Ahmad Yasawi

Khawaja Ahmad Yasawi or Ahmed Yesevi Kazakh: Қожа Ахмет Ясауи(1093–1166) was a Turkic poet and Sufi, an early mystic who exerted a powerful influence on the development of Sufi orders throughout the Turkic-speaking world.Yasawi is the earliest known Turkic poet who composed poetry in Middle Turkic.He was a pioneer of popular mysticism, founded the first Turkic Sufi order, the Yasawiyya or Yeseviye, which very quickly spread over Turkic-speaking areas.He was an Hanafi scholar like his murshid, Yusuf Hamdani.

Early life
Ahmad Yasawi was born to ibrahim
in sayram at the end of the 11th century. He
lost his father at the age of seven and was
then raised by arslan baba .By then,
yasawi had already advanced through a
series of high spiritual stages and, under the
direction of arslan baba, the young ahmad
reached a high level of maturity and slowly
began to win fame from every quarter. His
father ibrahim had already been renowned in
that region for performing countless feats
and many legends were told of him.
Consequently, it was recognized that, with
respect to his lineage as well, this quiet and
unassuming young boy, who always listened
to his elder sister, held a spiritually important
position.
Yasawi later moved to bukhara and followed
his studies with the yusuf hamdani.Upon
the demise of yusuf hamdani, first ʿabdullah
barki and then hassan-i andākī became the
head of hamdani's khanqah.Yasawi
became the head murshid of
the naqshbandi order when hassan-i andākī
died in 1160. He then turned this position
to abdul khaliq gajadwani under hamdani's
advice and moved to turkistan city in order
to spread islam in turkestan.

Influence
Ahmad Yasawi made considerable efforts to spread Islam throughout Central Asia and had numerous students in the region. Yasawi's poems created a new genre of religious folk poetry in Central Asian Turkic literature and influenced many religious poets in the following countries. Yasawi made the city of Yasi into the major centre of learning for the Kazakh Steppe, then retired to a life of contemplation aged 63. He dug himself an underground cell where he spent the rest of his life. Turkish scholar Hasan Basri Çantay noted that "It was a Seljuk king who brought Rumi, the great Sufi poet, to Konya; and it was in Seljuq times that Ahmad Yesevi, another great Sufi, lived and taught. The influence of those two remarkable teachers has continued to the present."Yasavi is also mentioned by Edward Campbell (writing as Ernest Scott) as a member of the Khwajagan.

The Mausoleum of Khawaja Ahmed Yasawi (Kazakh: Қожа Ахмет Яссауи кесенесі) (Qoja Ahmet Iassaýı kesenesi) is a mausoleum in the city of Turkestan, in southern Kazakhstan. The structure was commissioned in 1389 by Timur, who ruled the area as part of the expansive Timurid Empire,to replace a smaller 12th-century mausoleum of the famous Turkic poet and Sufi mystic,Khoja Ahmed Yasawi(1093–1166). However, construction was halted with the death of Timur in 1405.
Despite its incomplete state, the mausoleum has survived as one of the best-preserved of all Timurid constructions. Its creation marked the beginning of the Timurid architectural style. The experimental spatial arrangements, innovative architectural solutions for vault and dome constructions, and ornamentations using glazed tiles made the structure the prototype for this distinctive art, which spread across the empire and beyond

Location
The Mausoleum of Khawaja Ahmed
Yasawi is situated in the north-
eastern part of the modern-day town
of Turkestan (formerly known as
Hazrat-e Turkestan),an ancient
centre of caravan trade known earlier
as Khazret and later as Yasi,[8]in the
southern part of Kazakhstan. The
structure is within the vicinity of a
historic citadel,which is now
an archaeological site.
Remains of medieval structures such as other
mausoleums,mosques and bath
houses characterize the
archaeological area.To the north of
the Mausoleum of Khawaja
Ahmed Yasawi, a reconstructed
section of the citadel wall from the
1970s separates the historical area
from the developments of the
modern town.

History
Khawaja Ahmed Yasawi
Khoja Ahmed Yasawi (Khawaja or Khwaja) corresponds to "master", also spelled as Khawajah Akhmet Yassawi, was the 12th-century head of a regional school of Sufism, a mystic movement in Islam which began in the 9th century.He was born in Ispidjab (modern Sayram) in 1093, and spent most of his life in Yasi, dying there in 1166.He is widely revered in Central Asia and the Turkic-speaking world for popularizing Sufism,which sustained the diffusion of Islam in the area despite the contemporary onslaught of the Mongol invasion.The theological school he created turned Yasi into the most important medieval enlightening center of the area.He was also an outstanding poet, philosopher and statesman.Yasawi was interred in a small mausoleum, which became a pilgrimage site for Muslims.