The roots of the cultural deviation of Sufism in the ancient Turkic nomadic culture
Kurmanbek A. Osserbayev Y. Shagyrbay A. Azhimov B. Kossalbayev B.D.
2025Frontiers Media SA
Frontiers in Communication
2025#10
Introduction: This study investigates the integration of Sufism into medieval Turkic nomadic culture, analyzing how Sufi rituals, saintly authority, and scholarly networks reshaped social structures and collective identity on the Eurasian steppe. Methods: We assembled a multidisciplinary corpus, including Divan‑i Ḥikmet verses, 12th-14th‑century hagiographies, waqf endowments, archaeological surveys, and secondary literature, and applied hermeneutic coding in NVivo to identify ritual motifs and symbolic continuities. Ragin’s comparative method organized data across four dimensions: ritual form, institutional patterns, symbolic vocabulary, and succession mechanisms, with intercoder reliability ensured through author reviews. Results: We found that communal dhikr ceremonies and whirling dances generated Durkheimian collective effervescence that amplified indigenous circle‑based traditions and accelerated Sufi adoption; that charismatic saints such as Khoja Aḥmad Yasawi transcended tribal loyalties through reputed miracles and moral prestige, founding khanqahs and neutral mazars to facilitate peaceful Islamization; and that Qurʾānic literacy, mastery of Sufi poetry, and formal ijāzas functioned as new forms of cultural capital enabling social mobility. Comparative analysis of South Asian, Anatolian, and North African cases confirms Sufism’s role as a cultural mediator adapting to local cosmologies. Discussion: Our findings show how Sufism simultaneously preserved pre‑Islamic values and transformed Turkic society, revealing the explanatory limits of Durkheim, Weber, and Bourdieu when applied in isolation and highlighting the value of a complementary theoretical approach. Copyright
charismatic authority , cultural capital , cultural deviation , identity formation , Sufism
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Faculty of Philosophy and Political Science, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Institute of Philosophy, Political Science and Religious Studies by the Committee of Science of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Department of Islamic Studies, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Egyptian University of Islamic Culture Nur-Mubarak, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Geology and Oil-Gas Business Institute named after K. Turyssov, Satbayev University, Almaty, Kazakhstan
Faculty of Philosophy and Political Science
Institute of Philosophy
Department of Islamic Studies
Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering
10 лет помогаем публиковать статьи Международный издатель
Книга Публикация научной статьи Волощук 2026 Book Publication of a scientific article 2026