The most important turning point in Turkish history is the acceptance of Islam. With this event, many Muslim Turkish states were established from the Indian subcontinent to the Balkans, and a valuable cultural heritage developed within them. Alongside art, mythology, architecture, and music, an important part of this heritage is Turkish Islamic Literature, written with an advanced aesthetic and beauty aspect, a solid existence and knowledge perception, a rich vocabulary, and a harmonious and established language. The religious-mystical and literary accumulation that forms the scope and interest area of the Turkish Islamic Literature course was written in Ottoman Turkish until the Republic. Therefore, the Ottoman Turkish reading and writing course, taught semesterly in our Faculty, serves as the preparatory phase for this course.
The Turks developed the existing forms of poetry and prose based on the monotheistic creed of Islam with the Turkish language, and with new types and forms, they brought a different characteristic to the aesthetic and literary aspect of Islam that appeals to the senses and the heart. The first examples of this Islam-centered literature, which emerged with Kutadgu Bilig, Atabetü’l Hakâyık, Hikmetnâme, and Divânu Lügati’t-Türk, laid the foundation in the Anatolian field with Hacı Bektaş Veli’s Makâlât, Yunus Emre Divan and Risaletü’n-Nushiye, and Mesnevi. With the conquests, thousands of works were authored in Turkish and Bosnian in the fields of Divan, Folk, and Tekke Literature in Anatolia and the Balkans. It is possible to classify and analyze these works through four periods: formation, classical, Tanzimat and Meşrutiyet, and the Republic. The sources of the course are divided into pre-Islamic and post-Islamic periods; in post-Islamic times, the works are based on Persian literature with their verbal and thematic existence. At its foundation are the Qur'an, Sira, Hadith, creed, and catechism; in essence, poetic forms such as ilahi, nefes, nutuk, devriye, and shathiye, which contain a mystical enthusiasm, transform into poetry within the circle of monotheism.
Students who succeed in this course understand the definition of religion and literature and the relationship between them, recognizing that the literary work is one of the complementary elements of aesthetic value. They examine the first sources of the course, its evolution in Anatolia, and gain knowledge about meter, harmony, and literary arts and their application in the forms of classical literature's poetic types; they get acquainted with religious poetry and prose types such as Tevhid, Münacaat, Esma-i Hüsna, Naat, Mevlid, Sira, Hilye, and Forty Hadiths, and elevate the knowledge provided through annotation and analysis to a level that provides aesthetic pleasure.
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nurettin ÇALIŞKAN
Head of the Department of Turkish Islamic Literature