraganus
Uzbekistan is an overwhelmingly (96.3%) Muslim and secular nation, where Islam is the core of historical and cultural identity. A golden age of science, literature, and architecture followed the introduction of Islam to Central Asia in the seventh century as part of a globalized world. Bukhara and Samarkand, in what is now Uzbekistan, were important centres along a cross-continental Silk Road, which stretched from Venice (Italy) to Xi’an (China) for 1,500 years (130 BCE to 1453 CE).
At the confluence of global ideas, Samarkand was at the center of a second renaissance of art and science in the 15th and 16th centuries under the Timurid Empire. The Russian Empire, and later the Soviet Union, suppressed Islam in Central Asia in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Soviets took away a significant portion of the region’s cultural treasures.
Uzbekistan began reviving its Islamic heritage and cultural identity when it gained independence in 1991. In March 2026, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev opened the three-storey Center for Islamic Civilization (CISC) in Tashkent to the public as a major step towards this direction. Nine years earlier, President Mirziyoyev presented the idea at the UN in 2017, saying their most important task is to convey to the global community the truly humanistic essence of Islam. He underlined that Islam calls to goodness and peace, to safeguarding the genuine human core.
Reviving Uzbekistan’s Legacy of Islamic Scholarship and Science
The centre has been imagined as a hub for understanding of Islamic civilization as one of peace, goodness, science, enlightenment, and spiritual culture. It brings together centuries of heritage for an enlightened future. Uzbek architect Abdukakhkhor Turdiev designed CISC, drawing inspiration from classical Islamic architecture. The centre is billed as an international intellectual platform to highlight the role of Islamic civilisation in global history and the development of science and culture.
CISC celebrates Uzbekistan’s historical role as an Islamic scholarship centre and seeks to revive its spirit in the region, which produced great scientists and thinkers who influenced world civilization, such as Al-Khwarizmi, Alfraganus, and Avicenna. CISC showcases the region’s history to inspire younger generations to explore astronomy, medicine, literature, and art. Part museum and part academic research facility, CISC houses 2,000 items of Uzbek cultural heritage reclaimed at the world’s two largest and oldest fine art auction houses, Christie’s and Sotheby’s.
CISC extends across 15,000 sq metres in the Hast-Imam district, Tashkent’s spiritual heart, next to the Hazrati Imam complex built near the grave of Hazrati Imam, a poet and an artist and one of Tashkent’s first Muslim preachers, from the 16th to 20th centuries. The complex includes the Moʻyi Muborak madrasa, the Qaffol Shoshi mausoleum, the Baroqxon Madrasa, the Hazrati Imam mosque, the Tillashayx mosque, and the Imam al-Bukhari Islamic Institute.
Islamic Heritage, AI, Qur’ans, and Modern Scholarship
As many as 1,500 specialists from over 40 countries helped build CISC over eight years as a center with scientific, architectural, and cultural elements. An interactive educational zone at CISC allows conversations with ‘living portraits’ of historical scholars and thinkers, leveraging virtual reality, augmented reality, and artificial intelligence. CISC is a cultural and educational platform with mosaic-covered archways and blue tile-covered domes where visitors can engage with artifacts and the lives and ideas of influential figures.
The Hall of the Holy Qur’an is at the core of the complex. The seventh-century Qur’an of the third Caliph Othman, the earliest written version of the Muslim holy scripture, the centrepiece of the hall. The Mushaf of Othman supersedes all other Quranic versions as the definitive one. Caliph Othman ordered its compilation. CISC also hosts 114 historic Quranic.
CISC’s second floor is dedicated to research and has a library with over 200,000 books. Film studios and publishing houses surround an exhibition area. CISC merges historic details with contemporary techniques. It has been imagined in the spirit of historic cities like Samarkand. Its five exhibition spaces are organised thematically, showcasing the talents of Central Asian artists, writers, craftspeople and philosophers across history.
A Journey Through Central Asia’s Scientific and Cultural Legacy
CISC’s ‘Wall of Civilisations and Discoveries’ is a 270-metre-long multimedia installation across three halls, showcasing Uzbekistan and the Central Asian contributions to global science, culture, art and spirituality from antiquity through the Renaissance.
The centre’s 65-meter dome and four portals symbolise the unity of Uzbekistan’s regions. The concept of the exhibitions is built along a chronological axis. It features a School of Calligraphy and craft workshops, the King’s Foundation School of Traditional Arts and Uzbekistan’s first children’s museum, where science is explained through plays, experiments, and multimedia installations.
A 460-seat conference hall at the centre has been set up for international dialogue and cooperation. UNESCO Director-General Khaled El-Anany called the Center a true testament to cultural diversity, tolerance, openness, and Uzbekistan’s role in the development of humanity.
Avicenna and the Mughals: How Uzbekistan Shaped History
In the Gallery of Great Figures, 14 large arches represent key historical events, discoveries, and prominent figures, including Zahiriddin Muhammad Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire, which lasted over 300 years and continues to influence Indian art, culture, cuisine, and fashion. The Mughal-era Red Fort in Delhi and Taj Mahal in Agra are symbols of political power, the site of the prime minister’s Independence Day address, and India’s symbols globally. Uzbekistan regards Babur as a hero. The Hall of Honour celebrates Ibn Sina (Avicenna), Al-Khwarizmi, Al-Biruni, and Al-Farabi.
Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina, better known as Avicenna, wrote the 11th-century magnum opus, Kitab al-Qanun fi al-tibb (the Canon of Medicine). An integrated guide to surgery and medicine, it influenced medical concepts for centuries. In the 12th century, the Canon was translated into Latin. It remained part of the European medical curriculum for five centuries.
Avicenna organised the million-word Canon into five books. He listed drugs of vegetable and mineral origin, diseases of individual organs, conditions affecting the body, medicinal compounds, their uses, and effects. Avicenna documented eye anatomy, described conditions such as cataracts, explained that tuberculosis is contagious, and provided the symptoms of diabetes. He described types of facial paralysis, psychiatric disorders, and the spine’s functional neuroanatomy.
How Avicenna and Al-Khwarizmi Shaped Medicine and Algorithms
Avicenna contributed to perinatal medicine and the study of deformity. He argued for interrupting transmission vectors and preventing sickness, laying the foundation for modern medicine. Avicenna was a prolific author of texts on metaphysics, theology, medicine, psychology, earth sciences, astronomy. Avicenna showed brilliance at an early age. He memorised the Quran at 10, mastered jurisprudence, and learnt philosophy.
Proficient in Arabic, literary classics, and logic, Avicenna began studying medicine at 13 and was an established physician five years later. He laid the foundational concepts of public health, emphasising the importance of diet, clean water, personal hygiene, and environmental factors. He established a code of conduct that parallels modern bioethical principles. Avicenna was one of the leading thinkers of the Islamic Golden Age (eighth to 13th century) and has been described as having Goethe’s mind and Leonardo da Vinci’s genius.
Algorithms, now critical to our daily lives, would not have been possible without ninth-century mathematician Muhammad ibn Musa Al-Khwarizmi, who was born in Uzbekistan’s Khiva. The term algorithm comes from the Latinized version of Al-Khwarizmi’s name, Algorismus, and algebra from the title of his work on calculation by completion and balancing.
How Al-Khwarizmi and Alfraganus Shaped Mathematics and Astronomy
Khwarizmi headed Baghdad’s storied House of Wisdom, which sourced knowledge from around the world during the Golden Age. His work is considered the foundational text of modern algebra. Khwarizmi presented a systematic way of solving quadratic equations for the first time. His approach to mathematics made much of modern algorithmically-based technology possible. Science historian George Sarton has called the period between 800-850 CE ‘the Time of al-Khwārizmi‘.
Like Babur, Abul-Abbas Ahmad ibn Muhammad ibn Kathir al-Farghani (Alfraganus), another ninth-century scientist, was born in Farghana. He was among the astronomers who created a celestial map for navigation, guiding travelers across land and sea. Alfraganus defined the Earth’s circumference and the tilt of its axis. He calculated the longest and shortest days of the year.
Alfraganus described the farthest and closest points of a celestial body’s orbit relative to its center of attraction. He predicted solar eclipses and developed astronomical and hydrological instruments used to determine local latitude and for triangulation. Alfraganus’s ‘The Book on the Construction of the Astrolabe’ is the oldest document detailing the astrolabe’s theoretical design.
How Alfraganus and Al-Bīrūnī Advanced Astronomy
The Greeks used the astrolabe for astronomical purposes. Alfraganus used it to find the coordinates of cities and determine stellar coordinates. The Golden Age scholars used the astrolabe to develop trigonometry and discover new values for sine, cosine, tangent, and cotangent, compile star catalogs, and determine directional points. Alfraganus helped develop more accurate ways of monitoring water levels. He measured them with precision by integrating knowledge of astronomy, hydraulics, and mathematics. Alfraganus’s discoveries inspired world-changing journeys, including Christopher Columbus’s expeditions.
Al-Bīrūnī, who was from Khwārezm, was an astronomer, mathematician, ethnographist, anthropologist, historian, and geographer. He accompanied Maḥmūd of Ghazni on his campaigns into northern India, where his observations earned him fame as an ethnographer, anthropologist, and historian. Al-Bīrūnī’s 146 titles included half on astronomy and mathematics. His book on Indian culture, Taḥqīq mā li-l-hind min maqūlah maqbūlah fī al-ʿaql aw mardhūlah (Verifying All That the Indians Recount, the Reasonable and the Unreasonable), is the most important of his encyclopaedic works and includes the lore that he gathered about India and its science, religion, literature, and customs.
Al-Bīrūnī’s other works include Istīʿāb al-wujūh al-mumkinah fī ṣanʿat al-asṭurlāb (Exhaustive Book on Astrolabes), which dismisses the possibility of Earth’s motion, as a consequence of a particular case of one astrolabe projection, as philosophical speculation that should not preoccupy the practical astronomer and applied mathematician.
