Earliest reference to Ahmad Yasavi

Abstract

A recently published Persian Sufi work by a 13th-century Central Asian shaykh of the Farghāna valley known as Burhān al-Dīn Qïlïch includes the earliest known reference to Khwāja Aḥmad Yasavī, a prominent Sufi who is associated especially with the Turks of Central Asia, but whose life and Sufi career were not widely recounted in extant sources until the 16th century; the brief account supports the supposition that despite the many different roles assigned to Aḥmad Yasavī in later tradition, it was chiefly as a Sufi shaykh that he was initially known. This article discusses this earliest mention of Yasavī, and its implications, following a survey of what is known of the author of the account, Burhān al-Dīn Qïlïch, and his multiple legacies in Central Asia.