Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain

Overview

Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain is a five-peaked limestone ridge in the city of Osh, in southern Kyrgyzstan. Revered as sacred for more than 1,500 years, it is an active Muslim pilgrimage site today, with seventeen shrines in use across its slopes and caves holding ancient rock carvings. A reconstructed mosque crowns its summit. The mountain is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Present

Sulaiman-Too is a protected state heritage site, its management coordinated by a dedicated site council. It is an active Muslim pilgrimage site. Seventeen shrines across its peaks and slopes are in regular use, connected by footpaths.

Religious Significance

Muslims revere Sulaiman-Too as a holy mountain. As Islam spread through Central Asia, the mountain became associated with Sulaiman, an ancient king revered in Islam as a prophet and known in Jewish and Christian tradition as Solomon. Local tradition holds that he prayed on this mountain, and a shrine on the summit is said to mark his resting place. Pilgrims hold that the mountain's shrines and caves cure illness, bringing relief from infertility, headaches and back pain and the blessing of long life. Worshippers tie cloths to trees as prayer offerings and climb to the reconstructed mosque on the summit. Women in particular visit hoping to conceive; one practice includes sliding down a smooth, polished rock.

History & Structure

Sulaiman-Too is a limestone outcrop of five linked peaks, rising some 175 metres above Osh. Its slopes and caves carry more than a hundred sites of rock carvings of people, animals and geometric forms. The small summit mosque known as Babur's House was first built around 1500 by Babur, the founder of the Mughal Empire which came to rule much of South Asia. During the Soviet period, religious practice on the mountain was suppressed and a cave on the southern slope was turned into a museum in the late 1970s. Pilgrimage continued and remains the mountain's primary religious activity. Sulaiman-Too was inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2009.

Resources

• UNESCO: Sulaiman-Too Sacred Mountain