Türk Tasavvuf Tarihçiliğinde Köprülü’nün “Şaman-Velî Süreklilik Tezi”ne Yönelik Eleştirel Bir Değerlendirme
A Critical Evaluation of Köprülü’s “Shaman-Walī Continuity Thesis” in Turkish Sufi Historiography

Summary/Abstract: This article critically examines the “Shaman–Walī Continuity Thesis” formulated by Mehmed Fuad Köprülü in Anatolian Sufi historiography, which conceptualizes the Turkmen walī typology as a historical continuation of the pre-Islamic shamanic qam-ozan typology. Köprülü constructed his thesis in line with the positivist and evolutionist intellectual climate of his time and the nationalist historiographical paradigm of the early Republican period. In this process, he blurred the conceptual boundaries among key categories such as walī, dervish, Anatolian Sufism, and the broader concept of taṣawwuf, thereby extending characteristics associated with a particular group to Anatolian Sufism as a whole. Although Köprülü’s thesis has been criticized in the literature regarding methodology, source limitations, and ideological orientation, these critiques largely overlook the theoretical and doctrinal foundations of Sufism. Aiming to address this lacuna, this research compares the shaman and walī typologies across five core criteria: the source of authority, the notion of “second birth”, the conception of the soul, the understanding of karāmāt (wondrous acts), and social roles. An examination of the primary sources of the four major Sufi ṭarīqas that emerged in Anatolia between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries: the Mawlawiyya, Bayrāmiyya, Khalwatiyya, and BektāFshiyya, reveals that the concept of wilāya is grounded not in shamanic charisma but in the Qurʾān, the Sunna, the spiritual legacy of the Prophet, exoteric knowledge (ʿulūm ẓāhiriyya), and the process of spiritual wayfaring (sayr wa-sulūk). Although certain shamanic motifs can be discerned in the hagiographical texts (manāqib) of the Bektāshiyya, the principles of the Islamic and Sufi traditions remain remarkably prominent even within these works. Consequently, while the influence of different faiths and cultures is partially observable in non-Sunni Sufi traditions, the Anatolian conception of wilāya is not fundamentally a pre-Islamic folkloric survival or a straightforward extension of shamanism; rather, it is a distinct construct shaped by the internal dynamics and metaphysical principles of Sufi thought.

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