Name : The Sulayman Mountain (Kyrgyz: Сулайман-Тоо, also known as Sulaiman-Too, Sulayman Rock, or Sulayman Throne)
Location :
The Sulayman Mountain is the only World Heritage Site located entirely in the country of Kyrgyzstan. It is located in the city of Osh and was once a major place of Muslim and pre-Muslim pilgrimage. The rock rises abruptly from the surrounding plains of the Fergana Valley and is a popular place among locals and visitors, with a splendid view.
Legend :
Legends claim that that the Macedonian warrior king Alexander the Great
visited the city on his way to India, and that King Solomon visited and
slept on top of the hill that still bears his name, Taht-i-Suleiman
(Suleiman Mountain or Solomon’s Throne). This most enduring tale says
that when Solomon reached the outcropping of high rock in the center of
modern day Osh, shouted ‘khosh’ (‘that’s enough’).
How did this mountain change from being simply a spiritual natural landscape into a focus of intense worship?:
To understand it, you need to step back and look at the big picture. The
city of Osh is right in the middle of the network of paths that today
we call the Silk Road. To the north, to the east, and to the south are huge mountains – and
travellers who made the arduous journey over these peaks would need
somewhere to stop for a while to rest and feed their animals.
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Snowy mountains on the way to Kyrgyzstan
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However, Osh was not normally the first city that travellers would have
arrived at after coming down from the mountains. That was Uzgen, about
50 kilometres away. Even though Uzgen was the first stop; Even though Uzgen had a river,
offering a perfect water supply; And even though Uzgen was already an
established trading city, travellers started to choose Osh because they
thought they could pray and worship at the mountain of Sulaiman-Too and
that would bring them better luck for their onward journeys.
Although there are mosques on the mountain these days, they are
relatively new – from just a few centuries ago. For most of the
travellers who were stopping here at the zenith of the Silk Road period,
it was a more spiritual type of worship, not tied to a particular
religion.
So what you would’ve found – and
what you still find today – are different spot across Sulaiman-Too
dedicated to different things that people would come to wish for.
There’s an opening in the rock that women who wanted to conceive a child would climb through.
There’s another rock that people would slide down if they wanted to cure back pain.
There’s another spot to help headaches, and another for longer life, and so on.
At the Chak-Chak cave you can insert your hand, pull out some rocks and make a wish.
The people came because they believed… not because of any evidence but because people believe what they want to believe, right?
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| Women making prayers at sulayman too rock formation |
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Holy men recite passages from the Koran in exchange for about
US$0.50 cents in som. Inside another cave, water droplets drip from the
roof, and it is said that these are the tears of Suleyman (Solomon).
Legend has it that if you roll clown the inclined slab of limestone at
the summit you will be cured of all bodily ills or at least confer
considerable health benefits. Just behind the shrine is this smooth
sloping slab of rock, called Bel Bosh Tosh, where the popular custom is
to slide down foot-first on the part of the body that ails you. There
is usually a queue of local families lining up to do just this. As you
wind your way up the hill there are many smaller caves, crevices, and
side trails that are said to cure specific elbow, arm, or leg, or head
ailments. If you put your affected part of the body into grooves worn
smooth by similarly sick people, locals believe that the different
cracks in the mountain are designed to heal different illnesses.
Description :
This mountain is thought by some researchers and historians to be the famous landmark of antiquity known as the “Stone Tower”, which Claudius Ptolemy wrote about in his famous work Geography. It marked the midpoint on the ancient Silk Road, the overland trade route taken by caravans between Europe and Asia.
Sulayman (Solomon) is a prophet in the Qur'an, and the mountain contains a shrine that supposedly marks his grave. Women who ascend to the shrine on top and crawl though an opening across the holy rock will, according to legend, give birth to healthy children. The trees and bushes on the mountain are draped with numerous "prayer flags", small pieces of cloth that are tied to them.
According to the UNESCO, the mountain is "the most complete example of a sacred mountain anywhere in Central Asia, worshipped over several millennia". The site is still a popular place for local Muslims, with stairs leading up to the highest peak where there stands a small mosque originally built by Babur in 1510. What is more certain than founding legends, according to historians is
that the founder of the Afghan Moghul Dynasty and descendant of
Tamerlane, Zahiruddin Muhammad Babur (aka Bobur the Lion 1483-1530), who
was born nearby just across the Uzbekistan border in Andijan, came to
Osh to visit Solomon’s Throne before venturing on to India. In 1496,
Babur, passed through modern day Kyrgyzstan on his way to conquer India
and commissioned the small mosque on top of Solomon’s mountain, Suleyman
Too. Even today this mosque is still referred to as Babur’s House.
Much of the mosque was reconstructed in the late 20th century.
Visiting Sulayman too Mountain :
When you visit Sulaiman-Too today, it is not too hard to imagine how
it was on the mountain for all those hundreds of years that travellers
would come and ask for some good luck.
You can still go into a lot
of the caves. You can still see some petroglyphs on the walls. You can
even still slide down the rock that is supposed to cure back pain.
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| Slide down Rock that cured Back pain for travellers for decades |
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The rock also contains the National Historical and Archaeological Museum Complex Sulayman that was built during the Soviet era, showing archaeological findings from the area and its history.
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Museum inside the cave structure
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