Timur ordered the mosque built after his 1399 Indian campaign and named it after his wife, though the article also says Saray Mulk Khanum commissioned it. Construction ran from 1399 to 1404 in the infobox and 1405 in the text. Timur found it almost complete when he returned in 1404 and ordered changes, especially to the main cupola.
The outer walls are 548 feet (167 m) long and 358 feet (109 m) wide, the courtyard is 256 by 210 feet (78 by 64 m), and the entrance portal is 115 feet (35 m) high. It follows the courtyard-mosque plan with four iwans and a two-part dome, and more than 400 marble columns supported the galleries.
Structural problems appeared during construction, and within a few years bricks fell from the dome over the mihrab. The inner arch of the portal collapsed in an earthquake in 1897. In 1974 the Uzbek SSR began a complex reconstruction.
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