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Aḥmad Yasawī and the Dīwān-i Ḥikmat

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For everyone

Aḥmad Yasawī is the Sufi who gave his name to the Yasawiyya order centred on Yasi (today the city of Turkistan in Kazakhstan). He is held to have spread Sufi thought through Turkish poems called "ḥikmat" and is counted among the founding figures of Turkish Sufism. Information about his life rests mostly on later hagiography, and how much of the Dīwān-i Ḥikmat is his is debated. The complex built over his tomb by Timur is on the UNESCO World Heritage list.

For specialists

Köprülü's study of 1918 placed Yasawī among the first mystics of Turkish literature and noted that the surviving manuscripts of the Dīwān-i Ḥikmat are late and that many poems were added by later Yasawī dervishes. The Yasawiyya's influence in Anatolia is told through a spiritual lineage, as in texts such as the Vilâyetnâme of Hacı Bektaş, which connect Hacı Bektaş to Yasawī.

Views on dating

No single date is given because the date is not documented with certainty; the views of different sources are listed.

Traditional view	Died 562 AH (1166–67)^[1]
Scholars' caution	This date rests on later sources; in the absence of contemporary documents it is not certain.^[1][2]

Claims

Sufi counsel and divine love can be passed on through poetry in the Turkish the people understand, in syllabic metre.^[1][2]

Positions

The Yasawī tradition: The ḥikmats in the Dīwān-i Ḥikmat are Aḥmad Yasawī's own words.^[1]
Köprülü and later philologists: The surviving manuscripts are very late and their language does not match 12th-century Turkish; a large share of the poems are the work of later Yasawī dervishes.^[2]

Connections

Parent

Sufism (taṣawwuf)

Influenced

Hacı Bektaş Veli

Yunus Emre Turkic mythology and the Tengri belief

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Sources

EncyclopediaAhmed Yesevî. TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisiislamansiklopedisi.org.tr archive
BookKöprülü, M. F.; Leiser, G.; Dankoff, R. (trans.) (2006). Early Mystics in Turkish Literature. Routledge, London (Turkish original, Türk Edebiyatında İlk Mutasavvıflar, 1918)

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Cite this page

APA

Athena contributors. (2026). Aḥmad Yasawī and the Dīwān-i Ḥikmat. Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/yesevi/

BibTeX

@misc{athena_yesevi,
  title        = {Aḥmad Yasawī and the Dīwān-i Ḥikmat},
  author       = {{Athena contributors}},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://latifkedi.github.io/athena/en/d/yesevi/}},
  note         = {Athena: The tree of human knowledge. Accessed: 2026-11-01}
}

Added: September 28, 2026 · Last changed: September 28, 2026 · Page history

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