🇺🇿Halal Travel Guide to Uzbekistan

The tomb of Muhammad al-Bukhari, compiler of the Sahih, who died in 870. Rebuilt in 1998 with a mosque, a hadith museum and a working madrasa. The most visited pilgrimage site in Uzbekistan.

The religious centre of the capital - the Tilla Sheikh Mosque, the Barak Khan Madrasa and the library holding the Kufic Qur'an attributed to the caliph Uthman. Open to visitors; the manuscript room prohibits photography.

A stepped street of eleven mausoleums in the most intense tilework in Central Asia, built around the shrine of Qusam ibn Abbas, a cousin of the Prophet. The name means 'the living king'.

The shrine of the 14th-century founder of the Naqshbandi order, with a mosque, khanqah and garden. The principal Sufi pilgrimage site in Central Asia, busy with local pilgrims all day.

The minaret survived Genghis Khan's destruction of Bukhara in 1220 - by one account because he looked up at it and his hat fell off. The mosque beside it holds 12,000 and its courtyard is enormous and empty.

Facing the Kalyan Mosque, and one of only two madrasas permitted to operate anywhere in the Soviet Union. Still a working seminary, so the interior is closed to visitors.

Built by Timur after his Indian campaign at a scale that outran the engineering of the day - the portal is 35 metres high and parts began collapsing within decades. Restored and still overwhelming.

A flat-roofed hypostyle hall supported by 213 carved elm columns, a few dating to the 10th century, lit only by two openings in the roof. Unlike any other mosque in the region.

The oldest surviving Islamic building in Central Asia, and a masterpiece of pure brickwork - every pattern made by the laying of the bricks rather than by applied tile. It survived by being buried in silt for centuries.

The tomb of a 14th-century poet, furrier and champion wrestler venerated as Khiva's patron saint. The interior tilework is the finest in the city and it remains an active shrine.

A 16th-century complex of courtyards, mosques and family tombs in plain brick around the graves of four descendants of Abu Bakr, in a quiet grove outside the city.

White marble and blue domes on the Ankhor canal, opened in 2014 - a modern counterpoint to the ancient brick and tile elsewhere, and open to visitors.

Three madrasas on three sides of a square - Ulugh Beg (1420), Sher-Dor (1636) and Tilya-Kori (1660). The most photographed ensemble in Central Asia, and the interiors repay the ticket.

The underground arc of a 40-metre marble sextant, rediscovered in 1908. With it Ulugh Beg catalogued 1,018 stars and calculated the sidereal year to within 25 seconds of the modern figure.

A complete walled inner city of 26 hectares - madrasas, minarets, palaces and caravanserais inside mud walls you can walk the top of. One ticket covers everything.

The mausoleum of Timur and his descendants under a ribbed turquoise dome, with a single block of dark jade as the cenotaph. Its proportions influenced the Taj Mahal through the Mughals, Timur's descendants.

The emir's fortified citadel, occupied for over a thousand years until the Red Army bombed it in 1920. Now a museum, with the royal mosque and the throne courtyard restored.

Forty thousand works of Soviet avant-garde art that Igor Savitsky smuggled out of Moscow and hid in a desert museum in Karakalpakstan. One of the strangest and best collections anywhere.

Enormous kazans of plov cooked outdoors and sold until they run out, usually by early afternoon. Queue, point, eat at a long communal table. The plov institution of the country.

Refined Uzbek cooking in a comfortable room - a good place to try dimlama, manti and the regional plovs in one sitting.

Samsa from the tandoor windows, lagman counters, and the dried-fruit and spice aisles. Cheapest and best eating in the capital.

A courtyard beside the Bibi-Khanym mosque serving Samarkand plov, samsa and endless green tea. Shaded and calm between monuments.

A long-running restaurant under plane trees with both Uzbek and European menus. Good food; note that the European side of the menu includes pork, so order from the Uzbek section.

Local plov house where the kazan is the centrepiece. Lunchtime only, as with all serious plov places.

Uzbek classics in a courtyard near Lyab-i-Hauz - shashlik, lagman, shurpa - with a terrace for the evening.

Tables under 400-year-old mulberry trees around the pool at the centre of the old town. The best place in Bukhara to sit for two hours.

A rooftop restaurant in the old town with a view over the domes, serving Bukharan dishes. Book the terrace for sunset.

A rooftop inside the Itchan Kala walls looking straight at the Kalta Minor minaret. The food is straightforward; the view is the reason.

Khorezmian regional dishes - shivit oshi, the green dill noodles found only here - inside the walled city.

Every intercity road has plov and shashlik stops with a tandoor and a kazan. Cheap, fast and reliably halal.

A tea room in a restored building serving dozens of local herbal infusions alongside sweets and samsa.

The phrase means 'national dishes' and is the sign to look for - it reliably indicates an Uzbek menu without pork.

Nineteenth-century merchant houses with carved wooden galleries around a courtyard, a few minutes from Lyab-i-Hauz. The best accommodation in the country and often under USD 50.

Small hotels inside the walls, some in converted madrasas. Staying overnight after the day-trippers leave is the whole point of Khiva.

Guesthouses in the old mahalla streets between the Registan and Shah-i-Zinda - walkable to everything and far more characterful than the boulevard hotels.

A purpose-built new district of international hotels by the lake. Comfortable, and entirely detached from the old city.

Around Amir Timur Square or Chorsu, both on the metro. Chorsu puts you next to the bazaar and Hazrati Imam.

Yurt camps between Samarkand and Bukhara near Lake Aydarkul, with camel rides and Kazakh singing round the fire. Usually alcohol-light and a good night out of the cities.

Family homestays in the silk and ceramic towns. The most conservative and traditionally Muslim part of the country, and the warmest hospitality.