Last spring, in anticipation of the Night of Power (Gadyr gijesi), a significant date in the Muslim calendar, four new mosques were opened in villages across Turkmenistan. This has become a common feature of the Turkmen regime, which has built half a dozen of mosques in the last years despite being one of the worst performing countries in religious freedoms, including Islam.
Mosques built out of white marble crowned by golden domes have been cropping up in Turkmenistan since Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov rose to power back in 2006. Although the trend started with his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, it has been with Berdymukhamedov Senior that a religious building spree has taken place, especially in the last years.
This might seem paradoxical in a country where religious freedoms are repeatedly violated by the authorities. Turkmenistan has notoriously been making the United State’s government list of Country of Particular Concern (CPC) since 2014 and there is no indication that this will change in the near future. Outward religious expressions are persecuted, as well as those considered by the state to be “too religious”. Anyone who steps out of the tightly-controlled state religious guidelines is subject to persecution. It is therefore no surprise that mosques, no matter how new or shiny, are mostly empty. In addition, in the past both the Niyazov and Berdymukhamedov regimes embarked on the demolition of smaller mosques. So why build them then?
In his personality cult, Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov also cultivates the image of a pious man. It is not uncommon to see him praying for noted events such as the passing of a relative. As he has been getting older, this profile has become more present, as well as his religious remarks, including references to Prophet Muhammad’s age of 62 years, which he reached in 2019. It could very well be that has he ages and gets closer to the end of his life, he has started to, outwardly, turn to religion. But whether that is real or not, the state of religion has not changed.
The façade of piety, after all Turkmenistan is nominally Muslim-majority country, combined with the vanity projects that have been driving many of the Turkmen leadership’s decisions, can explain that growing number of mosques built. Like the marbled hotels in the capital or Avaza, the large Turkmenbashi port terminal or the new city of Arkadag, the mosques remain underused. However, it is worth having a look at them.
Despite enjoying many common features, including marble, a material much-loved by Turkmen dictators, and many of them looking alike, they all feature differently in terms of importance. From mosques directly linked to the presidents to more modest provincial and local ones, or temples linked to the country’s foreign policy.
Presidential mosques
The Turkmen leaders have so far followed the age-old tradition of Central Asian rulers of building and naming religious buildings, whether mosques or madrasahs, after themselves. This started in the early 90s, when president Saparmurat Niyazov, better known as Türkmenbaşy, decided to commemorate his pilgrimage to Mecca (hajj) by erecting what would become the Saparmyrat Hajji Mosque.
Back in 1995, when the mosque was built, gold and its derivatives had not yet established themselves as a preferred material in the leader’s colour palette and the mosque’s dome ended up being turquoise. The building itself has a capacity for 8,000 worshippers and boasts four minarets.
The location chosen, the town of Gökdepe, less than 50 kilometres north-west of Ashgabat, was no coincidence. It was there that the Turkmen defeated the Russian invaders in 1879 and, more importantly, made their last stand against the Russians two years later in a dramatic siege that ended up in a massacre. At the time when the mosque was built Turkmenistan was asserting its independence, so building it at the site of one of the most important events in the Turkmen’s history made sense.
Niyazov chose for its construction his favourite French company: Bouygues. The same organisation was selected by Turkmenbashi to build his second grand mosque that would also become his final resting place.
Turkmenistan’s first president was born in Gypjak, then a village in the outskirts of Ashgabat. It was there that he commissioned Bouygues to build the Türkmenbaşy Ruhy Mosque. By the time works started in 2002 gold(en) and marble were firmly established as the preferred building materials and so the temple was crowned by a golden dome somewhat reminiscent of the Sultan’s Palace in the old Disney Aladdin cartoon. The mosque is said to have cost $100 million and included a mausoleum next to it that is where Niyazov was laid to rest in 2006.
If Niyazov had a mosque to commemorate his hajj, then so would Berdymukhamedov Senior. In 2007 he commissioned the building of the Gurbanguly Hajji Mosque based on a project dating back to 2001. The mosque was originally built with a blue dome, but in 2018 it was painted… golden.
For the time being, Turkmenistan’s current president, Serdar Berdymukhamedov, does not have any mosque to his name. Although that might change in the future. There were rumours that one of the local mosques opened ahead of the Night of Power would be named after him, but so far that has not happened.
Ottomans in Ashgabat
If there is one mosque that stands out as an architectural oddity in Turkmenistan that is the Ärtogrul Gazy Mosque, named after the father of the founder of the Ottoman Empire. If one encounters it, he will think he has been somehow transported from Ashgabat to Istanbul. This building erected in the 1990s was modelled in the Ottoman mosques as Turkey started to make diplomatic advances in Turkmenistan. It was Turkish president Suleyman Demirel’s visit to the country in 1992 that spurred its construction. This building is an exception in style and the involvement of a foreign country.
Expanding into the provinces
Since 2015, the Berdymukhamedov regime has embarked on a campaign to equip the provincial capitals of the country with main mosques. It was that year that Dashoguz (Dashoguz region) got its own mosque, followed in 2020 by Turkmenabad (Lebap) and Balkanabat (Balkan). The Mary region already had its main mosque since the Gurbanguly Hajji Mosque was completed in 2009.
Only the Ahal region is left, but that will soon change as last year works started in the construction of its main mosque in its new capital of Arkadag, a city named after the former president’s title.
All the mosques in the provincial capitals follow the same monotonous design: white marble, four minarets and a golden dome. The only exception being the blue dome of Dashoguz.
Besides building main mosques in the regional centres, other temples have recently been built in smaller towns across the country. Once again, the rationale behind is not to provide a place of worship to its citizens, but to showcase prosperity, probably enable for kickbacks in the construction process, and ensure that only state-sanctioned mosques are available.
The mosque building spree of the current regime, both with Berdymukhamedov Senior and Junior, was preceded by the destruction of smaller mosques in the previous decade. It has little to do with providing its citizens with the means to carry out their religious duties, which are actually object of repression. Building mosques, as other monuments and infrastructure of doubtful use, have become one of the ways to express vanity and portray a façade of prosperity that is far from the truth. And, perhaps, also responds to a possible new spirituality found by Berdymukhamedov Senior as he ages. But building mosques alone will not cleanse one’s sins.
List of main and recently built mosques in Turkmenistan (non-exhaustive list):
