Termez

Termez stands on the northern bank of the Amu Darya, the ancient Oxus, at a crossing between Transoxiana and the lands to the south. Under the Kushans it was a centre of Buddhism, and the remains of monasteries recall that early chapter of its history. In Islamic times it became a flourishing city and produced scholars including the Sufi thinker al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi, whose tomb became a place of pilgrimage.

Genghis Khan's troops destroyed Termez in 1220, but the city was rebuilt. When Ibn Battuta visited in the fourteenth century, he found it flourishing again. The local sayyids, a religious aristocracy claiming descent from the Prophet, supported Timur, and their mausoleums formed the Sultan Saodat complex. In 1404 the Castilian envoy Clavijo crossed the Amu Darya here on his journey to Timur's court at Samarkand. The Timurid age also brought new work to the shrine of al-Hakim al-Tirmidhi.