The Emergence of the Turkish Islamic Literature and Its First Representatives

After the advent of Islam in Saudi Arabia peninsula and its expansion outside the borders of the Subcontinent, The Arab armies captured Iran for the first time and following the Qâdesiyeh war in 636 AH, Iran came under the control of the Arabs. From then onwards, the Arabs took over the north part of Iran and in the 7th century AD, they encountered the Turks. The Turks did not immediately accept the new religion and culture, but as the time passing, they became submissive and in the 11th century AD, the majority of the Central Asia people converted to Islam. From the 11th century onward, a number of schools were established in Khorasan and Transoxiana and in these schools the holy Qurân and Hadith and other Islamic sciences were taught in Arabic language. After the acceptance of Islam by the Turks, Turkish intellectuals learned Arabic sciences in the schools, and on the other hand, they attempted to learn the works compiled in Persian. The simplicity of learning Persian language in comparison with the Arabic language caused, in the light of the Islamic culture, a number of works to be produced that were under the influence of the Persian language and in Central Asia, modern literature came about and some religious and epic works were created. Despite the attractiveness of these works, they emerged in the form of fiction and heroic story among them Saltuk Boqrâkhân’s Merit and Mânâs Narrative which explain the story of the first Muslim heroes, is worthy of note. The present paper deals with the emergence of the Turkish Islamic literature and its first representatives and their surviving works as well.