Socio cultural life of Uighurs before adoption of Islam

Before adopting Islam, Uighurs defeated Göktürks and founded a new state called the Orhon Uighur thereafter they founded Koçu and Kansu states. They adopted faith systems like Tengrism, Manicheism and Buddhism. These cultural turning points are the main topic of this thesis. Subjects directly related to Uighurs such as their literature, art, religion had been exclusively studied in this research. Uigurs crowned their success by placing emphasize on culture and they tried to preserve them by recording them. In this thesis political history of Uigurs, culturally valuable written works by adopting various writing systems and their adapted religions has also been stuided and discussed respectively. Throughout their history, Uigurs established several cities such as Murtuk, Bezeklik, Turfan, Sengim, Karabalsagun and Kızıl into art centres. In these excavations, plenty of statutes, wall paintings, architectural objects and documents which refer to Uighur history and culture have been unearthed. In addition to their political and historical resources, numerous religious texts written in Uighur language have been used as the main source in my thesis. Therefore, the Orhon Uigur state, Koçu as well as the Kansu states which they founded after collapse of Orhon studied primarily in three separated parts. This thesis aimed presenting contributions of Uighurs based on their religion, literature, art and culture, and their ancient beliefs as well as lifestyles. Political and cultural analyses of that period had been the focus of the research. Keywords: Period Before Islam; Sociocultural Structure; Uighurs