Asceticism in classical Turkish poetry

Sufism, which emphasizes the mystical side of Islam and started to be mentioned as an independent science since the third century of Hijri, is an education method that enables a person who wants to attain the consent of Allah (swt) to become mature and become conscious of his existence by disciplining his spiritual/moral/spiritual aspect. In Sufism, the sâlik, who embarks on a spiritual journey under the guidance of a perfect murshid, by passing through various stations in the educational adventure called seyr ü sülük, experiences a number of feelings and excitements based on the individual experience that Allah Almighty has bestowed upon him. One of the stations in which the ascetic people resides as a result of his personal efforts on this path is that notion of asceticism, which, in its most general definition, means "turning one's back on the world and its blessings, that is, not inclining to anything other than the Truth". Emerging as a reaction to the Umayyad greed for the world, power, luxury and entertainment, zuhd is an understanding that influences the shaping of the individual's religious life and makes him conscious of what kind of attitude he should have towards the universe, beings, the world, the hereafter, etc. The concept of ascetic, which is one of the common elements of Arabic, Persian and Turkish literatures that developed under the umbrella of Islam, was initially treated in a positive sense in Turkish literature, but under the influence of Persian Sufis and poets, it entered into a new meaning process and acquired a negative nature. With the Persian poets attributing some symbolic meanings to the bohemian concepts in the language of poetry, the notion of asceticism was taken over time in a way to meet an external, that is, a religious life that is performed formally. In classical Turkish poetry, which developed under the influence of Persian poetry, ascetic appears with its negative meaning in addition to its positive meaning. This study examines the development of the concept of asceticism in the context of various religions and belief systems, Islam and Sufism, and then focuses on how asceticism is evaluated in classical Turkish poetry. The study, which is limited to the divans of forty poets who lived in the Ottoman geography, evaluates the perspectives of poets on asceticism, how the concepts related to asceticism are interpreted in positive and negative terms by directly or indirectly associating them with various words and phrases, and how asceticism is embodied with some symbols in classical Turkish poetry. In addition, by sorting out the prominent characteristics of the ascetic type in divans, who adopts a flamboyant and pious lifestyle centered on the understanding of asceticism, the comparison between ascetic and rind is made.