Evil in Turkish world legends

The aim of this study, titled "Evil in the Legends of Turkish World" is to examine the motif of evil in the legends of Turkish states, autonomous structures and groups that continue to exist within other states, spread over a wide geography and established at different time periods. The motif of evil in the legends of the Turkish world has been examined basically within the framework of folklore. However, other disciplines such as history of science, history of religions, philosophy, Islamic history, sociology, history and theology were also used. Throughout history, the relationship between evil and God has been one of the fundamental issues of both philosophy and theology. Especially from the Ancient Age to the 18th century, that is, the Age of Enlightenment, evil was perceived as an issue related only to religion and God. For a long time, philosophers and theologians have tried to justify God against evil with the help of theodicies. However, with the development of scientific thought and positivism in the 18th century, it was realized that examining the problem of evil only on the axis of God and religion was insufficient, and this issue was reconsidered with an interdisciplinary approach. When many innocent people gathered for a religious ceremony lost their lives in the Lisbon Earthquake in 1755, the relationship between God and evil began to be questioned from different perspectives. Especially after Immanuel Kant, the problem of evil is now associated not only with God but also with humans. In the 20th century, the Holocaust, which was depicted as the greatest evil inflicted on humanity, brought man's relationship with evil to the fore. As can be seen, evil has been continuously affecting human life since the Ancient Ages. This effect is not only seen in people's daily lives, but also appears as a triggering force in the development of art and literature. For example, the main theme of the myths from which we get our first information about humanity is usually evil. Myths, which are examples of the oral literature period, have been replaced by legends over time. The subject of this study is the legends of the Turks, who are scattered all over the world with a population of approximately two hundred million. These legends; it belongs to the seven independent Turkish states that form the pillars of the Turkish world (Turkey, Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan) and the Turkish communities living in autonomous, semi-autonomous, autonomous republics. Throughout the study, the source, emergence, consequences and elimination of evil in the legends of the Turkish world were examined with an interdisciplinary approach. In this study, while the legends of the Turkish world are examined on the axis of evil motif, evil, evil, evil-God and evil-human relations from ancient times to the present are taken into consideration. It was evaluated how the differences in approach to the problem of evil before and after Islam were reflected in Turkish culture and legendary texts. Legendary texts with high representative value, selected from the states and communities of the Turkish world, were classified according to the types of evil (moral evil, metaphysical evil and natural/physical evil) and a conclusion was reached by analyzing how evil was committed in these legends.