Encyclopedia of Islam

Buddhism and Islam

---

t

aliban

, who viewed the statues as idols, brought 

international attention to the shared geographic 

and cultural history of these two religious tradi-

tions. Today there are Muslim communities in 

regions with significant Buddhist populations, 

such as c

hina

, Tibet, Cambodia, Myanmar, Sri 

Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. Also, m

alaysia

 is 

a Muslim country that has a significant Buddhist 

population (20 percent), mostly ethnic Chinese.

See also h

indUism

 

and

 i

slam

.

Megan Adamson Sijapati

Further reading: Ainslee T. Embree, Sources of Indian 

Tradition, Volume One: From the Beginning to 1800 (New 

York: Columbia University Press, 1988); Gray Henry, 

ed.,  Islam in Tibet, Tibetan Caravans (Louisville, Ky.: 

Fons Vitae, 1997).

Bukhara

Bukhara is a city dating to the fifth to fourth 

century 

b

.

c

.

e

. and is now located in the Repub-

lic of Uzbekistan. The principal city in a desert 

oasis, Bukhara came under the rule of the Arab 

U

mayyad

  c

aliphate

 in 709. Over the next 700 

years, Bukhara switched hands between Arabs, 

Persians, Turks, and Mongols and came under the 

control of t

amerlane

 in the 14th century. Bukhara 

became a famous center of Islamic learning, with 

the n

aqshbandi

 s

UFi

 o

rder

 taking its name from 

Baha al-Din Naqshband, who lived in Bukhara 

in the 14th century. Bukhara became a principal 

stop on the great Silk Road caravan routes. The 

Timurid dynasties ruled from Samarqand until the 

invasion of Uzbek tribes early in the 16th century. 

In 1557, Abd Allah ibn Iskander Khan (d. 1598) 

made Bukhara his capital, from which his state 

took its name. During the period of the Bukhara 

Khanate, the city reached its historical zenith and 

featured some of the most magnificent examples 

of Islamicate 

architectUre

 of the time. However, 

internal feuding eventually weakened the khan-

ate, and in 1740, Bukhara fell to the Persians, only 

to regain its independence in 1753, though greatly 

reduced in size and power.

Bukhara was conquered by the Russians in 

1868 and made a protectorate, allowing the rul-

ing dynasty to continue in power. With the turn 

of the century, there arose a Muslim intellectual 

reform movement, and these “Young Bukharans” 

struggled against the conservative 

Ulama

 for influ-

ence, only to be rebuffed by the ruling emir. With 

the Russian Revolution of 1917, Russian control 

disappeared, only to reappear in 1920, when, with 

the help of many of the Young Bukharans, Soviet 

forces gained control, and the last emir fled into 

exile. The Bukhara People’s Soviet Republic was 

established and lasted until 1924, when it was dis-

membered and divided between the Uzbek, Tajik, 

and Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republics. Over the 

years of Soviet rule, Bukhara lost its political and 

economic importance, though it continues to be a 

regional seat of Islamic learning.

See also c

entral

 a

sia

 

and

 

the

 c

aUcasUs

.

David Reeves