Names used to express term “God” in Kazakh Poetry

Abstract

This article introduces names used to express term “God” in Kazakh Poetry. It describes the role of Tengri, Allah, Lord, God and other names in poets’ religious poetry as well. The most popular words expressing “God” in Kazakh poets’ works are Tenri/Tengri. The word “Tengri” has been existing in Turkic languages since ancient times. The word “Lord” has also been widely spread. The words “Allah”, “God”, “Mighty”, “Creator”, “Father”, “All-Father”, “Author”, “Owner”, “Master”, “Lord” are synonymous for the word “Tengri”. Despite different pronunciation of these words, their lexical meaning is the same, in other words, they are considered similar words. It is important to note that the ancient Turkic word “Tengi” correspond to the nature of God in poets’ poetry of the XV-XVI centuries. Mentioning «Creator», the substitution of the ancient Turkic word «Tengri» for the Persian word «God» and the Arabic word «Allah» is described in the poets’ poetry of the XVII century. AscientistofIslamicstudiesSmailSeitbekovsaysaboutthereligionfromascientificpoint of view: «Following the history of mankind, starting from the earliest community up to the present day, all people believe in the Creator of the World and worship Him on their own». Today, scientists have not found the exactanswer of the origins of the Turkic Religion, its system and whether it is considered a religion or a belief.