Mevlânâ and his acquaintance in the Turkish novel (2000-2015)

Mevlânâ is an immortal mystic who shaped Turkish culture and civilization, ideas and wisdom for centuries. He first illuminated Anatolia then the whole world without distinguishing east and west. This wide influence has been an inspiration for artists in almost every field. This study aims to examine how Mevlânâ and his acquaintance are handled in the Turkish novel and reveal the scale of his influence in literature. The study consists of three chapters. The first part -introduction- focuses on the issue, material selection and the method of analysis, and explains the works that are main sources of the study, yet, mostly ignored. Mevlânâ's influence on Turkish culture and literature are studied in the first part, and in the second, the epic sources providing information about Mevlânâ and his acquaintance are introduced by means of these sources. The final part of the study, thirteen novels, which featured Mevlânâ and his acquaintance as novel characters, were examined extensively. The study shows that, Mevlânâ and his acquaintance were transformed into novel characters through narratives mostly in the epic sources but that these narratives were changed in various ways according to the purpose of the authors. The most striking result obtained is that Şems-i Tebrizî, about whose life there is limited knowledge, is brought into the forefront to such an extent that Mevlânâ is overshadowed in the novels. Keywords: Turkish novel, Mevlânâ, Bahâeddîn Veled, Şems-i Tebrizî, Kimya Hatun, Kerra Hatun, Sultan Veled, Alâeddîn Çelebi.