Nasreddin or Nasreddin Hodja (1208–1285) is a character in the folklore of the Muslim world from the Balkans to China, and a hero of humorous short stories and satirical anecdotes. There are frequent statements about his existence in real life and even archaeological evidence in specific places, for example, a tombstone in the city of Akşehir, Turkey. At the moment, there is no confirmed information or serious grounds to talk about the specific date or place of Nasreddin's birth, so the question of the reality of his existence remains open.
The Ottoman Empire, historically and colloquially known as the Turkish Empire, was an imperial realm that spanned much of Southeast Europe, West Asia, and North Africa from the 14th to early 20th centuries; it also controlled parts of southeastern Central Europe between the early 16th and early 18th centuries.
The culture of the Ottoman Empire evolved over several centuries as the ruling administration of the Turks absorbed, adapted and modified the various native cultures of conquered lands and their peoples. There was influence from the customs and languages of nearby Islamic societies such as Jordan, Egypt and Palestine, while Persian culture had a significant contribution through the Seljuq Turks, the Ottomans' predecessors. Despite more recent amalgamations, the Ottoman dynasty, like their predecessors in the Sultanate of Rum and the Seljuk Empire were influenced by Persian culture, language, habits, customs and cuisines.Throughout its history, the Ottoman Empire had substantial subject populations of Orthodox subjects, Armenians, Jews and Assyrians, who were allowed a certain amount of autonomy under the millet system of the Ottoman government, and whose distinctive cultures were adopted and adapted by the Ottoman state.
Turkish literature comprises oral compositions and written texts in the Turkish language. The Ottoman form of Turkish, which forms the basis of much of the written corpus, was highly influenced by Persian and Arabic literature, and used the Ottoman Turkish alphabet.
Azerbaijani literature is written in Azerbaijani, a Turkic language, which is the official state language of the Republic of Azerbaijan, where the North Azerbaijani variety is spoken. It is also natively spoken in Iran, where the South Azerbaijani variety is used, and is particularly spoken in the northwestern historic region of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijani is also spoken in Russia, Georgia and Turkey.
A Persianate society is a society that is based on or strongly influenced by the Persian language, culture, literature, art and/or identity.
Ottoman music or Turkish classical music is the tradition of classical music originating in the Ottoman Empire. Developed in the palace, major Ottoman cities, and Sufi lodges, it traditionally features a solo singer with a small to medium-sized instrumental ensemble.
Islamic culture or Muslim culture refers to the historic cultural practices that developed among the various peoples living in the Muslim world. These practices, while not always religious in nature, are generally influenced by aspects of Islam, particularly due to the religion serving as an effective conduit for the inter-mingling of people from different ethnic/national backgrounds in a way that enabled their cultures to come together on the basis of a common Muslim identity. The earliest forms of Muslim culture, from the Rashidun Caliphate to the Umayyad Caliphate and the early Abbasid Caliphate, was predominantly based on the existing cultural practices of the Arabs, the Byzantines, and the Persians. However, as the Islamic empires expanded rapidly, Muslim culture was further influenced and assimilated much from the Iranic, Caucasian, Turkic, Indian, Malay, Somali, Berber, and Indonesian cultures.
The Book of Dede Korkut or Book of Korkut Ata is the most famous among the dastans or epic stories of the Oghuz Turks. The stories carry morals and values significant to the social lifestyle of the nomadic Turkic peoples and their pre-Islamic beliefs. The book's mythic narrative is part of the cultural heritage of the peoples of Oghuz origin, mainly of Azerbaijan, Turkey and Turkmenistan. Only two manuscripts of the text, one in the Vatican and one in Dresden, were known before a third manuscript was discovered in a private collection in Gonbad-e Kavus, Iran, in 2018.
Khosrow and Shirin is the title of a famous tragic romance by the Persian poet Nizami Ganjavi (1141–1209), who also wrote Layla and Majnun. It tells a highly elaborated fictional version of the story of the love of the Sasanian king Khosrow II for the Christian Shirin, who becomes queen of Persia. The essential narrative is a love story of Persian origin which was already well known from the great epico-historical poem the Shahnameh and other Persian writers and popular tales, and other works have the same title.
Islamic literature is literature written by Muslim people, influenced by an Islamic cultural perspective, or literature that portrays Islam. It can be written in any language and portray any country or region. It includes many literary forms including adabs, a non-fiction form of Islamic advice literature, and various fictional literary genres.
The Epic of Koroghlu is a heroic legend prominent in the oral traditions of the Turkic peoples, mainly the Oghuz Turks. The legend typically describes a hero who seeks to avenge a wrong. It was often put to music and played at sporting events as an inspiration to the competing athletes. Koroghlu is the main hero of epic with the same name in Azerbaijani, Turkmen and Turkish as well as some other Turkic languages. The epic tells about the life and heroic deeds of Koroghlu as a hero of the people who struggled against unjust rulers. The epic combines the occasional romance with Robin Hood-like chivalry.
Yusuf and Zulaikha is a title given to many tellings in the Muslim world of the story of the relationship between the prophet Yusuf and Potiphar's wife. Developed primarily from the account in Sura 12 of the Qur'an, a distinct story of Yusuf and Zulaikha seems to have developed in Persia around the tenth century CE. According to Agnès Kefeli, "in the biblical and Qur’anic interpretations of Joseph's story, Potiphar's wife bears all the blame for sin and disappears quickly from the narrative". But "in Turkic and Persian literatures, Joseph and Zulaykha do, ultimately, become sexually united, in parallel to their noncorporeal mystical union". The story of Yusuf and Zulaikha is subsequently found in many languages, such as Arabic, Persian, Bengali, Turkish, Punjabi and Urdu. Its most famous version was written in the Persian language by Jami (1414–1492), in his Haft Awrang.
The composite Turko-Persian, Turco-Persian, or Turco-Iranian is the distinctive culture that arose in the 9th and 10th centuries AD in Khorasan and Transoxiana. According to the modern historian Robert L. Canfield, the Turco-Persian tradition "was "Persianate" in that it was centered on a lettered tradition of Iranian origin; it was Turkish in so far as it was for many generations patronized by rulers of Turkic ancestry; and it was "Islamicate" in that Islamic notions of virtue, permance, and excellence infused discourse about public issues as well as the religious affairs of the Muslims, who were the presiding elite."
The history of literature of the early modern period, or early modern literature, succeeds Medieval literature, and in Europe in particular Renaissance literature.
Amiran-Darejaniani, translated into English as "The story of Amiran, son of Darejan", is a medieval Georgian romance, dating probably from the early or middle decades of the twelfth century. It is one of those literary works which heralded the emergence of native secular literature after several centuries of domination by patristic tradition. It is a prose tale of battling knights in twelve episodes attributed to Moses of Khoni. This attribution is found in the epilogue of Vep’khis-tqaosani, an epic poem by Shota Rustaveli, the greatest classic of medieval Georgian literature, and is otherwise unknown. A tradition holds it that Moses came from the town of Khoni in western Georgia, and, like Rustaveli, served at the court of Queen Tamar, who presided over the Georgian Golden Age.
The art of Azerbaijani Ashiqs combines poetry, storytelling, dance, and vocal and instrumental music into traditional performance art. This art is one of the symbols of Azerbaijani culture and considered an emblem of national identity and the guardian of Azerbaijani language, literature and music.
Abdallah al-Battal was a Muslim Arab commander in the Arab–Byzantine Wars of the early 8th century, participating in several of the campaigns launched by the Umayyad Caliphate against the Byzantine Empire. Historical facts about his life are sparse, but in Anatolia, a legendary tradition grew around him after his death, and he became a famous figure in Turkish epic literature as Battal Gazi.
A Bengali Kissa, also known as Keccha, is a genre of Bengali poetry and prose as well as a tradition in the Bengali language of oral story-telling. It started flourishing in Bengal with the fusion of local Bengali folklore and stories from the Arab and Turco-Persian immigrants. The art form remains popular amongst the rural Muslim communities of Bangladesh.
Yusuf Meddah was an early 14th-century poet. He is considered one of the earliest known authors of Azerbaijani literature, and his poetry played a significant role in the development of the Azerbaijani literary language. Although little is known about his life, it is estimated that he lived at the beginning of the 14th century. Meddah was well-educated and fluent in Azerbaijani, Arabic, and Persian.
