At Tashkent’s new Islamic Civilization Center in Uzbekistan, the star attraction is built around a single object. The Uthman Quran, a seventh-century manuscript written in Kufic lettering on gazelle parchment, sits beneath a 213-foot dome in a space designed for maximum impact. Lapis-lazuli-inlaid steps lead toward the holy text. Portuguese pink marble wraps the walls. Eight handwoven silk carpets, each inscribed with Quranic verses, hang like royal tapestries.
Guards are posted throughout to protect one of the oldest surviving Qurans in the world, and a full sound-and-light show—incorporating over 1 million Swarovski crystals—fills the hall from floor to ceiling. The effect of the Quran Hall, which anchors one of the most ambitious cultural projects in Central Asia, is almost psychedelic, like a Pink Floyd concert reimagined as an act of religious devotion.
Opened in March on the grounds of the Hazrati Imam ensemble, a 25-acre architectural site that includes a historic mosque and madrassa, the center is a research library, a digital learning hub, and the world’s largest museum of Islamic civilization. Beyond the Quran Hall, its exhibitions trace Uzbekistan’s history from pre-Islamic cultures and Silk Road exchanges to the Timurid period and the country’s modern era.
Interactive displays, rare manuscripts, and newly repatriated artifacts show how this part of the world became an intellectual crossroads; objects in the collection range from a 10th-century Samanid silver tray and copper inkwell to Baburid armor, a silk covering once used at the Prophet’s tomb in Medina, and Bactrian-period gold pieces related to the Amu Darya Treasure. The center arrives as Uzbekistan’s design profile is rising, fueled by growing interest in ikat, suzani, and ceramics, plus a new wave of arts investment that includes the Bukhara Biennial, the forthcoming Centre for Contemporary Arts Tashkent, and Tadao Ando’s planned National Museum of Uzbekistan in Tashkent.
But for all that momentum, the Quran Hall may be the clearest expression of the country’s cultural ambition: a lavishly staged encounter with a sacred text bound up in centuries of faith, scholarship, craft, and Uzbek identity. This article appeared in the September/October 2026 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here.
Source: www.cntraveler.com
