Dictionary of islamic architecture

See also:
Samarkand, Timurids, Uzbekistan
Further reading:
J.Lawton and F.Venturi, 
Samarkand and Bukhara,
London
1991.
G.Pugacenkova and L.Rempel, 
Bukhara,
Moscow 1949.
L.Rempel, ‘The Mausoleum of Isma
il the Samanid’,
Bulletin of the American Institute of Persian Art and
Archaeology
4: 199–209, 1936.
Bulgaria
A small country located on the Danube in south-eastern
Europe.
Bulgaria borders Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Russia and
Romania. The name of the country derives from the
Bulgars, a Turkic people who conquered this area in
679 CE and adopted Christianity from the Byzantines
in 865. The presence of Islam in Bulgaria is almost
exclusively connected with the Ottoman conquest
of the region.
The first Ottoman conquest in Bulgaria took place
in the mid-fourteenth century when they occupied
part of the area now known as Bulgarian Thrace. In
1396, after Sultan Bayezid’s victory at the battle of
Tenth-century mausoleum of the Samanids, Bukhara © St John
Simpson
Minaret of the Kaylan Mosque, Bukhara © St John Simpson
Bulgaria

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Nikeboli (Nicopolis), the Danube area of Bulgaria
was incorporated into the Ottoman Empire. From
the end of the fourteenth century Bulgaria was
strongly Ottomanized and new Muslim cities were
established especially in the south-east of the
country. By the sixteenth century this part of the
country was predominantly Muslim and remained
so until the nineteenth.
The main building materials used in Bulgaria
were similar to those used by the Byzantines and
later the Ottomans in Anatolia. These included baked
brick on its own, baked brick in combination with
ashlar masonry, ashlar masonry, coursed rubble
masonry with wood and mud brick and wood. The
choice of material depended partly on the area and