Nadar Divanbegi madrassa - spandrel
The Nadir Divan-begi Madrasa stands on the east side of the Lyab-i Hauz square, forming an ensemble with the Nadar Divanbegi Khanaqah and the Kukeldash madrasa. It was built in the 1620s by vizier Nadir Divan-begi, the maternal uncle of Imam Quli Khan, the ruler of Bukhara from 1611-41.
The layout of the building is puzzling, as it strongly resembles a caravanserai: The main entrance opens directly onto the courtyard, it's missing the expected iwan opposite the main entranceand the building also lacks a mosque and corner classrooms, which are usually regarded as critical features. Maybe declining trade in the early 17th century rendered the existence of a new caravanserai superfluous, obliging the vizier to convert the partly-completed building into a madrasa, as there was no shortage of students.
Depicting living creatures
The spandrel of the iwan are decorated with fantastical birds.
In The Bukharan School of Architecture in the 15th–17th centuries – Samarkand, 2022 (pp. 289 - 298)
Abbasova-Yusupova M.A. writes extensively about Depictions of Living Creatures. Here's a brief summary:
In the Qur’an there are no direct prohibitions against the reproductions of living creatures. The Prophet Muhammad in his struggle against idol-worship only forbade idols as objects for religious veneration. This prohibition was transformed over time in its interpretation by orthodox theologians into a rejection of figurative art in general. Yet, every now and the, practice would diverge from religious prescriptions and a number of palaces resided in by Islamic rulers, harems, bathhouses and objects of applied art were nevertheless decorated with depictions of living creatures.
It is worth noting that zoomorphic motifs and characters found in the architectural decoration of Central Asia share with neighbouring regions certain ancient pre-Islamic traditions regarding their evolution, semantics and sometimes even iconography. The most monumental, expressive and striking example was provided by the decoration of the tympanum in the Nadir Divan-Begi Madrasah (1622–1623) reproducing large mythical birds flying towards a sun with a human face and attacking a fallow deer.
In the first half of the 17th century under the Ashtarkhanids, painting literally ‘burst forth’ in the form of large zoomorphic depictions on to the tympana of portals adorning the majestic buildings of Transoxiana facing on to the central squares of its two capitals. These were the Shir Dor Madrassa on the Registan square in Samarqand and the Nadir Divanbegi Madrassa in the Lab-i Hawz ensemble in Bukhara. There was no such demonstrative use of distinctive, large-scale and colourful zoomorphic decoration in the surviving buildings of other countries belonging to the Muslim world and it was only to be found in the architecture of Transoxiana, which constituted a phenomenon all of its own in the architecture of 17th century Central Asia. We can only assume that in the 17th century as well these depictions served as an allegory and symbolized specific ideas linked with the greatness of the age, the ruler and his power and also with the donors who commissioned such buildings.
