Paikend

Paikend was a fortified trading city at the western edge of the Bukhara oasis, where the Zarafshan's lower waters met the desert. Its merchants traded across a wide area, and the city became an important centre of early Islamic Transoxiana. A great congregational mosque and a substantial minaret were built in the Samanid period. Water shortages contributed to the city's decline; in the twelfth century the Qarakhanid Arslan Khan attempted unsuccessfully to bring a new canal from the Zarafshan. Some occupation continued into the fifteenth century.