Center of Islamic Civilization, Tashkent: What's Inside
Tashkent's newest museum opened in March 2026 and now holds the Uthman Quran. Tickets, hours, what the galleries cover and whether it needs half a day.
The most important object in Uzbekistan changed address in November 2025, and almost nobody outside Tashkent noticed. The Uthman Quran, a 7th-century manuscript on deer parchment, was carried out of the Khast Imam complex, where it had been kept since 1989 (in the small Muyi Muborak madrasah from 2007), and installed in a new building a few minutes' walk away. Four months later, on 17 March 2026, that building opened as the Center of Islamic Civilization.
It is the largest museum project Uzbekistan has attempted, and it is the reason the Khast Imam corner of the old city now needs a different plan from the one in your guidebook. The manuscript's place on UNESCO's Memory of the World register is covered separately.
What the Center actually is
Calling it a museum undersells it and also oversells it, depending on what you want. The complex at 47 Karasaray Street holds a museum, a library, archives, manuscript restoration laboratories, teaching rooms and conference space. Roughly 2,000 objects are on display, drawn from Central Asia's contribution to Islamic science, craft and scholarship, and alongside the main manuscript the Quran hall shows copies the Center describes as created on the basis of the Quran's 114 surahs (last checked: September 2026).
Construction took the better part of a decade and the opening date slipped more than once, which is worth knowing if you are reading an older article that confidently gives a different year. The building went up in the Hast Imam district deliberately, next to the religious complex that has been the administrative centre of Uzbek Islam for generations. That siting is the whole argument of the place: the new institution claims continuity with the old one rather than replacing it.
The Quran Hall
The Mushaf of Uthman sits beneath the central dome, and it is the reason the queues form. Around a third of the original volume survives, roughly 338 folios of early Kufic script with no vowel markings. It is on UNESCO's Memory of the World Register, and tradition holds that the caliph Uthman was reading this copy when he was killed in 656 CE. The dark marks on some pages are said to be his blood. Scholars are more cautious about the attribution than the guides are, and we would treat the dating as "within the first Islamic centuries" rather than a settled fact.
What has genuinely changed is the presentation. In the old library museum the manuscript sat in a glass case in a modest room and you were done in ten minutes. Here it gets a hall, a light-mapped dome and a build-up of context. Whether that is an improvement depends on your taste. Some visitors find the older setting more moving precisely because it was so plain.
If you visited Tashkent before 2026 and saw the Quran at the Khast Imam complex, you are not misremembering. That is where it was, and the complex is still very much worth an hour for its mosque, madrasahs and the working religious life around them.
Tickets, hours and how visits work
This is the part that trips people up. Visits are organised largely as guided group tours rather than free wandering, and a standard tour runs about two hours. The Center receives visitors daily from 09:00 to 22:00, with no closing day (last checked: September 2026). Those late hours are unusual for a museum in Uzbekistan and make this one of the few serious indoor options for an evening.
The official ticket seller, iTicket.uz, lists separate prices for foreigners and for Uzbek residents. Early announcements quoted much lower figures (60,000 som for an adult), so ignore older articles. The foreigner prices listed in September 2026:
| Ticket type | Price (UZS) | Approx. USD |
|---|---|---|
| Adult, standard 2-hour visit with audio guide | 425,000 | about $35 |
| Child, standard visit with audio guide | 310,000 | about $26 |
| Individual (stay until closing, no 2-hour limit) | 660,000 | about $55 |
| VIP (upper entrance, guided in English or Russian) | 850,000 | about $71 |
| Fast-track add-on for a foreign group of 1 to 15 / 16 to 30 (plus a standard ticket each) | 400,000 / 600,000 per group | about $33 / $50 |
Conversions use roughly 11,800 som to the dollar, and the rate moves (last checked: September 2026). A private guide for up to 10 people is listed separately at 480,000 som. Tickets are sold at the door and online, and at peak times the Center has been planning for up to 5,000 visitors daily, so a weekend afternoon in high season is not the moment to turn up hoping.
Our recommendation: go on a weekday, go early or go after 18:00, and budget half a day if you actually read labels. If you only want to see the Quran and leave, you will still be inside for the length of the tour.
Getting there
The Center is in the old city, north of Chorsu. The practical route is metro to Chorsu station and then about 20 to 25 minutes on foot, or a short Yandex Go ride for 15,000 to 25,000 som. Combining it with the bazaar under the blue dome makes a natural half day, because they are close and they are opposites: one is a hushed marble interior, the other is several thousand people shouting about melons.
If you're working out how the capital's transport fits together, the metro is genuinely the fastest way across town and costs a fraction of a taxi.
Dress and conduct
This is a museum, not a mosque, so the rules are lighter than at a working shrine. Shoulders and knees covered is sensible and respectful given the subject matter and the neighbourhood. Women are not required to cover their hair inside the museum, though you will want a scarf if you're also visiting the mosques next door. Photography rules have varied by gallery since opening. Ask rather than assume, particularly near the manuscript. Our notes on etiquette in Uzbekistan cover the wider expectations if this is your first trip.
Is it worth it?
Honest answer: yes, with a caveat about expectations.
The building is extraordinary and the manuscript is one of the genuinely significant objects in the Islamic world. If you have any interest in how Central Asia shaped mathematics, astronomy and hadith scholarship, the galleries connect names you may know separately, al-Khwarizmi, Ibn Sina, al-Biruni, the hadith scholar Imam al-Bukhari, into one argument about a single region. That argument is the exhibition's real content.
The caveat is that this is a very new institution presenting a national story about itself, and it does so confidently. Labelling is celebratory. Complications get less airtime than achievements. That's not unusual for a state museum anywhere, but go in knowing you're getting the official version, and read the wider Silk Road history alongside it.
Travellers on a tight schedule who are in Tashkent for one day, and whose real destinations are Samarkand and Bukhara, can reasonably skip it. Everyone else should go.
What else is on the same square
Don't treat the Center as a standalone trip. It was built beside a religious complex that has its own history, and the two together make a much better morning than either alone.
The Barak Khan madrasah dates to the 16th century and now houses craft stalls around its courtyard, which is either charming or a bit touristy depending on your mood. The Tillya Sheikh mosque, built in 1856 and 1857 under the Kokand Khanate, is an active place of worship and held the Uthman Quran for years before the 2007 move. It keeps a collection of rare manuscripts and has an intimacy the new building can't match. The Muyi Muborak madrasah, the small 16th-century building that displayed the Quran from 2007 until 2025, still holds some 20,000 books and manuscripts, including Qurans in dozens of languages. Its role and ticketing were still being worked out after the manuscript left, so check locally before queueing.
One naming note, because it causes real confusion when you're searching. The institution appears as the Center of Islamic Civilization, the Islamic Civilization Center, the Centre for Islamic Civilisation and the abbreviation CISC, all referring to the same place. Uzbek sources use the American spelling. Taxi drivers will know it as the big new building at Hast Imam.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is the Uthman Quran still at Khast Imam?
No. It was transferred from the Muyi Muborak madrasah to the Center of Islamic Civilization in November 2025 and has been on public display there since the Center opened on 17 March 2026. Khast Imam remains open and worth visiting, but the manuscript is no longer in the small library museum where guidebooks place it.
How much does the Center of Islamic Civilization cost?
For foreigners, the official seller iTicket.uz lists a standard adult visit at 425,000 som (about $35) and a child at 310,000 som, with dearer individual and VIP options. Uzbek residents pay less. Early announcements of 60,000 som are out of date; confirm at the ticket desk (last checked: September 2026).
How long do you need there?
The standard audio-guided visit runs about two hours. If you read exhibit labels properly and want time in the Quran Hall, half a day is realistic. Visitors who only want to see the manuscript will still be in the building for most of the timed session, since entry is by time slot.
Can you photograph the Uthman Quran?
Photography was never permitted at the manuscript in its old home, and rules in the new galleries have varied since opening. Assume no photography near the Quran itself unless staff tell you otherwise, and ask before shooting anywhere in the exhibition halls.
Is it open on weekends and in the evening?
Yes. The Center operates daily from 09:00 to 22:00 with no weekly closing day, which makes it one of the few major sights in Tashkent you can visit after dark. Weekend afternoons are the busiest slot, so an early morning or a late evening is more comfortable.
Before you go
Two practical notes. First, everything about this place is new, including the operating procedures, so treat published hours and prices as a starting point and not a guarantee. Second, the Center rewards a little preparation. Read something about the Uthman manuscript before you arrive and the Quran Hall becomes a different experience.
For the rest of the capital, our Tashkent guide sets out the districts, the transport and the sights worth your limited time.
Sources: the Center's official site at iccu.uz for its own description of the collection, and The Times of Central Asia for the opening and the scale of the project.