Minor Mosque Tashkent: The White Marble Mosque Guide
Minor Mosque in Tashkent: opened 1 October 2014, 38 m minarets, white marble. Where the name comes from, non-Muslim dress rules and the best metro stop.
White marble doesn't stay white. By late afternoon the facade of the Minor Mosque picks up the colour of the sky behind the photographer, a faint straw-yellow in the hour before sunset, then a cool grey-blue once the sun drops behind the plane trees along the Ankhor canal. The turquoise dome barely changes through any of it. That's the building's real trick: a pale, shifting body under a fixed spot of colour, and it's why the hour before sunset beats noon for photos.
The Minor Mosque is Tashkent's newest major mosque, finished in 2014, free to enter, and one of the easiest religious buildings in Uzbekistan for a non-Muslim to visit well. Here's where the name comes from and how to fit it into a day.
When the Minor Mosque opened, and what it's made of
Construction started in summer 2013 under a presidential resolution to build a mosque in the Minor mahalla (neighbourhood) of Tashkent. President Islam Karimov opened it on 1 October 2014, a few days before Qurbon Hayit, the Uzbek name for Eid al-Adha (4 October that year). That date comes from the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan project and is repeated by Orexca and by local outlet Yep.uz. The official tourism portal, uzbekistan.travel, says the opening came before Eid al-Fitr instead, which doesn't fit: Eid al-Fitr fell in late July that year. We'd trust 1 October.
The numbers most sources agree on:
- Capacity: 2,400 worshippers according to Legacy.uz and Orexca; uzbekistan.travel says "more than 2,500". Treat it as roughly 2,400–2,500.
- Minarets: two, each 38 m, standing at the front corners of the main facade.
- Dome: a single large dome in turquoise (some sources call it sky-blue or azure; it's the same dome).
- Materials: brick structure faced in white marble outside; carved and painted ganch (gypsum plaster) and carved wooden columns inside.
- Funding: the state budget plus the Muslim Board of Uzbekistan.
We couldn't find a trustworthy published figure for the footprint or dome height, or for where the marble was quarried.
Why is it white?
Short answer: because it's faced in marble rather than glazed tile, and nobody official has explained the choice beyond that. The result earned it the nickname the White Mosque, which is how many taxi drivers and guides will refer to it.
What makes it stand out is context. Almost everything historic you'll see in Uzbekistan is fired brick wrapped in blue, green and white tilework, from the madrasahs at Khast Imam to the Registan in Samarkand. The Minor Mosque keeps the traditional plan (a portal, flanking minarets, a domed prayer hall, a two-level hall with wooden-column terraces) but swaps the tile for plain stone. Our take? It's the most interesting post-independence religious building in Tashkent precisely because it's so restrained, though anyone who came to Uzbekistan for dense tilework may find the interior underwhelming.
Inside, the colour is saved for one place: the gilded mihrab, the niche that points towards Mecca, framed by Quranic inscriptions. Legacy.uz credits the calligraphy to Habibullo Solikh, Islam Mamatov and Abdulgofur Haqberdiyev.
Where does the name "Minor" come from?
It has nothing to do with size. The mosque took its name from the Minor mahalla it was built in, and the Minor cemetery just to its south shares the name. In Uzbek, minora means minaret, and several Uzbek and Russian-language guides give that as the root. What we couldn't verify is why the neighbourhood carried the name before 2014, whether an older minaret stood here or the name came from something else. Guides that say the Minor Mosque was named for its own two minarets get the order backwards: the mahalla's name came first.
It's pronounced closer to "mee-NOR" than the English word.
Visiting as a non-Muslim
You're welcome, it's free, and the rules are the standard ones for a working mosque. Sputnik8 lists hours as daily 05:00–21:00 and advises confirming around holidays (last checked: September 2026). There's no official tourist timetable, so treat those as a guide.
- Dress: shoulders and knees covered for everyone; women cover their hair. Robes and headscarves are usually available at the entrance if you've turned up in shorts, but bring your own scarf to be safe. Our packing advice on modest clothing covers what works in 40°C heat.
- Shoes: off before you step onto the carpet.
- The prayer hall: this is where reports differ. Some visitors are allowed a look from a designated spot; others are kept to the courtyard and terraces. Women are generally directed to a separate area. Ask at the door rather than assume.
- Prayer times: stay out of the way during the five daily prayers, which shift through the year. The Muslim Board of Uzbekistan publishes the Tashkent timetable daily at muslim.uz.
- Friday: the midday Juma prayer fills the courtyard. Skip Friday around lunchtime unless you want to see the building doing its actual job from a respectful distance.
Photograph the exterior and courtyard freely, but never people praying.
For how this compares with the rest of the country's mosques, including which are working and which are now museums, see our rundown of Uzbekistan's active mosques and their visitor rules.
The Ankhor canal setting
The mosque sits on the bank of the Ankhor, the canal that runs north to south through central Tashkent. A tree-lined path follows the water past the mosque grounds, and it's about as close as the city gets to a riverside walk. Locals come in the evening for exactly that, and Yep.uz describes Tashkent residents using the grounds as much for the calm as for prayer.
That's the best reason to come late. Midday in July and August, the marble courtyard throws the heat straight back at you.
Getting to the Minor Mosque
The address is 41 Khurshid Street. Despite sharing the name, Minor metro station isn't the closest. Russian-language guides put Bodomzor station, on the green Yunusobod line, about 15 minutes' walk away and Minor station about 20. From Minor you can walk north past the cemetery or along the canal path. Bodomzor's geometric ceilings earn it a place in our walk-through of Tashkent's metro stations, so arriving that way costs you nothing.
A metro ride costs 2,500 som by card from 1 October 2026, or 3,000 som in cash (paper QR), up from the old card fare of 1,700, according to UzDaily (last checked: September 2026). Check which price is live when you arrive. A Yandex Go taxi from Amir Timur Square is short and cheap if you'd rather not walk in the heat.
What to combine it with
The Minor Mosque belongs to the northern cluster of sights, not the old town, so don't try to link it to Chorsu on foot.
The obvious partner is the TV tower, visible from the mosque gardens and a few minutes from Bodomzor; our guide to the 375 m tower and its viewing deck has the ticket details. Opposite the tower, the Shahidlar Xotirasi memorial (opened in 2000, with a small museum whose halls include the Jadid reform movement) marks the site of 1930s mass executions and makes a sober contrast to the new mosque.
If you want the historic counterpart, the Khast Imam complex in the old city is the place to see what the Minor Mosque is quoting: the brick, the tile, and the Uthman Quran now housed at the Center of Islamic Civilization next door. For a zero-cost afternoon, the mosque and canal walk also feature in our list of things to do in Tashkent for free.
One timing tip matters more than the rest. Arrive around an hour before sunset on a day that isn't Friday: you'll get the marble changing colour, the quietest courtyard, the canal path in shade, and the walk back to Bodomzor after the heat has gone out of the pavement.