Mir-i-Arab Madrasa

When the Mir-i-Arab Madrasa opened in 1535, its funding source was as grim as its azure domes were brilliant: the sale of 3,000 Persian captives into slavery. Yet centuries later, this same institution became an unlikely survivor, one of only two madrasas the Soviet Union permitted to operate, making it a rare conduit between the atheist superpower and the Muslim world. While neighboring mosques were shuttered and repurposed as warehouses, students continued their studies here, ensuring that when Uzbekistan gained independence in 1991, there were still scholars who remembered.