A Breath of Philosophy 22: Pre-Islamic Foundations of Turkish Metaphysics

In the previous article, in the context of "Arab-Persian and Turkish Minds and Conceptions of Islam", we stated that we analysed Islam and its aftermath as the conceptions of Islam put forward by Arab-Persian and Turkish Minds. It was emphasised that the Turkish Renaissance / Enlightenment started from the 11th century (1050) and continued until the XVIth century. 

Islam, or more precisely, other divine messages believed by the Turks before the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him), who brought the last of the divine messages sent from Adam, and their effects on Turkish Metaphysics, should be emphasised. Because, in our opinion, what non-Muslim Turks produced in Turkish and with a different alphabet and even with a different language is Turkish philosophy. Because, while preserving the difference of the Turkish Muslim Conception from the conception produced by the Arab and Persian Mind, the Turks who have the teachings of the Prophets before the system brought by the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) should also be seen within Turkish Philosophy and Turkish Philosophy, whether they produce in Turkish with a different alphabet or in a different language. Why? Because, in Taşağıl's words, "Pre-Islamic Turkish History encompasses the early history of all communities of Turkish origin, especially the Republic of Turkey." (Ahmet Taşağıl, Children of Kök Tengri, Pre-Islamic Turkish History in the Eurasian Steppes, (Istanbul: Bilge Kültür Sanat Publishing House, 5th Edition 2015, 19)  

In addition to looking at what the Turks, who believed that the principles brought by Jesus Christ and Moses were consistent as the foundations of Turkish Metaphysics in this context, it is necessary to examine in detail the influence of pre-Islamic Sogdian (Aryan) culture Zoroastrianism (Magianism), Manichaeism, Buddhism, Mazdeism and partly the teachings of Shamanism in Maveraünnehir, where many ethnicities such as Sogdians, Khwarezmlis and Turks lived. 

Mercy to Hikmet Tanyu and Mübahat Türker Küyel

I had attended a few sample lectures of my teacher who retired from Ankara Faculty of Theology in the year I graduated. I would like to give a long quote from Tanyu (1918-1992), wishing him mercy, on the beliefs of the Turks in One God before the Prophet Muhammad, so that the background of the Turks' adoption of the Jewish tradition, the "Khazar Peace", the adoption of the Nestorian Christianity of the Islamic tradition by the Turks in the 9th century, and the production of religious texts in Turkish with the Uyghur alphabet can be understood. 

"The first important feature that constitutes an "archetype" (first example) in the known religious history of the Turks is the belief in Gök God. The Gokturk inscriptions and the information given in Islamic sources about various Turkic tribes and Mongols clearly show that the Shamanic Turks believed in a single god at the time of the emergence of Islam and that this religion had reached a monotheistic level, which historians of religion consider to be an advanced stage of belief. 

If there is a speciality of this God, who is considered as the creator of the sky, the earth and the creatures, it is that, like the Jehovah of the Jews in the Mosaic religion, which is a monotheistic religion, he favoured the Turks over other tribes. According to the Orkhon inscriptions, this God comes to the rescue of the Turks in times of difficulty, protects them from extinction by appointing a hero from a celestial origin over them (Türk bodun yok bolmasun tiyin Türk Tanrı...) and finally grants his own noble people the right to govern the people of the world. It is clearly seen in the Orkhon Inscriptions that the Turks believed in a creator called God (Tengri). In addition, it is clearly stated in these inscriptions that God is eternal and eternal, the creator, sustainer and killer of everything, the owner of power, will and speech, the protector, the protector, the acceptor of prayers and the all-knowing. (Hikmet Tanyu, One God Belief in the Turks before Islam, AÜIF Publication, Ankara, 1986: 33) 

Mübahat Türker Küyel, who passed away on 23 October 2022, is the one who was instrumental in making Farabi the centre of all my readings. In the context of this article, he says that it is possible to understand God-universe-human-society by reading Kutadgu Biliğ correctly and understanding its language correctly. 

In his article titled "Is Bilge Kagan a Philosopher Arhut?", he emphasises the importance of reading Bilge Kagan and Tonyukuk inscriptions. Because these writings engraved on these stones are basically a philosophy of praxis, and it means understanding both "the correct reading of history" and "the moment of changing history". Because philosophers had tried to understand history, but now it was time to change it. 

According to Küyel, at this stage there is also the problem of understanding the "wisdom in history" or the "wisdom of history" in the sense of "human epopoeia/ epic". We can see a theory by looking at the praxis there.  For example, when the Buddhist religion was spreading in Central Asia during the VI-VIIIth centuries, we can look at the reasons given by the Gok-Turk ruler Bilge Khan and his righteous vizier Tonyukuk, who was well acquainted with Chinese customs, mentality, politics and court intrigues, for refusing to accept this religion. He thought that Buddhism basically inculcated softness and sloth, prohibited warfare and animal slaughter, did not suit the living conditions of the Turks, would impair their fighting power, and said that it would be difficult to protect our independence against the Chinese. (Mübahat Türker Küyel, Bilge Kagan Bir "Filozof Arhutudur?", Ankara: XI Turkish History Congress TTK Basımevi, 1994) II/455-464)

In this framework, we argue that the metaphysical grounding of the terms oz-ozlaşmak-ozan and svestika before and after Islam would be clarified by the doctrine of the Unity of Being, and that Timur had this symbol engraved on the right wall of the main gate of Ahmet Yesevî's tomb for this reason. 

Philosophical ideas produced by tribes that are Turkish in nature and different in identity

We prefer to read the period before Islam, i.e. the system brought by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), as "Tengrician believer" and the period after as "Muslim and believer period". As the belief in the Root/One God has undergone different transformations over time, there have also been periods when they lived in accordance with Abrahamic traditions, Islamic and Jewish Sharia. Please note that some Turkic tribes lived according to different Sharia (please note that we do not say religion) in this respect, and they also changed their language over time. 

In this respect, we say that it is necessary to evaluate the thoughts produced by Muslim Turks on existence-knowledge and value, whether in Arabic, Persian or Turkish, and the thoughts produced by non-Muslim Turkish tribes or Turkish tribes connected to the shamanic tradition in the language they speak now, within the concept of Turkish Philosophy.  

However, we emphasise that those whose essence is Turkish but whose identity is different and who present the design of truth in different languages should be studied separately. For example, Chuvash, Yakuts, Western Cumans, Pechenegs, Karamanids and Gagauz/Gokoguz are Turkic peoples who adopted Christianity centuries ago. Because "The first Turkish tribe called Huns established a Turkish empire in Southern Russia and Hungary. Then the Apars (Juan juan), who fled from Central Asia under the pressure of the Göktürks, were seen in the same places in the 6th century. 

Khazar Turks, Pecheneg Turks in the 9th century, Kuman Turks in the 12th century have always followed the same path. In addition, there are Turks who maintain Tengrist, Buddhist, Zoroastrian and ancient Shaman beliefs.  Of the Christian Turks, 90% are Orthodox and the remaining 10% are Catholic and Protestant. Among these, the Khazar Turks (Karay-Karayim) pioneered an era known as the "Khazar Peace" in Eastern Europe between the VIII-IXth centuries. The Karaites (Karayim Turks) living in the Caucasus, Ukraine and Poland today are of this lineage.  It is even known that the Arpad dynasty, which gave the Hungarians an important position in history, was from the Kabar branch of the Khazars, and that they started Turkological studies in 1870, and that the Turkish Association was established in Budapest in 1908. 

The Yakut (Zhakut=Yakut stone) Turks I mentioned above live in the Republic of Yakutia, which has the largest land area in the world under the Russian Federation. So much so that its surface area is close to the European continent. Its capital is Yakutsk/Dokuskay. 

Chuvash and Gagauz/Gagauz are Christians. Chuvash belongs to the Ogur-Bolgarian branch of Turkic languages and contains words from Mongolian, Chinese, Persian, Arabic and all dialects of Hebrew. Hebrew words are thought to have been passed down from the Jewish Khazar Turks. While the language of the Chuvash is very different even from their neighbours Tatars, Gagauzian is very close to the Turkish spoken in Rumelia and Thrace. As a matter of fact, Gagauzian has been using the same alphabet with Turkish since 1995. (Rene Grousset, Empire of the Steppes: Attila, Genghis Khan, Timur, trans. M.Reşat Uzmen, (Istanbul: Ötüken Publishing House, 8th Edition 2019: 19, Mevlüt Uyanık, Felsefeyi Anadolu'da Yeniden Yurtlandırmak - Introduction to Turkish Philosophy - Kırmızılar Publishing, Eskişehir 2020), 109 vd)

"Turkish Christian" or "non-Muslim Turk" 

As for the part of this that relates to the Republic of Turkey, it is possible that the trauma of the Balkan Wars, i.e. the actions of the national churches of Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian, Arab, etc. Orthodox Orthodox against the actions of the national churches of the Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek, Albanian, Arab, etc. "Turk" was defined as "a person who speaks Turkish, is a Muslim and loves Turkishness", and they may not have paid attention to the difference of the Turkish Orthodox. 

Thus, as a practical necessity imposed by the resistance against the occupation, and as a shortcut to mobilise the population for the war, the terms "Turkish Christian" or "Non-Muslim Turkish" may have been presented as "oxymoron," that is, as a contradiction between terms by using them as two contradictory or completely opposite concepts. 

Indeed, the inclusion of Turkish-speaking Christians in the compulsory population exchange, despite some hesitations, can only be made sense of through this assumption of nationality that prevailed during the National Struggle. 

The shift towards a more secular definition of Turkishness and the prominence of ethnicist themes since the second half of the 1920s could, at least theoretically, have facilitated the acceptance of Turkic-speaking Christians into the Turkish nation. Thus, they would not be trapped between Turkish and Muslim culture and Greek and Orthodox culture. When we pay attention to the terms "Rum", "Rum-i diyar-ı rum" and "Byzantium", it becomes clear that Orthodox Turks cannot be seen as Greeks. The effort to bring Gagauz (Gagauz) Turks to Anatolia during the Republican period was also important in this context, but it failed.

In summary, "Turkic Christians" are important in terms of understanding the secular and ethnic boundaries of Turkish nationalism, and those who primarily speak Turkish and write with different alphabets are primarily within Turkish and Turkish Philosophy.  For example, one can examine "Muhacirnâme-Karamanlı Muhacirler İçin Şiirin Sedası, (ed. Evangelia Balta and Aytek Soner Alp, Istanbul: istos Publishing, 2016), a selection of Turkish poems in which Turkic-speaking Anatolian Orthodox immigrants express the pain of migration, homesickness and, above all, the conditions and hardships in the neighbourhoods where they were settled in Greece. It is also important for understanding these secular and ethnic boundaries to consider the writings of other Turks of other languages and religions as the product of the Turkish mind and as a contribution to Turkish Philosophy. 

This is precisely the reason why we put the concept of geo-philosophy at the centre. Because "there were Slavic communities in the Balkans who were Turkic-speaking and used the Cyrillic alphabet to write Turkish. In fact, Turkish-speaking Armenians, who used the Armenian alphabet to write Turkish, constituted a significant part of the Armenian population in Anatolia." (Foti Benlisoy-Stefo Benlisoy, A Road Not Travelled in Turkish Nationalism, Christian Turks and Papa Eftim, (Istanbul: Istos Publishing House, 2016), 8-11, 348

In conclusion, while preserving the difference of the Turkish Conception of Islam from the conception produced by the Arab and Persian Mind, we say that the Turks, who have the teachings of the Prophets before the system brought by the Prophet Muhammad (pbuh), should be seen within Turkish Philosophy and Turkish Philosophy what they produce in Turkish with a different alphabet, and within Turkish Philosophy what they produce in a different language.