YASAWI TEACHINGS AND THEIR REFLECTION IN KARAKALPAK LITERATURE

Abstract

This study provides a comprehensive examination of the artistic and philosophical continuity and interpretive features of the Sufi teachings founded by Khoja Ahmed Yasawi in Karakalpak classical literature. The main objective of the study is to scientifically identify the ways in which the mystical and epistemological principles presented in Dīwān-i Hikmet are manifested and transformed in Karakalpak poetry and integrated with the national worldview. To achieve this objective, comparative-historical, typological, and hermeneutic methods are employed to analyze Sufi terminology, metaphorical systems, and symbolic imagery in the works of Suleiman Bakyrgani, Kunkhoja Ibrayimuly, Ajiniyaz Kosybayuly, and Berdakh Kargabayuly. The study demonstrates that Karakalpak classical poets creatively appropriated the stages of Yasawi’s teaching—sharia, tariqa, ma'rifa, and haqiqa—and developed them in close connection with the ideas of morality, the struggle against the nafs, humaneness, and spiritual perfection. Particular attention is given to the process through which the concept of insān-i kāmil (the perfect human) was synthesized with the national worldview. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the spiritual foundations of Karakalpak literature, clarify the ways in which Sufi poetics became established within the national literary tradition, and provide a new scholarly interpretation of the shared literary and cultural heritage of the Turkic peoples.