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AHMED YASAWI: LIFE, WORDS AND SIGNIFICANCE IN THE KAZAKH CULTURE

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Abstract

Мақалада қазақ халқы мәдениетінің рухани аспектілері, соның ішінде жерлеу рәсімі, қажылық, шамандық наным-сенім, ислам мен сопылық істері қарастырылған. Бұл жұмыста қазақ халқының байырғы мәдениетінің тарихында айрықша орны бар ұлы ақын, сопылық поэзияның негізін салушы, ұлы ойшыл, діни қайраткер Қожа Ахмет Яссауидің (1093, Сайрам -1166, Түркістан), соның ішінде қазақ мәдениеті үшін, бүкіл дүние жүзі үшін оның қалдырған еңбектерінің маңыздылығы жазылған. Өзінің жеке қалауымен жерасты өмір сүріп, сол жерде жазған «Диуани хикмет» жинақ өлеңдері бүгінгі күні бізге жеткен. Қорытындылай келе, «Диуани Хикметтің» қолданыстағы нұсқалары, әсіресе Түркістан қолжазбасындағы 49 хикметтің құрылымы мен мазмұны талданып, оның қорытындысы ретінде ағылшын тіліне аударылған өлеңдерінен үзінді келтіріледі.
Published in Russian in: Culture and religion on the great silk road. Materials of the international
scientific and practical conference dedicated to the 80th anniversary of academician of the
national Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan K. M. Baipakov November 12, 2020, Almaty,
2020, pp. 154-189
AHMED YASAWI : LIFE, WORDS AND SIGNIFICANCE IN THE KAZAKH CULTURE
Renato Sala
Laboratory of Geoarchaeology, KazGU University, Ministry of Education and Sciences, Kazakhstan
ispkz@yahoo.com www.lgakz.org
ABSTRACT: The article starts analyzing the spiritual aspects of the culture of the Kazakh people, in particular the
role played by funerary rituals, pilgrimages, shamanic practices, Islam and Sufism. It proceeds with an introduction
to the life, teachings and words of the Sufi master Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (Sayram 1093 AD, Turkestan 1166 AD),
underlining the importance, for the Kazakh culture as well as for the entire world, of the Yasawi self-immurement in
an underground cell and of the poems of wisdom (Divan-i Hikmet) transmitted from down there. Finally are
analyzed the existing versions of the Divan-i Hikmet, in particular the structure and contents of the 49 hikmet of the
Turkestan manuscript of which, as conclusion, is provided a selection of verses translated in English language.
KEYWORDS: Ahmed Yasawi, Divan-i Hikmet, Central Asia Sufi orders, Kazakh culture
CONTENTS
1 - Shamanism, religious rituals, believes and spiritual references in the Kazakh culture
1.1 - Shamanism
1.2 - Pilgrimages
1.3 - Islam
1.4 - Meditation on death
2 - The Sufi movement and his spread in Kazakhstan (VIII-XII AD)
2.1 - Sufism
2.1.1 - Sufi history
2.1.2 - Sufi spiritual system
2.2 - The Khoja
3 - Life and teachings of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi
3.1 - Life of Ahmed Yasawi (1093-1166 AD)
3.2 - The Yasawiyya order
3.3 - Teachings of Ahmed Yasawi
3.3.1 - Works of Yasawi and of his descendants
3.3.2 - Yasawi’s spiritual system
4 - Divan-i Hikmet
4.1 - Manuscripts, editions, translations
4.2 - The Turkestan manuscript
References
1 - Shamanism, religious rituals, believes and spiritual references in the Kazakh culture 1
1 This first chapter describes the general characters of the Kazakh spirituality. The reader can find more detailed
and precise reports on the subject in the works of Kazakh ethnographers. See: Konuratbaev 1987, 1991.
1
In Kazakhstan, in the same way the solidarity groups put themselves as the center of the social
life and don't renounce easily to the pretension of territorial power at local and national levels, so
the patriarchal family and clans always keep under control religious creeds and practices.
Religious performances in Kazakhstan develop in answer to the practical needs and social
interactions of the daily life (healing, fertility, greetings, respect, hospitality, thanksgiving,
birthdays, marriages, funerals, festivals and calendar events), ending up by promoting tribal and
national affiliations more political than religious. This character explains why Kazakhstan never
saw during history the rise of a particular code of religious precepts, compulsory religious creeds
and independent clergy, in spite of the strong attempts in that direction made during the XVIII-
XIX centuries by the Russian colonization.
The few necessary religious customs never develop beyond their pragmatic use: this is true
for local pre-Islamic shamanic practices as well as for Islamic creeds and rituals.
1.1 - Shamanism
Shamanism is a term referring to a system of practices and techniques of religious ecstasy
engendered in the context of small human communities in order to establish harmony and
fertility within human, animal, vegetal and cosmic cycles. It consists in investing a most
sensitive person, a shaman (bakshi), with the task of getting possessed by ‘spirits’ in order to
manage the relation between humans and the invisible world, in particular for physical
thaumaturgy, dispelling bad presences, appealing to ancestors and dead people, foreseeing the
future, calling for rain (tasattyk), favoring communal integration and providing theatrical support
in festivals and ceremonies (toys). These tasks are pursued in specific spaces and times by the
bakshi and few helpers through manipulation of elements and gestures, onomatopoeic sounds,
words, songs, music, dances, of which the knowledge is transmitted person to person from an
unknown past.
Such practical technique for solving specific problems, made of concrete actions more than of
words and conceptualizations, doesn't cover the whole spiritual needs, so that it operates within
wider religious conceptions with which tries to be compatible and by which is even inspired.
Today in most of the world shamanist practices are much reduced and incorporated in the ritual
context of a soteriological religion or in the field of pseudo-medical science. In modern
Kazakhstan they are still in vogue and respected and, of course, merged within newly introduced
Islamic formulas.
Among the Turko-Mongol peoples of Central Asia and Mongolia, starting from 3-4 millennia
ago, spirituality manifests in the form of a natural religiosity called Tengrism, of which the main
symbolic characteristic is the bipolarity Tengri-Umai (‘sky-earth’) with the 2 poles connected by
the cosmic tree of the organic life (baiserek). It finds analogues among all Siberian peoples, in
the Korean Muism, in the Chinese Taoism and in the Japanese Shinto.
The main cultic practices are two and deeply related: pilgrimages and funerary rituals. Two
are also their respective objects and rituals: natural entities and ancestors, celebrated by prayers
made of simple formulas and by sheep sacrifices accompanied with collective banquet.
1.2 - Pilgrimages
2
Pilgrimages in Central Asia and Kazakhstan are gravitating towards special natural places,
mainly springs, hills and mausoleums built on tombs or cenotaphs (empty tombs) of illustrious
human personages. Actually, the most popular destinations, the ones provided with lodging
facilities, are sites hosting both healing springs (or wells) and mausoleums, witnessing the
interconnection of natural fertility and funerary cults, the synchronic worship of living and dead
elements.
This is the case of the Kazigurt mountain of South KZ, which represents a microcosm of
natural, mythical and historical events that became all together object of worship. The place is
inserted in a landscape underpinned by springs and sheep-shaped stones (koytas) and ‘covered’
by a thick layer of legends of different epochs: it is referred as the cradle of Ana and Ata
(forbearers of the human race) or as a kind of mount Ararat, and hosts the mausoleum of Akbura-
Ata, a Zoroastrian saint who healed people and taught monotheism.
On pilgrimage sites is ordinarily performed the sacrifice of a sheep or, in important occasions,
of a horse, accompanied with prayers and collective banquet. One-day pilgrimages are done to
just one place by entire families, occasionally accompanied by a Moslem cleric (mullah). Long
pilgrimages are done during the summer season by individual itinerant pilgrims (palomnik)
across several mausoleums mainly of South and West Kazakhstan.
Today enveloped in the Islamic frame, with shamans promoted to dervishes (Muslim itinerant
mendicants), the pre-Islamic cults of nature and ancestors are still very alive and interactive,
connecting springs and landforms with mythical and historical beings.
Cults are imbedded in poetic legends and dedicated, in order of importance, to:
saints associated with the first spread of Islam in Arabia: Mukhammad the prophet, his
daughter Fatima;
Sufi saints protagonists of the spread of Islam in the Central Asian deserts and steppes: Baba-
Ata, Arystanbab, Ahmed Yasawi, Ismail-Ata, Sunak-Ata, etc.;
mythical forefathers of some tribes, like the couple Baidabek-Ata and Domalak-Ana 2,
protectors of the great juz against the Jungars;
mythical ancestral saints patronizing human activities like fertility, works, arts and
knowledge: Aiman-Sholpan, a woman ancestor ensuring fertility; Kydyr-Ata (see note 59), a
traveling old man with the eyes hidden under long eyebrows, who announces the new year
and masters renovation; Shopan-Ata, protector of sheep-breeding; Kambar-Ata, of horse-
breeding; Baba Tukty, of warriors and heroes; Korkut-Ata, of shamans and musicians; etc.;
benign anthropomorphic natural spirits associated with the cult of nature: Aidarly (‘dragon’),
a kind of natural energy, a mana-force that embodies enlightened personages; Aulje-Bastau
(‘sacred spring’), associated with the cult of springs and lakes; Zhilagan-Ata (‘crying old
man’), associated with the cult of mountains; etc..
In all cases the pilgrimage performance and the presence of springs and mausoleums supporting
a legendary account are more important than the historicity and individuality of the saint himself,
so that just the building of a mausoleum in the right place would promote in few decades the cult
of any particular tomb or bone buried under it. This is the case of several modern mausoleums,
like the paired domes built at the periphery of Almaty for the XIX century poets Raimbek and
Suinbai, which out of two poets generated two saints and in few decades became a holy
destination.
2 In Turkic and Kazakh languages “ata” means father, old man, male ancestor, and “ana” means mother, old
woman, female ancestor.
3
Also purely natural sites with springs or impressive rocks formations or caves or panoramic
tops, when provided by a serious dervish with opportune legends, a holy itinerary and simple
accommodation facilities, can become in few years a destination for spiritual travels. This is the
case of the pilgrimage and therapeutic site recently developed by the woman dervish Bifatima on
a hill in the surroundings of the Ungirtas village (80 km west of Almaty), provided of springs,
landforms and legends 3 but by now deprived of bones: the bones of Bifatima will be most
probably the first.
It is difficult saying when these nature and ancestor cults started developing: most probably
they are the last manifestation of an uninterrupted Stone Age tradition that underwent only
secondary changes. Certainly the centrality of the sheep in funerary rituals, sacrifices and
petroglyph representations characterizes the local cultures all along the last 3000 years, from the
Early Iron age to now. Such deep historical roots can be suspected in several Kazakh rituals,
suggesting a consideration of primary importance: the basic spirituality of the modern Kazakh
people is surely very simple but in the same time most ancient, profound and determined,
keeping almost unchanged for thousands of years.
1.3 - Islam
Islam diffused in Kazakhstan in two waves. The first wave started 1200 years ago in the
Syrdarya region, introduced from the south by Sufi sheikhs during the Arab domination of the
Central Asian caravan routes; the second happened 250 years ago and concerned all Kazakhstan,
this time introduced from the Volga region (Kazan) and promoted by Russian imperial needs of
territorial control rather than by popular soteriological concern.
In both cases Islam was spread in the steppes by the action of Sufi masters, following and
adopting previous ancient cults and converting pre-Islamic spiritual wanderers into Moslem
dervishes. In West Central Asia Islam arrived to introduce specific Moslem rituals, festivities and
clergy men (mullah) only among the farming communities of the Syrdarya region, traditionally
exposed to strong cultural influences from Transoxiana. In Kazakhstan its doctrinaire impact had
been milder and mainly provided new names and symbols for ancient practices, i.e. for the basic
simple rituals of the Kazakh daily life: salutations, endings, wishes, marriages, births, deaths and
burials.
The Moslem ritual calendar had been juxtaposed to former feasts: baptism at birth
(shildekhana), circumcision of young males (syndiettey), yearly fasting (oraza) with final festival
(oraza ait), sacrificial feast 40 days after death (kurban ait) and then again after 1 year; etc.. The
16 July festival commemorating the Muhammad flight from Mecca (hijrah), which signs the
start of the first lunar month, of the 12 lunar months’ year and of the Muslim era, is considered
most important but didn’t arrive to impose its own chronology.
The Islamic influence has been very high in the funerary ritual. Here it arrived to simplify and
democratize the previous customs by reducing the burial to a simple pit for a veiled corpse,
without ornaments or accompanying objects and with architectural extravagances absent or
limited to a circumscribing construction.
All Kazakhs consider themselves as good Moslem but very few give importance to regular
prayers (daily home prayers are practiced by few, and so are Friday prayers at the mosque) or
3 When asked how she could arrive to transform in few years such place into a holy site, Bifatima answered: “It
has been very simple: the entire world is holy”.
4
would be able or interested in explaining doctrinal positions or engaging in theological debates
(‘Does God exist?’, ‘Does the world have a beginning?’). The friendly tolerance for different
religions or atheistic positions and the interest for scientific knowledge are considered much
healthier and productive that the elaboration of a personal system of creeds or the pretension to
impose it to others.
1.4 - Meditation on death
Meditation on death, which in the consumerist societies of our days is rare and discouraged, is
has been central in all religions 4 and plays still now a most important role in the Quran, in
particular among Sufi communities. It is deeply rooted in the Kazakh culture where is
individually and socially manifested by the importance given to elders, funerary rituals and
pilgrimages to mausoleums.
Kazakh elders are charged with the duty of silently guarding the final door of life and, for this
reason, are invested with respect and spiritual consideration and their words are highly esteemed,
which in exchange allows the younger generations to enjoy the plenitude of life, undisturbed by
existential problems until their turn of spiritual responsibility ripens with age. That conscious
regard of old age and death characterizes the family life as well the Kazakh society as a whole,
and is so well rooted that makes suspecting the persistency of a very ancient tradition.
We know very little about the conception of death among the prehistoric pastoralist groups of the
Kazakhstan territory.
Legends (see here below ‘Korkut-Ata’) speak about the existence of a mythical period when
death was faced without fear and even with desire and joy: a mental state that paleo-ethnographic
investigations cannot detect but that possibly is still held today secretly by enlightened
individuals.
Starting from the Bronze Age and increasingly during the Saka period, two archetypical
animals played a major role in funerary rituals: the sheep and the horse. This is witnessed by the
presence of their remains in burial assemblages and of their figures in shaping funerary objects
and constructions and as dominant subjects of petroglyph representations. Both animals present
virtues supporting the travel across death and so making of them privileged sacrificial animals:
the sheep by its submissiveness, the horse by its speed and vibratile pace exploding in different
4 Meditation on death holds a central place in all religions and initiation rites. All religions reside on the
pretension of giving a meaning to both life and death, and even of making death pleasurable and desirable.
Apparently such centralized religious service became compulsory starting from I millennium BC in the context
of crowded urban aggregations that, deprived of the previous natural scenarios, required the collective artificial
building of an indelible civil self-consciousness.
In Hinduism death is omnipresent but its inevitability is softened by faith in cycles of meritorious reincarnations.
The death impact is also filtered in Christianity where not your death stays at the center of scriptures and iconic
representations but the death of a redeemer or a collective doomsday. In Buddhism death is faced directly and
considered, together with suffering and aging, the angel of liberation that, accomplished through dispassion for
worldly affairs, brings to supermundane knowledge. Its awareness in the Quran is partly softened by faith in
meritorious paradises but is absolutely fierce in Sufism where the remembrance of death is the only messenger
driving to its solution: an uninterrupted faithful remembrance of God.
Initiation rites of young males through the world (among primitive tribes, ancient Egyptian, Greek and Mithraic
cults, Templars, Massons, etc) most often include the terrifying performance of a ritual death, intended for fixing
consciousness and dispelling fear of the future extinction and for promoting ‘rebirth’ in a wider state of mind.
5
tempos. Then, at the start of the I millennium AD, also a third animal, the camel, by getting
involved in long trade caravan routes, acquires funerary significance as extreme traveler across
desert lands.
Information about past conceptions of death becomes more abundant in Turkic medieval
times. The Turkic world view (Tengrism) deeply differs from the view of Near Eastern
monotheistic religions by missing the cosmogonic approach, in the sense that among early Turks
an origin for the natural world is not even suspected and doesn’t need any answer: nature exists
by itself, supreme, irreducible; life and death are cycles within inscrutable ever changing natural
dynamics. What is questioned is the ancestry of the human race, which is conceived as springing
from natural elements inorganic or organic: the ground, a tree, a she-wolf and developing
through a lineage of mythical personages and heroes (DeWeese 1994). Even the assimilation of
the Turks within Islam at the end of I millennium AD didn’t arrive to introduce the cosmogonic
paradigm, it only introduced new kinds of primeval human ancestor. In times of Turkic alliance
or dependence from the Islamic world, such ancestor was the biblical Japheth (Yafith), son of
Noah and mythical progenitor of all European and Central Asian peoples; in times of conflict and
Turkic supremacy, he was a pre-islamic Central Asian personage, Afrasiyab, a Turanian king
spoken in the Avesta and then similarly in Islamic sources as an achenemy of Iran, a demon
causing war, draught and desolation 5.
Several mythical and historical figures rooted in medieval times are embedded in the Kazakh
culture through the memorial transmission of legends, biographies and words. Most illustrious
are three personages who made of death the core of their message: Korkut-Ata, Ahmed Yasawi
and Abai Kunanbaev. They had the strongest impact in shaping the Kazakh culture and still today
constitute its main references, representing respectively the mythical, spiritual and moral spheres.
Korkut-Ata (‘frightened ancestor’) is the legendary musician of the oldest Turkic legends (VI-
VII century AD), of whom the tomb is shown on the shores of the lower Syrdarya river. In spite
of the fact that it was said that “whoever desires death, he will not die”, he got scared of it and
spent the entire 295 years of his long life floating, together with his camel, on a carpet carried by
the stream of the Syrdarya, playing uninterruptedly a magic violin (kobyz) in order to dispel
death…his only listener! In that sense, Korkut represents the existentialist drama of the modern
man, conscious of death and determined to resist to it, with fear and determination, in an
enchanted state of mind. But without solution.
Ahmed Yasawi is the Sufi master and main saint of Kazakhstan who solved the unending
contraposition between Korkut and death by dissolving one of the 2 poles of the contrast, the
individual self. The Yasawi’s path of self dissolution is mystical, i.e. based on total detachment,
faith, love and joyful annihilation in God. In the year 1166 AD, aged 63 (the age of the prophet’s
death) he decided it was time to withdraw from the material world: he entered a virtual dying
scenario by retiring without return in a 3 m deep underground cell that is still shown today near
his mausoleum in Turkestan. It is from down there that, for years, Yasawi spoke and transmitted
his wisdom (hikmet) in poems (divan-i).
Abai Kunanbaev (1845-1904 AD) is a kind of early existentialist poet, translator and
philosopher who opened the Kazakh culture to the external world and became the main reference
of the modern Kazakh nation. At the end of his life, when writing the introduction of his
5 A resurgence of Tengrism was documented in the Gorno-Altai region at the beginning of the XX century, in the
form of a syncretistic phenomenon called Burkhanism, combining elements of ancient pre-Shamanist,
Shamanist, Lamaist and Orthodox Christian beliefs. It was suppressed by the Soviet regime for fear of its
potential nationalistic propaganda among Siberian Turks.
6
pamphlet of moral sayings (Kara sodzeri, Words of edification), he declares to have grown total
disgust for the Russian colonial policies as well as for the behavior of his own people, to be tired
of everything and in solitude, to be empty of expectations and hopes, and confesses that he is
writing few moral aphorisms and poems just because he doesn’t know what else to do. Abai is a
sad man who certainly doesn’t manifest the Yasawi’s joy for dying but doesn’t even show
resistance or pretension of immortality: nature, morality and religiosity provide a kind of bridge.
Among these examples, the most significant for the past and present Kazakh culture and also the
one endowed of highest potential of worldwide resonance are the life, teachings, verses and
mausoleum of the Sufi master Ahmed Yasawi. This saint arrived to remember the inevitability of
death by his self-immurement and in that extreme way underlined, as only solution, the aspects
of renunciation, compassionate love and divine knowledge deeply rooted in the Sufi tradition. He
developed these virtues with his living example and words at a level far above any particular
culture, creed or school, conveying a message of universal significance capable of answering the
spiritual needs of the modern humans and making of him a spiritual vanguard not only for the
Sufi and Muslim communities but for the entire planet. Groups of followers are still gathering
around his mausoleum in Turkestan and even abroad; and, after independence, actions have been
taken by local and international institutions in order to restore his tomb and spread his teachings.
How many years must pass before the words and deeds of Ahmed Yasawi would express their
full potential and inspire at all levels the culture of modern Kazakhstan? Or before a new
generation of saints would recover and teach the forgotten mythical way of natural joyful death?
2 - The Sufi movement and its spread in Kazakhstan (VIII-XII AD)
2.1 - Sufism
Sufism (‘rough garb’) is a very peculiar minority movement within Islam that follows a spiritual
journey (tasawwuf) based on individual moral responsibility and mystical 6 relation with the
divine. The adepts go through a path of renunciation, asceticism, love, knowledge and
annihilation of the individual soul in God (Fig. 1).
2.1.1 - Sufi history
Sufis are as old as Islam and co-substantial with it. They are counted among the nearer followers
(sahabah) of Muhammad, the ones who pledge alliance (bay‘ah) to Muhammad and Allah and
6 Mysticism is defined as the belief that direct knowledge of God, the ultimate reality, can be attained through
subjective direct experience: a mystic is someone devoted to such personal transformation. Asceticism (zuhd),
consisting in abstinence from sensuous pleasures, is ranged among the first steps of the Sufi mystic path.
Mysticism and asceticism don’t characterize mainstream Islam. Monasticism shares only external similarities
with Sufi circles and is totally forbidden by the Quran.
7
claim to be descendants of the prophet through Ali 7, by which they are called alawi (followers of
Ali) and deserve the honorific name of sayyid (‘valiant master’).
They have always been a fringe movement who took up the call of spreading Islam in the
peripheries and defending Muslim sites from enemies and Crusaders. They appeared in the VI
century AD as pious circles of ascetics practicing night prayers and meditations on the doomsday
(ashratu’s saah) passages of the Quran, by which became known as “those who always weep” or
“those who consider this world as a hut of sorrows”. Then, in few centuries, under the influence
of early Christian mystics emphasizing love (ishq) and annihilation in God (fanaa), their
ascetism changed into mysticism; and their sects, inspired by Egyptian, Gnostic and Zoroastrian
mystery schools, became organized around their spiritual leaders (imam, murshid), brotherhoods
(tariqah) and holy places, often the tombs of the brotherhood founders. Sufis ended up
considering the Quran just their original ‘shell’, feeling at home in all religions and “disliking
being given any inclusive name which might force them into doctrinal conformity” (Shah 1964,
introduction by R. Graves).
From the earliest times the succession of Sufi Sheikhs as heads of a lineage (silsila) or a lodge
(tariqah) could happen by heredity or by discipleship. The hereditary family succession was the
general rule in Sufi orders centralized around a mother lodge, and promoted the establishment of
longstanding spiritual dynasties. The non-hereditary succession, based on sainthood, spiritual
transmission or economical power, became majoritarian in the XVIII AD among open-minded
reformist communities and was more exposed to divisions and mergers (Zarcone 2007).
Fig. 1 – Muslim ascetic in Eastern Bengal in the 1860s (Wikipedia, Ascetism)
7 At the exception of the Naqshbandiyya order that, strictly Sunni oriented, traces its lineage ( silsila) to the first
caliph (i.e. administrative and political leader) Abu Bakr, all the Sufi orders trace their lineage to Ali, prophet’s
cousin and son-in-law and fourth caliph, and a few orders, like the Central Asian Kubrawiyya, through Ali to the
prophet Muhammad. In spite of the central reference to Ali, most of the Sufi orders are adherent of Sunni Islam
and only few, like the Yasawiyya, Kubrawiyya and their offsprings, fall within the ambit of Shia Islam.
8
In the development of the Sufi movement three phases are distinguished. The early phase (VI-
VIII century AD) is largely ascetic and based on oral teaching [Hasan al-Basri (VI-VII AD),
Rabi-ah, Majnun, al-Misri (VII), Adham (VIII)]. The second phase (IX-XII AD) is mystic
(devoted to cosmic love) as well as speculative, teaching the Sufi path of annihilation in God in
most brilliant practical and literary ways [al-Muharisi, Dhu-an-Nun al-Misri, al-Bistami, Junaid
Baghdadi (IX), Shibli, Mansur al-Hallaj (X), Ghazali, Khayyam?(XI), Farid od-Din Attar,
Ahmed Yasawi, Najmuddin Kubra, Habash Suhrawardī (XII)]. The third phase (XIII-XV AD)
sees the popular spread, multiplication and political involvement of fraternal orders, the
development of epistemological and mystical treatises and literary poetry, but also moralist
tendencies and softening of the mystical discipline [Yunus Emre, Rumi, Moinuddin Chishti
(XIII), Hajrat Nizamuddin, Nasiruddin Chirag-Dehlavi (XIV), Jami (XV)].
In the X AD the Sufis who had strongholds in Khorasan and Margiana spread to Central Asia
where gave rise to 3 historically important and still active schools called all together Khwajagan
(a Persian term meaning ‘masters’). In chronological order: Yasawiyya, from Ahmed Yasawi
(Turkestan, XII AD); Kubrawiyya, from Najmuddin Kubra (Khorezm, XIII AD);
Naqshbandiyya, inspired by Yusuf Hamadani and Abdulkhaliq Gujduwani (Baghdad and
Bukhara, XII-XIII AD) and founded by Baha-ud-Din Naqshband Bukhari (early XIV AD) 8.
Later on, other Sufi orders reached Central Asia from Iran (Suhrawardiyya) and India
(Shattariyya) 9.
The second phase of the Sufi historical development represents a ‘golden age’ that generated
the highest number of saints and martyrs, spiritual masters, metaphysical treatises and
enlightened political leaders. By incorporating shamanistic, Zoroastrian, Manichaean, Hinduist
and Buddhist elements met in the territories of its spread 10, arrived to express a most tolerant
path of justice and spirituality ranging among the highest and most complete spiritual
attainments of mankind. The mission of Ahmed Yasawi represents the supreme mystic
expression and apotheosis of this second phase of the Sufi development.
Today the movement constitutes a most tolerant and peaceful alternative to Islamic extremism
and is in rapid expansion. Its orders are counted by hundreds and adherents or sympathizers are
numbered as one hundred millions. They are most numerous in India and present in every
Muslim country, sometimes flourishing in clandestinity because persecuted, like from the 20ies
in Turkey and Soviet Union and today openly in Saudi Arabia and secretly in Iran 11.
3.1.2 - Sufi spiritual system
8 In Central Asia the Naqshbandiyya is the only Sufi sect based on non-hereditary succession and, together with
the Suhrawardiyya, the only one Sunni-oriented. It is also the largest with wide international diffusion, most
engaged politically and most exposed to branching, schisms and mergers. During the XIX AD it ended up
absorbing the members of the other two Shia oriented Central Asian sects Yasawiyya and Kubrawiyya (Zarcone
2003, pp. 760-768). Today the Naqshbandiyya is still operative in India, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Daghestan, W-
China and N-Tibet, and the Kubraviyya just in Shiraz (Iran).
9 Sufi orders that diffused to Central Asia from Iran and India have been the Suhrawardiyya originated in Iran
from Abu 'n-Najib as-Suhrawardi (Iran, 1097-1168), and its Indian derivative Ishqiyya (or Shattariyya) from
Abdullah Shattari (Bihar, +1472).
10 The popular and tolerant character of Sufism created excellent conditions for the blending of Islam with local
shamanic practices and other religions (Melikoff 1996).
11 The most important among modern active Sufi orders are, in alphabetic order: Ba Alawiyya, Bektashi, Chishti,
Khalwati, Kubraviyya, Naqshbandi, Nimatullahi, Oveyssi, Qadria Noshahia, Qadiria Boutshishia, Qadiriyyah,
Qalandariyya, Sarwari Qadiri, Shadhliyya, Shattariya and Suhrawardiyya (Wikipedia, History of Sufism).
9
In Sufi cosmology, the God's reason for the creation of cosmos and humankind is the
"manifestation" and "recognition" of Himself, and his divine descent happens in 6 stages, from
abstract to concrete (Koslovski 2001, p. 99). In Sufi psychology, the human mind is constituted
by 3 levels in dynamic interaction: a lower self called the nafs (ego), a faculty of spiritual
intuition called the qalb (heart), and the ruh (spirit) (Schimmel 2013). The Sufi mystical path
(tariqah 12) ascend in reverse order the steps of divine descent along these 3 psychological levels:
it starts under the stimuli of fear (nafs), is guided by the search of knowledge and love (qalb),
and develops until the highest level of the mind (ruh).
God’ intimacy increases along a fourfold process of purification (tahara) made of progressive
detachment: dispassion for earthly pleasures, growing knowledge and love, dissolution of the ego
(fana), abiding in God (baqa). Accordingly, the Sufi spiritual path (tariqah, as general way)
proceeds across 4 main stations (maqam, plural maqamat) 2 exoteric and 2 esoteric 13:
Shariah (revealed law, rules): serving God;
Tariqah (path): facing God accomplishment of the Shariah by entering the Sufi order
(bay‘ah), following a spiritual mentor (murshid), and traveling the mystical path of love and
knowledge;
Aqiqah, (essence, ultimate truth, gnosis): esoteric knowledge, accompanied by absorption
and dissolution of the self and annihilation in God;
Marifah (divine knowledge, mystical union): esoteric achievement of spiritual ecstasy (wajd)
in the invisible center of the Aqiqah, where craving for God and grace (ahwal) will radiate
divine love and compassion and feed the universe.
During spiritual retreats (khalvat), besides prayers (wird), sermons (sohbah) and discursive self-
examination (muhasaba), the deepest and most technical spiritual exercises are muqaraba and
dhikr.
Muqaraba (‘watch over’) consists of meditating in sitting or walking pose and with
mindfulness on breathing on different objects, mainly mental objects inside your heart, for
accessing the deepest layers of the mind. It promotes a process of abstraction from initial
distraction to stable concentration, followed by ascension to direct vision until 3 final objects of
enlightening annihilation (fanaa): in the Master, in Muhammad (s.a.w.), in Allah (a.s.) 14.
Dhikr (or zikr, ‘remembrance’) consists in direct concentration on the Divine by intimations
of holy names or formulas (wazaif). It can be supported by rhythmic breath-work (fikr) and
accompanying movements 15 designed to create a ‘fly-wheel’ in the consciousness and disrupt its
normal state. It involves the physical, emotional and mental spheres; can be individual or
12 The term tariqah can refer to 3 different objects: the Sufi spiritual lodge (turuq, tekke) or school (medresa); the
Sufi spiritual training in general; or, more specifically, just the second of its 4 stations when the novice
consciously adheres to the mystic community by entering an order and accepting a mentor.
13 Sufi schools can be distinguished on the basis of their emphasis on different stations of the training. ‘Sober
Sufis’ are dervishes observing the courtesy (adab) demanded by the Lord-servant relationship, so that they
emphasize the rationality of the first shariah station, becoming dominant in jurisprudence. ‘Drunken Sufis’ are
dervishes who emphasize the ecstatic attainments (mast, ‘drunkness’) of the last 2-3-4 stations of the path,
becoming dominant in Sufi poetry.
14 ‘s.w.a.’ and ‘a.s.’ are abridged versions of the honorific formulas sallallahu alayhi wa salaam (God’s bliss and
peace be with Him’) andas-samad (‘perfect one’), postponed respectively to the names of the prophets and of
Allah.
10
collective; can be practical (performed together with obedient actions), loud (jahri) 16 or silent
(khafi) 17. The silent dhikr is also called dhikr al-qalbi (‘remembrance of the heart’) because
obtained by progressing from the vocal dhikr in the mouth to the silent dhikr in the heart.
Dhikr is a central element of the Sufi practice and has several variants: Sufi orders are most often
distinguished by their specific style of dhikr, which is kept secret.
The doctrinal positions and spiritual practices of Sufism share strict analogies with the teachings
of other religions, in particular with Middle East and Indian yogic and mystic expressions: the 8
yoga stages of the Patanjali sutras and the emotional devotionalism of the bhakti Hinduist
movement; the 8 stages of extinction of the self by breathing (anapanasati) and insight
(vipassana) meditation of the Early Buddhist schools, the 8 stages of the bodhisattva path in
Mahayana Buddhism, and the visionary states of Tibetan yoga. Resemblances are also shared
with the 4 stages of ‘Lectio divina’ of the earliest Christian monks, the breathing techniques and
cathartic practices of medieval kabalistic mystics (Abulafia, Askenazi Hasidim), the unending
repetitions of God’ name of the Orthodox monks, and the ‘imaginal worlds’ (Al-Malakut) of the
neoplatonic Illuminiationist school of Sahab Suhrawardi.
These wide similarities are witnessing the existence in all religions of a common mystic core and
proof the universal significance of the Sufi teachings and of the Ahmed Yasawi life and message.
Evidently the same mystic search was and is going on under different spiritual flags.
Influences on Sufism from the Persian culture are obvious, influences from the Indian culture
cannot be underestimated 18. The life of Ahmed Yasawi and the rise of the Central Asian Sufi
schools fall within the time of the Kharakanid Khanate (999-1211) at the north of the Amudarya
and, south of it, of the Ghaznavid Empire (977-1163). The Ghaznavid dynasty emerged from the
Turkic slave guards of the Samanid Empire and, centered in NE Afghanistan, dominated a huge
territory from the Caspian to the Yamuna river, establishing a bridge between the Central Asian,
Persian and N-Indian worlds. Under their rule the Khoresmian scholar Ahmad Al-Biruni (973-
1048) authored important studies of the Indian cultures (‘Indica’) and even provided an Arabic
translation of the ‘Yoga Sutra’ of Patanjali 19. His works had a big impact on Sufism, in particular
on the Central Asian Yasawiyya and Kubrawiyya schools, being that “in his Indica analyses
explicitly the parallels between Yoga and Sufism and finds them to have a good number of
common motives” (Safronov 2014), and that his translation of the Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
describes in details the relation between breathing exercises and states of mind, which constitutes
a basic aspect of the Sufi training.
15 Movements accompanying the spiritual training normally consist in a dance mimicking the dance of the crane
(turnalar semai), made of beating wings, vertical jumps and bending-whirling body movements. The
involvement of the body in devotional practices is a distinguishing character not only of Sufism but more in
general of Islam and has become the most popular attribute of the Sufi training itself.
16 Jahri, when collective, ends up sounding quite similar to Lamaist recitations.
17 Sama (‘listening’) is called the hearing of a sound that is not being played, a kind of auditory hallucination
leading to an exalted state of mind. When accompanied by spontaneous movements it is called raqs-i sama
(‘movements rising from listening’).
18 Besides the circulation of ideas, the hagiographies of Sufi saints witness also cases of conversion or deep
influences from Zoroastrism (al-Bistami, Mansur Hallaj, Arystanbab), Christianity (Kharki) and Hinduism
(Habash Suhawardi).
19 The manuscript of the Al-Biruni translation of the ‘Yoga Sutras’ of Patanjali was found in the early 1920-ies in
the Köprülü Library of Istanbul by L. Massignon (Massignon 1922)
11
On another side, Sufi doctrines present points of contrast with mainstream Islam: metaphoric
reading (ta’well) of passages of the Quran and the Hadith literature 20; devotion to living sheikhs
(moral and spiritual authorities), dead saints and mythical masters; incorporation of rituals and
music in spiritual practices; possibility of union with the creator; significance of all religions;
refusal of politics and violence; open mindedness towards innovations. These points, which
surely characterized the doctrine of Yasawi, constituted in the past as today matters of debate and
controversy between Sufis and orthodox Muslims and even between Sufi orders of Sunni or Shia
orientation 21. Sufi sects were also vulnerable within themselves to succession disputes and
internal divisions, which favored the formation of offsprings.
2.2 - The Khoja
West Central Asia and the Syrdarya region in particular, due to their location at the northern
borders of the Islamic world, during the VIII-IX AD constituted a refuge for political and
religious dissidents of the Caliphate, so that the penetration of Islam in the Central Asian territory
had been strictly connected with the multiplication and spread of heterodox religious groups 22.
The first wave consisted in the immigration in West Central Asia of anti-caliphate movements
like the Khurramiya and Mubayyidite mixing Iranian religions with Islamic teachings, which
conferred to the Islam of Central Asia a multiform aspect and a deeply rooted tolerant character
and political orientation 23.
In South Kazakhstan the process of Islamization was accomplished under the action of the
Khoja (Hoja, Hodja, Kozha) tribe 24, a strong ethnic group diffused everywhere within the
Muslim world and still considering itself as a specific religious caste within the Ismaili Shia
Islam. Its members can enter the clan only by birth, are basically endogamic and follow a
hereditary transmission of lifestyle. They pretend to be descendant from the same Quraysh tribe
of the prophet’s clan and trace their lineage at least from Muhammad ibn al-Hanafiyyah (or Abi-
Talib or Mahdi, 633-710 AD), who is the third son of Ali (prophet’s cousin and fourth caliph)
and counted among the early dissidents of the Caliphate and the founders of the Shiite politico-
religious faction. The pretension of spiritual leadership and the dissident political military
character have been from the very beginning typical traits of the Khoja tribes. 25
20 The term hadith (‘traditions’) refers to any of the various traditional records of words, actions and habits of the
Prophet Mohammad during his lifetime.
21 Controversies existed between the Naqshbandiyya and the other Sufi orders, being that the first is the only
school tracing its relation to Muhammad not through Ali but through Abu Bakr. In particular, in spite of their
close connection, the Naqshbandiyya had occasional disputes with the Yasawiyyas, which were blamed for their
loose adherence to the Quran words (against the literal interpretation of the Nashbandiyya), for their devotional
practices favoring the loud dhikr (against the silent dhrk of the Naqshbandiyya) and, as a whole, for their Shia
ambit.
22 Concerning the spread of Islam and Sufism in Central Asia, see: Deom 2009; De Weese 2012.
23 The Mubayyidites (‘wearers of white’) were among the most radical of the early heterodox Islamic movements
of Central Asia, grouped around a master claiming to be the reincarnation of Abraham, Jesus and Muhammad all
together. Defeated in 779 AD in Transoxiana, they moved north of the Syrdarya and converted the Qarluq tribes
before disappearing in XII AD (Deom 2009, p. 102).
24 Their actual name comes from khwaja, a Persian honorific title that the tribe members started receiving in
Pakistan during the XIII AD.
25 The politico-military orientation of the Khoja communities of Central Asia endured during subsequent times. In
Late Middle Ages they became rulers of holy sites and waterworks, both activities being freed from taxation;
under the Soviet empire they lost past privileges but, quickly adapting to the new regime, commanded kolkhozes
12
The first Khoja groups reached Western Central Asia around 735, few years after the Arab
invasion of 706-715; and during the weakening of state power used to put their members as
leaders of self-government bodies of central cities. They had a stronghold in Tashkent and from
there diffused to the north, east and west. The main protagonist has been Khoja Ishaq Bab 26, a
military cadre and religious leader who settled in Tashkent around 780 and, together with his
uncle and brother and descendants, promoted the spread of Islam to the north, among the Turks:
Sayram, the mid-Syrdarya and the Karatau mountain region where today his tomb is venerated
(Baba Ata). Around the X AD the religious expansion got the shape of a dissident Sufi sect,
making of Ishaq Bab the ancestor of the Sufi lineages of Kazakhstan and of Ahmed Yasawi
himself. 27
About the ethnic identification and lineages of the Khoja of Central Asia, illuminating are
some recent studies. On the basis the Khoja genealogical records, four sub-clans are detected
testifying four different lines of paternal ascent, in order of antiquity: to Abu Bakr (first caliph),
to Umar (second caliph), to Ali (fourth caliph), and to Hanafiyyah (Ali’s son). In spite of the
traditional Khoja pretension of a common paternal ancestor, genetic tests of living members
witness among the four sub-clans very pronounced Y-chromosome variations and different Y-
DNA haplogroups (Hp): the Abu Bakr group, with Hp D, L, O, C3 and R1a, is genetically the
most diversified, apparently related with the Naqshbandiyya order where not biological but
spiritual transmission has always been fundamental; the Umar group has dominant Hp R2a,
which is common in South and Central Asia; the Ali group, with dominant Hp J2, is the nearer to
the original Quraysh tribe and probably also to the Ahmed Yasawi genotype; the Hanafiyyah
group, with dominant Hp R1a and G1, apparently is resulting from the spread of Islam among
the Golden Horde and from Khoja intermixtures with the Argyn tribe. All together these genetic
differences exclude a common paternal ancestry and point instead to several unrelated
forefathers, implying that the silsila (lineage) of the Khoja groups has not been strictly biological
but largely accompanied by spiritual transmission (Zhabagin et al. 2017).
3 - Life and teachings of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi
The chronology, family lineage, life, spiritual affiliation, death, teachings and spiritual
succession of Ahmed Yasawi are all surrounded by vivid legends. Actually, legends and
miraculous accounts constitute an integral part of the Sufi teaching, possibly intended for
weakening a hyper rationalistic approach. In any case, in traditional hagiographic works, the
biographic data concerning Ahmed Yasawi are often distorted by quotations concerning his
miraculous powers, like bringing rain with the help of the Yada-Tashi magic stone, calling the
dead back to life, turning into a bird (perendelik, possibly referring to the homologous Sufi
dance), moving mountains, etc 28. (DeWeese 2006, p. xvii). Here below such hagiographic
and sofkhozes; after perestroika they recovered controlling positions in managing spiritual shrines and
pilgrimages. The descent, history and character of the Khoja are shared by another Central Asian tribe, the
Sunak. Still today these two tribes maintain a privileged position among the nomadic populations of Transoxiana
and, like the Genghis Khan’s descendants, are treated as nobility.
26 The popular custom of applying the title Bab in front of the name of Sufi saints of Central Asia appeared during
these early times of the religious spread (see note 29).
27 About the origins and history of the Khoja, see: Virani 2007. About the Khoja of Kazakhstan, see: Muminov
1998; De Weese 1999, p. 507-530
28 The most legendary accounts of the life of Yasawi are the compilations of legends of the Bektakshi tradition
(XVI AD), in particular the Velayetname-i Hajji Bektash Veli (The saintly exploits of Hacı Bektaş Veli) and its
13
records are filtered and expounded as a blending of the Hazini’s most reliable accounts and of
historical knowledge about the Yasawi life.
3.1 - Life of Ahmed Yasawi (1093-1166)
Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (later also known as Hazrat-i Turkistan or Pir-i Turkestan) 29 was born in
Sayram (Ispijab, South Kazakhstan) 30 in 1093 AD. His father, Sheikh Ibrahim ibn Mahmud, was
a famous learned man (mullah, ulama, sheikh) and religious master (pir, sultan) of the Khoja
community, pertaining to the Hanafi school of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) 31. His mother was
Aisha Khatun Iftikhar, daughter of one of his disciples. From early childhood the father
introduced the son to the religious life and to the study of sciences, with the help of another local
Hanafi scholar, Bakh ad-Din Ispijabi.
At the age of 7 Ahmed became orphan of both parents and moved with his older sister,
Gawhar, to the town of Yasi (or to Otrar) located on the Middle Syrdarya and renamed in the
XVI century as Turkestan. Here the legend says while walking in the fields with the Quran
on his head and backward as not to turn its back to Mecca, was watched by Arystanbab (Arslan
Bab, meaning in Arabic ‘lion gate’), a two and half meters high man of dark complexion very
popular among the Turkic people, at first Zoroastrian cleric (mobed, master of magians’) and
then Muslim leader of the local Mubayyidite movement. Aristanbab asked Ahmed to become his
disciple and passed to him a special seed: a date fruit expressly received from the Prophet and
carried until that moment in his mouth (see also note 41).
Arystanbab accomplished his mission of providing spiritual guidance, and died the following
year when “70,000 weeping angels appeared and transported him to paradise” (Koprolu 2006, p.
21). Ahmed remained in Yasi (or possibly returned to Sayram) and here started performing
miracles and composing verses in Arabic, Persian, and Chagatai-Turkic language. He married,
had a son (Ibrahim) who died during his father life, and a daughter (Gawhar) who will continue
the lineage (see note 43). Then, at the age of 27, feeling in love for God, he decided to look for
an enlightened master and went to Bukhara, at the time considered the ‘dome of Islam’. Here he
became student of Khoja Yusuf Hamadani (1049-1140), a gentle and strict sheikh related through
8 transmission links (silsil) to the spiritual authority of the prophet and inspirer of the
Naqshbandiyya Sufi order. Ahmed, following the legend, probably traveled with him to Merv
summary provided by (Koprulu 2006, p. 20-57) [Haji Bektash Veli (1209-1271) was a Yasawi disciple founder
of the Bektakshi order, see Section 3.2)]. The Jawahir al-abrar of Hazini (XVI AD) is nearer to reality (see
Section 3.3.1). Scientifically founded historical accounts are the works of DeWeese (2000), the very rich but
Turkish-centered account of Koprulu (1890-1966) (Koprulu 2006, p. 57-89) and the short descriptions of
Baiteinova (2012) and Tosun (2015).
29 Khoja Ahmed Yasawi means ‘Khoja Highly-praised of Yasi’. Hazrat or Hadrat, which in Arabic means
‘presence’, is an honorific title applied to high clergy with the meaning of ‘His holiness’. Synonyms are Pir
(‘saint’), Sheikh (‘guide, mentor, master’) Khwaja (‘master’) and Bab (‘father’, ‘sir’, ‘gate’), all marks of respect
commonly applied to Sufi masters. The title Mahdi (‘rightly-guided’) was at first a title for knowledgeable
persons and then acquired messianic significance. Ibn means ‘son of’, al means ‘the’ or ‘of the’.
30 “The tradition that Yasavi was born in Sayram is first attested in the Javahir al-abrar of Hazini, an Ottoman
Turkish work in the late 16th century…but earlier sources identify the town of Yasï/Turkistan as Yasavi's
birthplace.” (DeWeese 1999, note 25)
31 The Hanafi is the majoritarian and the most flexible of the 4 fiqh schools of Islam, allowing analogical
interpretation of ambiguous passages of Quran and Hadith. About the history of the Hanafites in Central Asia
see: Muminov 1999.
14
and other countries, received the authorization (ijazah) to preach Sufi doctrines and, counted
among the three nearer disciples, after the death of Hamadani and of his first successor he
became sheikh of the Bukhara lodge. In that way the subsequent establishment in the early XIV
AD of the Naqshbandiyya order and its very successful history would be also indebted to the
Yasawi spirituality. 32
Already mature in age, Ahmed decided to follow the Arystanbab example and to diffuse Islam
beyond the Syrdarya, among the Turks. So he returned to Yasi (from which comes his title
Yasawi) at the northern borders of the Central Asian urbanized region and free refuge for
persecuted intellectuals and mystics. In his mission at first he encountered obstacles from
envious opponents but soon he received high recognition as a venerable scientist 33, poet,
preacher, spiritual guide (sheikh, murshid) and mystic (Fig 2).
He practiced and taught the mystic way (tasavvuf), praising the ascetic life and meditation on
death and adapting the Islamic message to the local Turkic shamanistic background in ways
unusual even among Sufi masters: he emphasized individual freedom and knowledge, abolished
differences between men and women (see note 41), and showed tolerance for other religions and
for local ritual practices like ancestors worship and pilgrimages.
He was surrounded by 99000 disciples (murid), 12000 initiated miraculous dervishes and
several perfect sheikhs who ensured an uninterrupted line of successors (khalifah) and made of
him the spiritual ancestor of all Turkic tribes. A popular brotherhood rose around him and ended
up as a school (tariqah) called Yasawiyya, which represented the first among the three important
Sufi schools of Central Asia.
Fig 2 - Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (image freely distributed on the internet).
32 Another version of the Yasawi formation is given by the XVI century poet Hazini (see below Section 3.3.1) who
states that in Bukhara Yasawi was student of the Persian Sufi Abu al-Najib Surahwardi (1097-1168), founder of
Surahwardiyya order, Sunni oriented like the Naqshbandiya.
33 Yasawi in Turkestan legends is remembered as developer of water management techniques and karez, which in
Central Asia have always been specialized tasks of Khoja clans (Sala 2016).
15
In 1166, at the age of 63, lamenting for the death of Muhammad the prophet, Ahmed Yasawi
withdrew in an underground cell (khiluet, chillakhona) 34 built on one side of his lodge in Yasi-
Turkestan (Fig. 3).
It is a tradition for lovers to die alive:
Khoja Ahmed Yasawi heard it, read it, and went underground.
May I be annihilated on the path of love, oh Lord.
Whatever You do, make me be in love.
At 63 it was said to be a tradition,
so, lamenting for Muhammad, I came down here.
My friends on earth fell into mourning,
the whole world cried saying ‘my Sultan’.
The real Sufis in the truth greatly suffered when,
lamenting for Muhammad, I came down here. (H6) 35
From that cell Ahmed never returned back. The underground retirement has been by far the most
significant event of his life and his deepest spiritual teaching: down there - the legend says - he
lived 10 or 22 or 60 years longer and transmitted 99000 (i.e. ‘many’) spiritual verses.
His dead body could not be touched and buried by anyone but another contemporary saint
called ‘Karabura’, meaning ‘black Bactrian camel’, which remembers the central role played by
the camel in the life and death of the mythical musician Korkut and, as a whole, in the medieval
funerary rituals of Middle East and Central Asia.
Fig 3 (left) - Entrance of the Yasawi’s underground cell. Fig 4 (right) - Yasawi’s sarcophagus in serpentine stone.
34 Chilla-khona in Arabic means ’forty (days) retreat’. The tradition of retiring in a crypt or cave for meditation or
for final self-immurement was common practice among the Islamized Turkic saints of South Kazakhstan.
Besides Ahmed Yasawi, another reported case of self-immurement is the one of Sighnaq-Ata, a Sufi master
contemporary with Yasawi of whom chillakona and mausoleum are located in the immediate surroundings of the
medieval town of Signak, on the Middle Syrdarya 150 km west of Turkestan. Cave mosques and collective
prayer-halls are quite numerous in the calcareous cliffs of Mangyshlak (West Kazakhstan) where they developed
as analogues of underground individual cells.
35 Here and in following similar cases, H6 plays as abridged formula for referring to Hikmet 6 of the Turkestan
manuscript.
16
Ahmed was buried in Yasi one hundred meters north of his chillakhona, under a small
mausoleum (turbe) that immediately became an important pilgrimage destination. The spiritual
power of the town is witnessed by the fact that Emir Timur, when in 1366 conquered Yasi,
became a Yasawi devotee (Koprulu 2006, p.29) and in 1385 started building on his tomb a
grandiose mausoleum that became and still is one of the most visited places in Central Asia (Fig.
4, 5, 6).
Fig 5 - Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi in Turkestan, hosting the Yasawi’s tomb under the smaller dome on the
back of the central axis, and also a mosque, juridical hall, library, well, kitchen and dervish lodges. The construction
was promoted by Emir Timur in 1385 and realized by the architect Khoja Husayn Shirazi; but after Timur’s death in
1405 the façade was left unfinished and was only partly reinforced in 1591 by the Amir of Bukhara. The mausoleum
represents one of the best preserved Timurid monumental complexes (kulliyye), the largest dome in Central Asia
and, due to innovations in building technology, also the prototype of Timurid architecture that inspired similar
constructions in Central Asia, Khorasan, Azerbaijan and North India. The outer walls are decorated by faience tiles
and by an upper band of Arabic inscriptions of holy names and Quran verses (al-An‘am 6: 59-63). (Aerial photo by
R. Sala, view to W).
17
Fig 6 - Mausoleum of Khoja Ahmed Yasawi: back entrance leading to the tomb (photo G. Bedenko).
3.2 - The Yasawiyya order
The Yasawiyya order started to be structured along family lineages and then increasingly by
spiritual transmission, which is in accord with the results of Y-DNA tests of Khoja members
quoted in Section 2.2. The first legendary direct disciples, all spoken as endowed of miraculous
powers, have been Mansur Ata (quoted by some sources as son of Arystanbab and first Yasawi
successor), Suleiman Baqirghani (Hakim Ata), Muhammad Danishmand 36, and the legendary
Shopan Ata. They spread the order respectively to the pre-Caspian region, Khorezm, Middle-
Low Syrdarya and West Kazakhstan 37, i.e. the areas that represented all together the geographic
stronghold of the Yasawiyyas. Among the first leading sheikhs, besides Baqirghani and
Danishmand, are also counted Baba Machin, Amin Ali Hakim, Hasan Bulghani, Imam Margudi
and Sheikh Utman Maghribi (Koprulu 2006: p. 24).
Only later, by the XIV AD, the Yasawiyyas diffused in all directions among Turkic tribes,
reaching Transoxiana (until the XIX century they held a prominent position at the court of
Bukhara) and farther: among the Northern Turks (Kipchak, Bulgars) until the Volga; among the
36 The most outstanding of the Yasawi direct disciples had been Baqirghani and Danishmand. Hakim Suleiman
Baqirghani (+1186) was a Sufi sheikh and author of the treatise Bakırgan Kitabı who spread the Yasawiyya
school to Khorezm and the Caspian shores, driven to that place by sitting passively on a camel (from which his
surname Baqirghani, ‘brayer’). He is spoken as the father of Aisha Bibi, a 16 years beauty, unlucky lover of the
Karakhanid governor of Taraz who converted to Islam and dedicated to the dead fiancee a most beautiful
mausoleum. Muhammad Danishmand preached in Otrar and is the author of the Mir’at al-qulub (see below).
37 It is said that once Ahmed Yasawi summoned his disciples in a yurt (circular tent) and told them to shoot an
arrow through the round hole of the roof (shanrak) and go to spread Sufism as shepherds in the place where the
arrow would land. The arrow of Danishmand reached the Otrar oasis and the one of Shopan-Ata the Mangyshlak
peninsula. Today Mangyshlak and the neighboring Ustyurt plateau are hosting a large concentration of
mausoleums of Sufi saints of the Shopan-Ata spiritual lineage, remembered and honored on the account of their
sainthood and their educational, thaumaturgic and politico-military skills.
18
Western Turks of Azerbaijan, Anatolia 38 and the Balkans in the form of offsprings like the
Khalwatiyya and Bektashiyya; reaching also Khorasan, Kashmir and Xingjian 39 (Fig. 7).
Fig 7 Reconstruction of the Yasawiyya lineages and their three main offsprings (between brackets) from XII to
XVI AD according to Trimingham (1971, p. 59).
“The Yasawiyya was a tariqah of wanderers, with few distinctive branches and permanent
settlements, except whose associated with tombs of sheikhs to which pilgrimage became a
permanent feature of Central Asian Islam” (Trimingham 1971, p. 59). Some offsprings like the
38 The history of the diffusion of the Yasawi lineage to Anatolia is provided by the Turkish historian Evliya
Chelebi (1611-1682) (Evilya Chelebi XVII AD) who, like many Turkish Sufis and intellectuals, pretends to be
himself a descendant of Ahmed Yasawi.
39 The existing reconstructions of the Yasawiyya lineage are quite contradictory and debatable. On the basis of
Tosun N. (2015), the most famous Yasawi successors (underlined are the ones renewed for their teachings and
literary works) have been, between the XII and early XV AD, sheikhs of the Mansur Ata and Baqirghani (Hakim
Ata) lineages [Zengi Ata; Sadr Ata, Badr Ata, Uzun Hasan, Seyyid Ata (XIII); Elemin Baba; Ali Sheikh, Menduk
Sheikh], of the Danishmand lineage [Suzuk Ata, Ibrahim Ata, Ismail Ata, Ishaq Ata], and other Central Asian
sheikhs like Husamaddin Sighnaqi +1311, Hazret Besir +1463, Şerîf Buzurgvâr +1556. During the XV AD the
order divided in 2 branches, and then again in several branches, which favored its geographical spread in Turkic
speaking regions as well as the merging with other orders: the first branch (Ikaniyya) was started in Tashkent by
Sheikh Kamal İkani [Seyyid Ahmed, Sheikh Uveys, Abdulvasi and Abdulmuhaymin]; the second branch by
Hadim Sheikh [Kaşgarî Buhari, Süleyman Gaznavi, Seyyid Mansur Belhi +1557, Ahmad Hazini, Alim Sheikh
Azizan +1633, Serif Buhari +1697, Muhammed Buhari +1801, Omer Isan]. At the turn of the XX AD the
Yasawiyya order completely disappears from Central Asia, absorbed by the Naqshbandiyya, but Yasawi hikmet
are still recited today at the door of his tomb and in Kazakh and Kyrgyz yurtae, and the ‘dhikr of the saw’ is still
practiced by two offspring sects (Lachi and Hairi-Shan) active in the Fergana valley. Alternative versions of the
linage are described by Koprulu (2006) and Trimingham (1971) (Fig. 7).
19
Bektashiyya acquired extreme positions, “looking upon Islamic religious obligations as externals
of little or no spiritual value in the quest for knowledge of God…and developing eclectic
believes from Gnosticism, Yoga, Shamanism and Christianity” (Moosa 1988).
The Yasawiyya order developed with uninterrupted lineage until at least the XVI AD when some
communities increasingly started to join the Naqshbandiyya until becaming totally absorbed by
the end of the XIX century 40. Today only few Yasawiyya offsprings are still active, two of which
in the Fergana valley: the Lachi’ sext in Osh, and theHairy Shan’ in Aristanbob 41. They both
control entire villages and have been serious opponents of the Soviet regime.
3.3 - Teachings of Ahmed Yasawi
3.3.1 – Works of Yasawi and of his descendants
The tradition attributes to Ahmed Yasawi several works, of which only three arrived to us:
Paqirnama (or Fakr-name, ‘Epistle to the poor-dervish’), Risala dar adaby Tariqat (‘Teachings
on Tariqah ethics’) and Divan-i Hikmet (‘Book of Wisdom’). The first two works are instructions
to students and dervishes about the stations (maqam) of the spiritual training 42, the Divan-i
Hikmet (Book of Wisdom) is a collection of spiritual poems (hikmet) transmitted to us in
different transcriptions from an unknown original form.
These three manuscripts are quoted by legends as composed by Ahmed Yasawi himself in his
underground retirement, which seems to be true for the Divan-i Hikmet but not so for the other
two doctrinal works, which certainly had their basic contents orally transmitted or written by the
master during his teaching mission but then, because framed by commentaries about quotations
of Yasawi words, have been clearly compiled and manipulated after his death. The three works
are analyzed in detail in Section 3.3.2 and 4, when referring to the Yasawi spiritual system.
Yasawi teachings are also indirectly expounded in commentaries and hagiographical
compilations written by disciples and sheikhs of the Yasawiyya order, of its branching sects or of
Naqshbandi and Kubrawi rival schools, containing narratives, genealogies and precious citations
of original Yasawi’s sayings (Hasan 2017). Important are the following seven texts.
40 An account of the early rules and historical development of the Yasawiyya school can be found in (Muminov
1993). See also the works of the XVI century Sufi poet Ahmad Hazini (Hazini XVI AD).
41 ‘Hairy Shan’ is the only Sufi sect admitting women in the practice of collective dhikr, in analogy with the
Yasawi miracle where cotton and fire could be put together without interacting (Koprulu 2006, p. 24). It has a
lodge in the Aristonbob village at the NE piedmonts of the Fergana valley where it rules two mausoleums: one
dedicated to the founder of the sect and the other to Arslanbab (a duplicate of his mausoleum in Otrar). Here is
also spoken a variant of the legend of the fruit seed given to Arslanbab by the prophet: in this case not a date is
given but a nut seed from which originated the majestic primeval walnut forest surrounding the village.
42 To Yasawi is sometimes attributed also another doctrinal work, the Maqāmāt-i Arba'in (‘Forty Stations’), of
which the manuscript was formerly supposed to be the only existing one and preserved in the Public Library of
Kutahya (W-Turkey). In reality this work can be variously attributed to 2 different sheikhs: to the famous Persian
Sufi mystic and poet Abū-Sa'īd Abul-Khayr (Khorasan, 967-1049) or to the Kubrawiyya Muslim scholar Mir
Sayyid Ali Hamadani (1314–1384). The manuscript consists of a short description of the 40 virtuous substations
of the path (10 per each of the 4 main stations: shariah, Sufi order, knowledge, divine truth), representing one of
the clearest and finest Sufi accounts of the maqamat (Nasr 1991, p. 78-83).
20
Most significant is the ‘Mir’at ul-Qulub’ (‘Mirror of the Heart’), a commentary work written
by the direct Yasawi’s disciple Muhammad Danishmand Zarnuqi (XII AD), of which the title
points to its power of making the reader aware of his errors. The book is divided in 3 chapters
explaining the first 3 stations of the spiritual progression (shariah, tariqah, aqiqah) with
numerous quotes of aphorisms of Yasawi and of other great sheikhs. Two manuscripts are today
preserved: in Uppsala and Tashkent. (Danishmand XII AD)
The “Nasabnama(Genealogy Book) is a hagiography of the master written by an unknown
author during Yasawi times, translated from Arabic into Turkic in 1146 AD by the Yasawi’s
brother Mawlana Safiy ad-din Qoylaqi, and then transmitted in several versions. It contains a
large amount of historical and legendary narratives about Yasawi’s life 43, the habit of 40 days
solitary retreat, his relation with mentors, students, with the immortal saint Khizr, and about his
miracles (of the imam Marwazi, the bushered ox, the jar of love, etc.) all looking as edifying
parables. (Muminov et al. 1992; Tosun 2015).
Similar content is found in 2 other later manuscripts stored in the ACD library of Tashkent:
the “Risala dar tarjima-i Ahmad Yassawi” (Interpretation of Ahmed Yasawi) by Imam
Husamiddin Sighnaki (+1311) (Sighnoqi XIII AD), having mainly hagiographic character; and
the “Hadiqat al-arifin” (The Garden of the Saints closer to God) of Is'haq Ata, a 14th century
descendant who provides precious information about the initiation rites and devotional practices
of the order (İs’haq Ata XIV AD).
Four manuscripts of Ahmad Hazini, a XVI century Tadjik poet and sheikh of the Yasawiyya
order, in particular the Jawahir al-abrar min amvaj al-bihar (Gems of the Pious Believers), give
information about the history, rules and spiritual techniques of the school, accompanied with
frequent quotes of Yasawi verses. The Hazini’s manuscripts are stored in Istanbul, Berlin and
Paris libraries (Hazini XVI).
Important sources are also two works from masters of the Nashbandiyya order: the Rashahat-
i ain al-Hayat (Beads of Dew from the Source of Life) by Mawlana Ali ibn Husain Safi, a XVI
hagiographic compilation concerning the Yasawi spiritual affiliation; and the Lamahat min
nafahat al-quds (To the Mothers of Jerusalem) of Alim Sheikh Azızan (+1632) who, while
representing an order rival to Yasawiyyas, praises anyhow the theological and juridical skills of
the last sheikhs of the Baqirghani lineage (Zarcone 2003, p. 776).
3.3.2 – Yasawi’s spiritual system
By referring to the works of Yasawi and of his followers it is possible to sort out the general lines
of the doctrine and practice originally taught by the master. Yasawi teaches a path of disciplined
mysticism and final holiness, of which the general lines are in accord with the ones of all Sufi
schools. He also introduces some original innovations concerning the advanced stages of
spiritual training but, as a whole, excels by the supremacy of his living example and by the
enchanting power of his poetry and prose.
43 The ‘Nasabnama’ speaks about a Yasawi’s son, Ibrahim, who was murdered in young age, and a daughter,
Gevher Khushnas, who continued the lineage. It also describes the way Yasawi was earning his life by making
wooden spoons and carrying them to the market with an ox: “Whenever someone bought a spoon, he would put
the money into the saddlebag. When someone was not paying for the spoon, the ox would follow that person
wherever he went until he would pay the money. At night, the ox would return home.” (Tosun 2015, p. 99)
21
Paqirnama
Attributed to Yasawi is the ‘Epistle to the poor-dervish’: a manuscript of 5000 words, of which
copies are preserved in the Tashkent, Dushanbe and Almaty National Libraries (Yasawi A.
Paqirnama; Eraslan 1977). It consists of a detailed analysis of the path of salvation.
The text starts with the description of the 4 main stations (shariah, tariqah, aqiqah, magrifah),
each divided in 10 substations.
Fear, knowledge and love are the forces pushing toward the path, but is ‘humility’ (tawasu,
synonym of surrender islam) the virtue that, by consisting in awareness of the inferior human
position to Allah, allows the progression along the path. So, the text continues analyzing the
central role of humility in ripening the fruits of the 40 substations, now listed under different
names and in different order: 10 ‘stages’ (magrifah), 10 ‘luminaries’ (shariah), 10 ‘ways’
(tariqah) and 10 ‘qualities’ (aqiqah).
Along the text are praised the names of Allah, Gabriel the archangel, Adam, 7 biblical
prophets, of Muhammad and Ali. Specific eulogies to humility are selected from sentences of 16
different Sufi sheikhs 44. Of Ahmed Yasawi are quoted 3 sentences and 40 verses similar by
poetic style and content to the ones of the Divan-i Hikmet.
At 14 I suffered, I humbled my pride erasing it in the sand,
I spoke the zikr ‘hu’, suffering by exhaustion.
I gave everything, everything dear I had.
After that I skyrocketed, my friends.
The text ends with the description of the typical life of the dervish, made of external suffering
and of internal bliss.
Risala dar adaby Tariqat
Attributed to Yasawi is the ‘Teachings on Tariqah ethics’: a manuscript of around 2500 words
including 6 explicit long quotations of Yasawi sayings, of which few copies are preserved in
Tashkent (Yasawi A. Risala). The text, more discursive than the Paqirnama, clarifies some
important topics of the spiritual training: the 6x6 main characters of the path 45, the 6 virtues of
the mentor, the importance of love and passion 46, and the supreme ecstatic knowledge of
Magrifah. It ends with a mysterious poem:
44 Among the names of these 16 sheiks, 3 are just honorific titles or names that cannot be identified, and 4 refer to
Sufi saints who lived after Yasawi, evidencing the fact that our Paqirnama text comes from a compilation of
Yasawi teachings that not only followed his death but had also been enriched by subsequent inclusions. The other
9 names include few personages who have been distrusted or even executed on the account of their
nonconformist behavior, like the Persian Sufi saint Qutb ab-Din Haydar and the Persian mystic Mansur Hallaj.
Qutb ab-Din Haydar (+1221) became notorious for promoting during the spiritual training, besides self-
mortification, the use of cannabis in order to obtain a state of “restfull joy”. His irreverence was criticized and
his disciples called ‘low life’, but anyhow the habit became popular and the use of the herb migrated all over the
Middle East under the name of ‘Haydar wine’. Mansur Hallaj, a Persian mystic of Zoroastrian descent, left his
Sufi order for becoming a lay mystic and spreading mysticism among the masses. He proclaimed that there were
nothing wrapped in his turban but God, that ‘the important Kaaba is placed in the heart’, and finally was
decapitated by saying the outrageous utterance ‘I am the truth’ (al-Haqq, which is also one of the 99 names of
Allah). His name also appears among the 5 Sufi saints quoted in the Divan-i Hikmet: “… like Mansur I lost my
head in the gallows of love” (H5).
45 The path is here described by a list of 6 disciplinary rules (general virtues, lassos for the student, duties to God,
sacred scriptures, virtuous actions toward guests, behavioral rules towards masters and elders), each made of 6
qualities.
22
Paradise is gratitude to the mothers,
It is at the mothers’ feet.
If you want the Allah merci
Do what the mother would be pleased with.
Traditional accounts concerning the spiritual training of the Yasawiyya order
The Yasawiyya training is similar to the one of all Sufi orders, but here, as clearly described by
the Hazini accounts, four devotional acts are particularly emphasized: discipline, fasting, dhikr
and spiritual retreat.
The murid (disciple), as soon as he enters the tariqah, must follow very severe rules of
perseverance and total submission to the master. Hazini lists these rules as 10 in number (Hazini
XVI AD: p. 120). Special instructions are given about daily habits, gestures, body positions,
vocal tones and prayers in the context of different situations and actions (Koprulu 2006: p. 97-
99).
Zuhhd (ascetism) and striving are basic practices of the true Sufi, in particular fasting. “If
voluntary fasting is done for three days, dust and darkness will be lifted from the inner self; if
done for five days, the divine secrets (mughayyabat) of the jinns and the good spirits will be
subdued, i.e. made obedient; if done for six days, the springs of the heart’s seas will open and
begin to flow; if done for nine days, it results in the revealing of the hearts (qulub) and the
uncovering of tombs (qubur)” (Hazini XVI AD: p. 58-60).
Dhikr (remembrance) is the main devotional practice in all Sufi orders. It is based on
consciousness of breath, remembering that for a dervish every breath must be equivalent to the
last breath. Yasawiyyas were famous for their use of loud dhikr 47, of which Ahmed is said to
have introduced a secret form called dhikr-i arra or dhikr-i minshary (‘dhikr of the saw’) on the
account of the rhythmic repetition by in- and out-breath of the guttural utterance ‘ha’ or ‘hay’,
intended for obtaining an ecstatic withdrawal from senses and unlocking the access to esoteric
universes. This is the reason why this dhikr was also called khatm khajagan, ‘seal of the
masters’. During its performance the use of loud sounds (ha-ha, hay-hay) was superposed to the
rhythm of in- and out-breath until eventually driving to silent dhikr. Several kinds of dhikr were
in use, and several different ways to perform them 48.
46 The text includes a beautiful passage describing the mystic relation between the lover and the beloved: “When
Allah created Love, He turned to him: ‘Oh, Love, settle on the great Arsha (above the seven layers of heaven)’.
But Love did not agree. Then he was offered kursi (the legs of the throne): he did not agree to this place either.
Then a benevolent voice sounded: ‘Oh, Love! Why don’t you settle on these makam? (4 steps of the disciplinary
training)’. And Love prayed: ‘Oh, Creator and Mentor of 18 thousand worlds! In order Love settles on these
makam, the Seekers need an object to look for (matlub): the Lover needs the Beloved (ma'shuk) as Zulaikha
longed for Yusuf (the biblical Joseph, son of Jacob), as Khadija for Muhammad - sallallahu alayhi wa sallam - ;
the disciple (murid) needs the mentor (pir); the dervish needs the master”. Allah said: "Allah loves them, they
love Allah ”.
47 ‘Loud’ in Arabic is said jahri, from which comes Jahriyya, another name of the Yasawiyya order (Tosun 2015).
48 Besides the dhikr of the saw, another most simple loud dhikr was the dhikr-i kebûter (‘dhikr of the dove’)
performed by pronouncing ‘Hu, Hu’. Another dhikr was just the uttering of the name Allah.
Remarkable was the practice of a complex sixfold dhikr system. In an anonymous Chagatai Turkic book titled
Risale-i Zikr-i Hazret-i Sultân al-Arifin (Interpretation of the Dhikr of His-Holiness Sultan the Saint) is stated
that the Yasawiyya order had 6 kinds of dhikr, of which are described the words and sounds in use, their
synchronicity with in- and out-breath, and in some cases also their accompanying body poses, hand gestures and
percussion instruments. The first 4 dhkr consist in the repetition of the name ‘Allah’, alone or together with
Hayyan (‘exists’), intercalated by the sounds ‘Hu, Hay, ha, ya’ with different allusions (‘Hu’ and ‘Hay’ can also
23
Khalvat (solitude, spiritual retreat) of the Yasawiyya order has two levels: canonical (shariah
k.) and mystical (tariqah k.). The canonical khalvat is preliminary and consists of repentance and
purification. The mystical became famous for its uninterrupted 40 days of solitude and 24 hours
of training: the waking hours filled by dhikr and hikmet recitations, the resting time focused on
dreams to be interpreted (Hazini XVI: p. 51-56).
Divan-i Hikmet
The language of the doctrinal works quoted above is not just prose: it is rather prose poetry that,
accompanied by metaphors and verses disseminated in the text, stimulates imagination and
emotional lifts. The Divan-i Hikmet are definitely expressed in a language even higher, not just
on the account of their poetic form, but by being spoken from an uninterrupted ecstatic state of
mind. They are pearls from a saint already living underground, with self and body turned into
earth and the soul totally freed above the senses. They seem spoken from the highest attainment
of the path, the marifah, in mystical union with God, with syllabic rhythms and rhymes as
phonetic angels of the divine attainment. They are the songs of a pure soul at the verge of death.
If the Sufi doctrines could have some points of conflict with orthodox Islam, the Yasawi
words spoken from the underground cell are a spiritual expression above contrasts. This is due to
the power of the chillakhona pulpit, to the straightforwardness of the Yasawi words, and to the
dramatic importance of the subject: death and salvation 49. All possible points of
misunderstanding and doctrinal friction are carefully discarded as food for the fools, and
knowledge is not exposed to unfruitful revelations but kept secret as a precious gem.
If you are a lover, seek love day and night:
worship, wake at night and never rest.
If you are a sage, reveal not your knowledge to the fool:
the real dervish is he who prays in secret (H43)
It is in that way, by keeping determination and secrecy, that high men and messages can rise
anywhere and spread undisturbed in space and time.
4 - Divan-i Hikmet
Of the legendary 99000 verses only few thousands arrived to us, at first transmitted orally and
then collected in different versions, as manuscripts or printed editions, under the title of Divan-i
Hikmet (Book of Wisdom). The earliest manuscripts are lost; the oldest version that arrived to us
is dated to 1684 AD and kept in an Istanbul library; the other versions are deposited in various
archives and private collections.
mean ‘He’ and ‘She’, and ‘ha’ and ‘ya’ are pure interjections echoing the sound of the name Allah and Hayyan).
The fifth dhikr, called Dhikr-i Chayqun (‘dhikr of the awaken’) pronounces no words but just interjections
accompanied by the “use of an instrument like a rattle to make a ‘chak-chak’ noise for keeping rhythm, balance
and music in harmony, resulting in a dhikr performed as ‘Hu (chak) - Hu (chak)”. The sixth dhikr (Chahar darb,
‘proclaiming the path’) uses just interjections without rhythmic percussions: ‘Hay, ah ah ah, Hay, Hu’ (Tosun
2015). Briefly, going from the first to the sixth dhikr, words disappear, and interjections and rhythms gradually
merge with in- and out-breath sounds and get interiorized. In that way the ‘remembrance’ changes from verbal to
silent moves “from the mouth to the heart”.
49 The Yasawi’s language is clearly denotative and gives space to only few and clear metaphors.
24
4.1 - Manuscripts, editions, translations
The existing manuscripts and editions of the Divan-i Hikmet show deep similarities together
with significant differences. All versions present a text written in Arabic alphabet and spoken in
Turkic-Chagatai language with Kipchak dialect, which is the original language spoken by Yasawi
50; and its poems are all called hikmet, numbered, and parted in stanzas and verses. But each
version is the result of collections assembled in different times, by different authors and with a
different number of poems. Most of the poems appear identical in different collections but a few
always present ordering or linguistic anomalies. As a whole, it is clearly suggested the existence
of a lost common source that has been subsequently reproduced and transformed by omissions
and interpolations.
Fig 8 (on the left) - Divan-i Hikmet, Istanbul manuscript: title page (freely distributed on the internet).
Fig 9 (on the right) - Divan-i Hikmet, Kazan edition: Hikmet 1 (from Yasawi 1998a).
Today a total of 14 original manuscripts exist, dated between the XVI and XVIII AD and
preserved in one or more copies in different libraries (Istanbul, Konya, Tashkent, Almaty, Cairo,
St. Petersburg, Cambridge, Paris, Berlin). During the XIX-XX AD several lithographic editions
have been printed in Kazan, Tashkent, Bukhara and Istanbul.
The oldest manuscript that arrived to us is the Istanbul manuscript, with 69 hikmet (poems),
compiled in 1684 AD and kept at the Istanbul Vafik-Pasha library (Fig. 8). The Turkestan
manuscript (XVII AD) with 49 hikmet could be a shortened version of it (see Section 4.2).
50 Turkic Chagatai, today extinct, was a language of interethnic communication of peoples living on the territory
of North Central Asia, resulting from the mixing of elements of the languages of different tribes - Tukhshi,
Karakhanids, Chigils, Uighurs and, mainly, Karluks. During the Tamerlane reign, it became the state and court
language of the Chagatai ulus. (Baiteinova 2012, p. 1)
25
Other apparently important but still inaccessible manuscripts are: the manuscript recently
discovered in the Kokshetau library (of which is suspected an even earlier date of XVI AD) 51;
and some manuscripts of the Almaty library (XVI-XIX AD), which are said to include a XIX AD
version of 119 hikmet 52.
Printed editions are relatively recent. The first has been published in Kazan in 1878 with 67
hikmet, and the most complete with 149 hikmet always in Kazan in 1904 (Fig. 9).
As a whole, the existing versions of the Divan-i Hikmet include from 49 to 149 hikmet, each
hikmet averaging 10 stanzas made of quatrains (4 verses, i.e. 4 beys); and they end with one
mujanat (prayer, psalm) of 50-70 couplets (mesra). Most of the prosody consists of long verses
in 7 or 10 syllables metric patterns, with rhymes and repetitions conferring to the poems a special
rhythm as if they were memorized and recited as songs 53.
The Turkic Chagatai language of the text is among the oldest examples of Turkic dialect and the
second-oldest work of Islamic Turkic poetic composition 54.
Translations of the Divan-i Hikmet in modern languages are rare. Quoted here below are its first
translations in modern Turkic, Russian, Kazakh, and English languages.
The 69 hikmet of the oldest Istanbul manuscript (1684) have been the main object of
translations: in modern Turkic in 1897; 7 hikmet from the same manuscript into Russian by N.S.
Lykoshin (1860-1922) at the end of XIX century; the entire 69 hikmet into Kazakh language by
M. Zharmukhamed-uli and al. in 1993 (Yasawi 1993).
The Turkestan manuscript (49 hikmet, XVII AD), basically a shortened version of the Istanbul
manuscript, has been translated in English language by Tek-Esin in 1994 (Yasawi 1994).
The Kazan edition (149 hikmet, 1904) has been translated in Kazakh by A. Ibatov et al. and in
Russian by N. Sagandykov in 2000 (Yasawi 2000).
During the last 20 years the growing interest in Ahmed Yasawi words favored in Uzbekistan,
and in lesser extent also in Kazakhstan, the reediting of former translations as well as the
publishing of new popular translations from undeclared sources. 55
51 The Kokshetau manuscript consists of 90 pages written on both sides of Bukhara paper. It has been discovered
in 2007 in the storages of the Kokshetau museum, where it ended up following a post-perestroika campaign of
popular donations.
52 The referred collection of manuscripts of the National Library of Almaty consists of 1400 pages of works
attributed to Ahmed Yasawi, Baqirghani and Danishmand, among which a 412 pages version of the Divan-i
Hikmet (1834), a 23 pages version of the Paqirnama, and a 89 pages version of the Mirat-ul kulub (XVI AD)
(National Library of Almaty 2002) .
53 Hazini at the start of the XVI AD writes in its Jawahir al Abzar that one of the daily devotional practices of the
40 days retreats (khalwat) of the Yasawiyya order was the chanting of hikmet (Hazini XVI AD).
54 The Divan-i Hikmet is the second-oldest work of Islamic-Turkic literature after the Qutadğu Bilig (‘Wisdom
that brings happiness’). The Qutadğu Bilig was written around 1070 AD by Yusūf Khass Hajib of Balasagun in
Qarluq Karakhanid language and Old Uyghur alphabet. It consists of a didactic-ethical dialogue, intended for
correcting social disorder, between 4 personages (king, vizier, sage, dervish), each representing an abstract
principle (justice, fortune, wisdom, man’s last end). The text is composed in Turkish masnavi (mathnawi) style,
counting 6645 rhyming couplets of prosodic 11-syllables lines. (Yusuf Khass Hajib 1070).
55 In Kazakhstan, after perestroika, have been published 17 translations of Yasawi’s Hikmet in Kazakh language.
Among them, besides the earliest ones quoted in Section 4.1, have been published: in 1995, 42 Hikmet translated
in Kazakh by V. Golubtsova from an Uzbek edition apparently based on the Turkestan manuscript (Hakkulov I.
1991, Tashkent, Gafur-Bulom) (Yasawi 1995); in 1998, 71 Hikmet translated in Kazakh by E. Duisenbai from an
anomalous partition of the Istanbul 69-hikmet manuscript (Yasawi 1998a,1998b); in 2008, 149 Hikmet translated
in Kazakh by E. Duisenbai from the Kazan edition (Yasawi 2008); in 2011, the same 149 Hikmet translated in
Kazakh and Russian by Anuarbek Bokebay, and from Russian to English by V. Trapman (Yasawi 2011); etc.
26
4.2 – The Turkestan manuscript
Here below are analyzed the structure and contents of the Turkestan manuscript, ending with the
quotation of few most significant verses. The Tek-Esin translation of the English text is quite
poor but represents its only existing direct translation from Turkic into a European language. In
fact the Yasawi’s words, in spite of their spiritual and historical importance, are by now still
poorly accessible to the western world.
The manuscript has been found in Turkestan and brought to Istanbul by the turkologist Kemal
Erarslan in 1954. It consists of a selection, approximately dated to the XVII AD, of 49 poems
that are found identical in other longer versions (i.e. in the Istanbul manuscript of 1684) 56. All
together the 49 poems count 424 stanzas of 4 verses (quatrain), i.e. a total of 1688 verses. The
hikmet are followed by a munajat (prayer) made of 48 couplets and titled as “Prayer to God
Almightly, fulfiller of all our desires”, where Ahmed asks God to bless the spiritual value and
inspiring power of his hikmet.
The content of the poems leaves little doubts about the fact that they were spoken from an
underground cell of self-immurement.
Ahmed Yasawi, when reciting the Hikmet from the underground cell where he retired to death,
sends to all humanity an ultimate message in an extremely simple and sharp language. The
verses are not concerned with doctrinal but with phenomenological issues. They point out an
evident fact that everyone tends to keep veiled in a childish way: the future death of each of us;
and they underline that dying is a most common but difficult threshold requiring some spiritual
preconditions. In order to dispel the mental biases and resistances that hinder a firm
consciousness of the unavoidable event of individual extinction, Yasawi is using firing words,
rhymes and repeated sentences that remember the enchanting obsessive sounds of the kobyz
played by Korkut-Ata in exorcising death, or the unending repetitions of the Jesus name of the
Orthodox monks.
The text emphasizes as spiritual preconditions the primary importance of compassion for poor
and orphans, of meditation on death, of dispassion for mundane life, of love and self annihilation
in God, and the universal significance of his underground retreat. From down there, Yasawi
reveals that at the verge of death the only sustainable mental state is a total detachment from
sensuous objects and representations (which sounds obvious) and a level of faith developed to
the point of totally transforming any residual egoic pretension into an impersonal timeless
radiation of love and wisdom.
Yasawi himself expresses a high esteem of his own verses: he calls them “orders from god”
carrying the “meaning of the Quran” (H1, Mujanat), and designates their collection as Daftar-i
Sani-i, i.e. ‘Second Book’ (H13), reserving the title of ‘First Book’ for the Quran. His Sufi
Central Asian followers did the same and extended that praise to the Yasawi’s spiritual hierarchy
which they consider second only to Muhammad, and to his tomb in Turkestan which is still today
a main hajj destination second only to Mecca 57.
56 In the Turkestan manuscript, numeration gaps show that 23 entire stanzas have been omitted and 16 verses are
randomly scattered along the text, witnessing the manuscript as part of a larger version. Moreover, the
manuscript was badly bound and some leaves were misplaced, so that the order of poems had to be reestablished,
which has been done in an unsatisfactory way.
27
DIVAN-I HIKMET
Hikmet 1 (H1) starts exposing the intent of the poems and proceeds recommending
compassionate love for orphans and poor, which constitutes a main theme all along the book.
Thanking God I express myself with hikmet.
I scattered gems and pearls to students here.
Having severely ascetic discipline,
I began upon the Second Book here (H1)
Poor and orphans are known to the Prophet.
That night He ascended and saw the revelation,
returning, descending, He inquired for poor and orphans.
Following after the poor, here I have come (H1)
I came to the door of love when my lord opened.
He turned me into earth, He said “Be ready”.
He pressed down my neck: arrows of blame struck me like rain,
I picked an arrowhead and pierced my heart (H1)
Hikmet 2-7 (and also H22, H36 and H47 58) recall the Ahmed’s spiritual curriculum from birth
to the underground retirement, year by year from the age of 1 to the age of 63, with precious
information about his referenced masters and the spiritual progression across the stations of the
path (tariqah). His sources are the Quran, the Hadith and the words of few saints. He prizes the
most Allah and Muhammad (Master of prayer), and some mythical sages, possibly of
Zoroastrian origin: Pir-i Mugan (“True owner of Love”), the Elder of the Magians who guards
from evil; and the mythical immortal Khizir Baba (Khidr), the servant of god who initiates the
saints 59. He quotes with veneration Moses and, most significant, five Sufi saints: Majnun, the
‘demented one’, a legendary ascetic of the VII century AD who, starting as passionate lover of
a girl called Layla, converted into pure love and spent the rest of his life in wildness among
animals; Adham (+780), a very rich sultan who, like Buddha, renounced to everything and
embraced the poorest life; al-Bistami (+874), a formerly Zoroastrian priest who became an
ecstatic Sufi wanderer preaching the annihilation of the self as precondition of the highest
mystical attainment; Ash-Shibli (+946), a Sufi master who taught senses dispassion and
techniques of ecstatic breath; Mansur al-Hallaj (executed in 992), the ‘martyr of love’ who got
beheaded because manifested his spiritual attainments by exclaiming ‘I am the truth’. He
recognizes as master Arystanbab and places him in the highest heaven, and apparently quotes
his Bukharan tutor Yusuf Hamadani as “my great teacher”. The metaphors of wine and of date
or persimmon seeds point to ecstatic initiations, the metaphor of fire to physical and psychical
transmutations, the metaphor of the dew or of the Mecca’s sacred spring (Zemzem) to the pure
57 Very widespread in Central Asia is also the ‘blasphemous’ popular saying that 3 pilgrimages to Turkestan are
equivalent to 1 pilgrimage to Mecca.
58 Some manuscript’s leaves have been evidently misplaced (see note 56).
59 In the Sufi tradition al-Khidr is described as the one who became immortal by drinking from the spring close to
the Tree of Life. He has been associated with personages of various religions: the Zoroastrian Sorush; the
Biblical Elijah; the Armenian Christian saints John the Baptist, Saint Sarkis, Saint George, etc.
28
mind that can afford to go underground.
At seven my Arslan Baba sought and found me,
and covered under veils all secrets he noticed:
“Thanks God I saw” he said, and kissed my forehead,
hence I went underground at 63 (H2)
At forty-three I looked for God and sobbed,
I shed tears, and tears turned to morning dew.
Wandering in deserts I became a madman.
My exalted mentor, I came and took refuge in you.
At forty-four, in the bazaar of love,
holding my collar I went crying in the rose-garden:
like Mansur I lost my head in the gallows of love.
My exalted mentor, I came and took refuge in you (H5)
At forty-nine your love rained over me, and I burned:
Like Manjun I renounced and fled from kith and kin
and suffered disasters with acceptance.
My exalted mentor, I came and took refuge in you (H5)
Early in a Monday morning,
lamenting for Muhammad I came down here.
At 63 it was said to be a tradition,
so, lamenting for Muhammad, I came down here. (H6)
I wish to burn like lovers, turn to ashes (H7)
Soil is over my head, me and my body are earth.
My soul is excited by the communion with God.
I burned and could never return above,
I turned to morning dew and entered underground (H7)
Like Shibli, I whirled and relinquished life;
intoxicated, I restrained and fled from people;
I turned into Zemzem and entered underground (H7)
Hikmet 8-17 provide details about the ecstatic state of Ahmed in his underground cell, and
intimations about dispassion and spiritual love.
One must absorb my words as gems and pearls;
I explained how things are and gave it to those in love (H9)
The roads of tariqah are difficult,
many in love turn to dust on them.
29
Whoever enters the path of love is in trouble,
I went around asking the Enlightened for the road (H10)
The world is garbage: desiring and chasing,
we wander like dogs (H12)
Love is king: the lover is a poor being and keeps quiet (H14)
Hikmet 18-27 remember the approach of death, and address to Allah and Muhammad praises,
prayers and words of self-criticism (malamat) and repentance (tawba).
When my life comes to an end, what shall I do, oh God?
When the Angel of Death comes, what shall I do, oh God? (H18)
The love for Muhammad echoes in my head,
I love the court of grace of Muhammad (H20)
At fifty I heard a voice saying “Dying is easy
on condition that the light of faith is in you.
If tomorrow you go to meet him, He will receive you”.
Khoja Ahmad heard and read it, and went under earth (H22)
Hikmet 28-36 are addressed to friends and devotees, criticizing the rotten dervishes and
corrupted sheikhs who…
Sheykhs on the Judgment day will make up their face:
ignoring devotion and worship, they ruin their natures;
they regard as blessings the dreams of obvious sleep (H33)
Hikmet 37-44 praise the life and merits of the right dervishes, and underline the importance of
the spiritual transmission.
Harmonizing inner and outer world, happy are the dervishes.
Since the time of the prophet there have been dervishes (H37)
Real dervishes choose mountains and deserts to dwell (H43)
When the world comes to an end the wise will go
and people will set about eating each other (H44)
The last poems of the book (H45-49) are dedicated to the lovers, the wise (gnostics), the poor,
the ones who can face Azrail (Angel of Death) and cross the hair-narrow Sirat bridge that
brings to heaven (Jannah).
With His power my God gave an order:
“No living creature will remain on earth or sky”;
30
and for the world He created Azrail, Angel of Death (H46)
Who gets up early morning will remember death
And fly to the sky for fear, early in the morning.
Only the lovers know the taste of the early morning:
they see the God presence, early in the morning (H48)
My head is on the pillow, I am about to lose this place,
my body will go and lie in the tomb…
I didn’t know that I would go from this world
I didn’t know that I would lie in a tomb (H49)
The concluding Psalm (Mujanat) praises the importance of the hikmet themselves.
My hikmet are orders from God;
read and understand: that is the meaning of Quran…
My hikmet are as the thrill of the lover,
his tears will wash him before the prayer…
Without a sage setting his trap on the pass,
the unwise speaks deceit and his task is forgery…
My hikmet are sweet as sugar and honey,
They are irreplaceable among words…
Do not read my hikmet to one free of pain,
do not sell priceless gems to those who ignore them. (Mujanat)
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