Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article lacks a Kazakh name or text.
Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi (also spelled Khoja Ahmad Yasawi, Ahmet Yasevi, Ahmed Yesevi or Ata Yesevi) born in Sayram in 1106, and died in 1166, Yasi, Turkestan, both cities now in Kazakhstan, was a Turkic[1] poet and Sufi (Muslim mystic), an early mystic who exerted a powerful influence on the development of mystical orders throughout the Turkic-speaking world.[2] Yasavi is currently the earliest known Turkic poet who composed poetry in any Turkic dialect. Ahmed Yesevi was a pioneer of popular mysticism, founded the first Turkic tariqah (order), the Yeseviye, which very quickly spread over the Turkic-speaking areas.[3]
Very little is known about his life, but legends indicate that his father Ibrahim died when the boy was young and his family moved to Yasa. There he became a disciple of Arslan Baba. After the death of the latter Ahmed Yesevi moved to Bukhara and followed his studies with the well known Yusuf Hamdani[4] (d. 1140).
Later he made the city of Yasi into the major centre of learning for the Kazakh steppes, then retired to a life of contemplation aged 63. He dug himself an underground cell where he spent the rest of his life. "It was a Seljuq king who brought Rumi, the great Sufi poet, to Konya; and it was in Seljuq times that Ahmad Yesevi (died 562; A.D. 1166), another great Sufi, lived and taught. The influence of those two remarkable teachers has continued to the present", notes a Turkish scholar Hasan Basri Çantay.[5]
A mausoleum [6]was later built on the site of his grave by Timur the Great in the city (today called Türkistan). The Yasaviyya Tariqah which he founded continued to be influential for several centuries afterwards, with the Yasavi Sayyid Ata Sheikhs holding a prominent position at the court of Bukhara into the 19th century.[7] The first Turkish-Kazakh university, Ahmet Yesevi University,[8] and liceum, Hoca Ahmed Yesevi Lisesi,[9] were named in his honor.
Naqshbandi Sufi Idries Shah mentions Ahmed Yasavi's lineage in his interesting book-cum- psychological-experiment "The Book of the Book" [10] .
[edit] References
- ^ Islam in the Soviet Union: From the Second World War to Perestroika
- ^ Encyclopædia Britannica (2007): Related Articles to "Ahmed Yesevi, or Ahmad Yasawi, or Ahmed Yasavi (Turkish author)", accessed March 18, 2007
- ^ I.Melikoff, 'Ahmad Yesevi and Turkic popular Islam', EJOS, VI (2003), No. 8, 1-9, ISSN 0928-6802
- ^ Y. N. Öztürk: The Eye of the Heart (Redhouse Press Istanbul 1988), p.49
- ^ Hasan Basri Çantay, "Chapter 7: Islamic Culture in Turkish Areas", in Islam -- The Straight Path: Islam Interpreted by Muslims by Prof. Kenneth W. Morgan, Published by The Ronald Press Company, New York 1958.
- ^ Yasavi (Shrine of Ahmed Yasavi), ArchNet Dictionary of Islamic Architecture
- ^ Devin Deweese "The Politics of Sacred Lineages in 19th-century Central Asia: Descent groups linked to Khwaja Ahmad Yasavi in Shrine Documents and Genealogical Charters" International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies Vol.31 (1999) pp507-530
- ^ Ahmet Yesevi University Official Site
- ^ Hoca Ahmed Yesevi Lisesi Official Site
- ^ Shah, I: The Book of the Book (Octagon Press ), p.9
[edit] External links
- UNESCO Heritage Mausoleum Hoja Ahmed Yasevi (in Russian)
- National Library of the Republic of Kazakhstan - Hoja Ahmed Yasaui (in Russian)
- Great Soviet Encyclopedia. Turkestan (city in Kazakh SSR) (in Russian)
