A small white mosque located near the town of Serdar, Balkan velayat, is one of the most revered pilgrimage sites in Turkmenistan. Next to it, one can involuntarily feel some kind of extraordinary energy. Perhaps this is somehow connected with a legend about the origin of the shrine.
According to it, Parav-bibi was a beautiful woman who lived in one of the settlements at the foothills of the Kopetdag Mountains. One day, nomads attacked her native village. And, probably, the inhabitants of that village would be destined to the same fate that befell other villages after the conquest by foreigners. However, the leader of the invaders was so blinded by the beauty of the girl that he promised not to destroy the village if they gave Parav-bibi to him in return. Upon learning about that, the beauty fled to the mountains on the same day. She ran as long as she had strength, and pressed herself to the stones with her palms. But the enemies who rushed after her did not retreat. And when she was practically exhausted at a huge rock, in despair she asked the higher powers to hide her somewhere. The Almighty heard the prayers of the beauty and the rock parted in front of the girl, forever hiding her in its stone walls. At that place, people built a mosque.
