Back to the Roots? Tengrism as a Challenge to Islam in Contemporary Türkiye

Abstract

While new religious movements are increasingly widespread worldwide, a recent case emerged in Türkiye. Based on the allegations about the rise of Tengrism—the religion of ancient Turks—among the Turkish society and the increasing visibility of Turkish Tengrist accounts on various social media platforms, the question of whether there is a new challenge to the dominance of Islam in Türkiye or not arose. While there is little information about the presence of a Tengrist movement in Türkiye, social media, as the only ground of their public visibility, stands as the sole source of information about this phenomenon. In this sense, with the aim of analyzing the Tengrist movement in Türkiye, 21 social media accounts that frequently post about Tengrism have been studied with respect to the discourses used in their posts. To this aim, the critical discourse analysis technique has been applied, and the discourses of these Tengrist accounts have been categorized and analyzed under three main discursive themes. Reading the findings in these discursive themes in accordance with the political developments in Türkiye, it has been concluded that the Tengrist movement in Türkiye is an outcome of political and cultural responses by certain segments of Turkish society and that it yet lacks the necessary grounds to turn into a new religious movement while possessing potential in this sense.

1. Introduction

Religion has undoubtedly been one of the most significant factors in shaping the cultures of human societies since the earliest beginnings of social life. From the earliest belief systems, which Emile Durkheim referred to as elementary forms of religious life (Durkheim 1995), to the polytheistic and monotheistic religions of later eras, religion has always been dominant and functional at the very core of social organization. Today, while a considerable majority of the world’s population identifies with religious identities rooted in centuries-old belief systems such as Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and Hinduism, new challenges to the dominance of these religions, which have emerged as alternative beliefs, have become increasingly visible since the 1950s. While these new alternative belief systems have been generally categorized as “new religious movements” in the social science literature, a vast majority of them have their origins dating back centuries or millennia, born as revivals of various pagan religions practiced by peoples of earlier ages. These religious revival movements, referred to as neo-paganism in general, have been presenting a huge variety among themselves:

“Under the Pagan umbrella, however, the relative importance of ecology, magic, ethnic politics and indigenous tradition varies significantly, and there is a vast diversity of traditions. Some—like Wicca and Druidry, which originated in Britain, and neo-Shamanism and Goddess spirituality, which originated in the USA—have spread via literature, the movement of people and the internet to countries throughout the world where they have been adapted to local landscapes, seasonal cycles and cultures by local practitioners. Other traditions, more common in northern and eastern Europe, are often referred to as ‘Native Faiths’ (also ‘indigenous’, ‘ethnic’ or ‘traditional religion’) by their followers, and are more geographically and culturally restricted, tending to emphasize ethnic politics, local histories, and indigenous folklore and traditions.”

(Rountree 2014)

The category, namely “ethnic religions” mentioned above, presents us with a typical belief system frequently adopted by many ethnic groups throughout history, which emerged and developed as the authentic religion of a certain ethnic group. This authenticity is the main characteristic in determining the difference between ethnic religions and universal religions like Christianity and Islam:

“Religions can be classified and systematized with reference to a wide number of criteria. One basis of classification distinguishes between universal and ethnic religions. The former category consists of religions which have the ambition to spread worldwide and to attract as many adherents as possible, whereas the latter is made up of religions which are confined to a specific ethnic group and do not seek to attract new adherents outside this group. Also, ethnic religions are often, but not always, limited to a geographically confined area.”

(Park 2005)

Within the wave of neo-paganism, various cases of ethnic religion revivals have been observed throughout the world. The case of the worshippers of ancient Greek gods and goddesses in modern-day Greece (Miller 2007) and the revival of the ancient Nordic religion under the name Asatru in Iceland, Germany, and Sweden (Von Schnurbein 2016) are two examples of European ethnic-religion revivals. However, such attempts to revive ancient ethnic religions have not been unique to Europe, and similar cases have also emerged in other regions of the world.

One of the ethnic religions whose revival has been apparent in various countries is Tengrism, or Tengrianism, a belief system identified by its proponents as the religion of the ancient Turkic peoples of Central Asia. Accordingly, the proponents of this movement claimed that, Islam, as the dominant religion in these countries, had for long centuries led to a kind of cultural assimilation among these Turkic peoples who, under the influence of Islamic/Arabic culture, had left their original cultural origins behind and that through the revival of ancestral ethnic religion of Tengrism, a necessary cultural refreshment could be possible (Laruelle 2007).

In defining the ancestral ethnic religion of Turkic peoples, many scholars found it problematic to determine whether Tengrism was the dominant religion of the ancient Turks. This problematic situation emerged from two facts. First, ancient Turks, as an overall ethnic group, lived under the rule of different dynastic states spanning a large territory, and in each state at different historical periods, various religions such as Buddhism, Manichaeism, and Tengrism were adopted by these dynasties. Secondly, the historical knowledge related to the religions of ancient Turks emanated from a large variety of different sources from different timelines, like ancient Roman, medieval Chinese and modern Russian records, therefore leading to a kind of chaotic bundle of information which makes it hard to reach an overall generalization in determining the dominant religion of ancient Turks before Islam (Gömeç 2003). Based on the epitaphs from the Gokturk Kaganate (552–744 A.D.) which referred to a cosmic creator named Kök Tengri—Sky God, or God of the blue sky—(Gömeç 2003) and the long-time maintained worship of this deity among some present time Turkic tribes in the Yakutsk region of Russia, Tengrism has been identified as the ethnic religion of ancient Turks by the proponents of these revival movements in various Turkic states.

Tengrism has been identified by various scholars as a belief system that is based on a kind of monotheism with Tengri as the creator, but at the same time including certain pagan elements like earth spirits (or angelic figures) such as Umay, the protector of families and babies, water spirits, and spirits of the ancestors (Talgat and Azmuhanova 2015). According to Doerfer, this cultural synthesis was the outcome of a cultural transformation in which the worship of natural forces evolved towards a monotheistic belief, but certain elements and figures of the previous beliefs had been maintained through their integration into Tengrism (Talgat and Azmuhanova 2015).

While the earliest Tengist revival movements emerged in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan during the 1990s following the dissolution of the Soviet Union, the case of a similar Tengrist revival became a topic of public debate, especially on social media in Türkiye, since the late 2010s. However, unlike the institutionalized and publicly known Tengrist movements in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, the Tengrist case in Türkiye still remains unclear, considering the lack of institutional grounds and the fact that its public visibility is yet limited within social media.

Allegations about the rise of Tengrism in Turkish society first emerged in the late 2010s, when a Turkish citizen named Burhanettin Mumcuoğlu applied to the court to be officially registered as a Tengrist (Erdem 2022). Following this event, the question of whether Tengrism was a new phenomenon in Turkish society became a topic of public debate. The increasing number of social media accounts advocating the necessity of a cultural revival of Turks through Tengrism has served as a basis for this issue’s worthiness of research. The increasing use of cultural elements and discourses related to pre-Islamic Turkish culture, mostly in the form of Tengrism, the ancient religion of ethnic Turks, contains elements that constitute a challenge to Islam. This new trend can also be interpreted within the context of political polarization between the politically conservative and secular segments of Turkish society.

Considering this new trend on social media, the aim of this study is to analyze the discursive themes used in posts by Tengrist social media accounts, with the aim of revealing the cultural and political elements and conditions underlying this phenomenon.

While there are various studies on Tengrism and its general characteristics (Güngör 2013; Öztürk 2013; Karakaş 2014), no academic study has yet been published on the case of the Tengrist movement in Türkiye. While this situation probably owes to the fact that public visibility of Tengrists in Türkiye is still very limited and that they are only becoming active on social media, this study also aims to serve as a starting point for further studies on this subject.

2. Materials and Methods

In this qualitative study, the critical discourse analysis (CDA) technique has been used to analyze the discourses of Tengrist social media accounts in Türkiye. Critical discourse analysis is a methodological approach developed by pioneer academics like Teun A. van Dijk, Ruth Wodak, Norman Fairclough, Gunther Kress, and Theo van Leeuwen, who identified discourses as meaningful and purposeful elements which can be found in written, oral, and visual forms. The basic aim of applying CDA is to reveal what is hidden in and what the discourse itself means. Within the main framework of CDA, it is assumed that beneath all discourses lies a hidden, fundamental thought or ideology (Eagleton 1991). Among these pioneer academics mentioned above, van Dijk (2000) has emphasized the mutual relationship between discourses and ideology, such that, while discourses influence the reproduction of ideologies, ideologies also shape the development of discourses. Van Dijk, while defining the main elements within all discourses, emphasized the element of contrast, which, according to him, existed within all discourses due to the dialectical nature of ideologies. Contrast, as the polarizing instrument in the discourse, refers to the distinction between in-group and out-group elements, which is embodied in a form of othering in which the discourse is structured and shaped with an emphasis on the duality of “us” and “them” (van Dijk 2000). Based on observations of the sample in this study, which include this contrast element, and given the potential for ideological influence, van Dijk’s CDA model has been applied.

Given that there is yet little qualitative or quantitative data on the alleged Tengrist movement in Türkiye, the sample for this study consists of the only apparent dataset currently available: social media posts by Tengrist accounts in Türkiye. Following a thorough review of popular social media platforms in Türkiye, such as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X, TikTok has been chosen as the research universe to be studied, given the relatively higher intensity and functionality of Tengrist accounts on this platform compared to others. To this end, accounts with fewer than 1000 followers have been excluded, and a total of 21 accounts that regularly post Tengrist content have been analyzed. These accounts have been reached through searches with the keywords #tengri, #tengricilik and #tengrizm. As of 1 February 2026, the account with the highest number of followers was 54,000, and the account with the lowest number of followers was 1404. These 21 anonymous accounts, together, have an average of 12,118 followers.

Posts by these accounts are mostly videos that include text overlaid on images fixed in the background, sometimes accompanied by authentic songs in Turkic languages. Images mostly depict Turkish cultural figures, such as shamans and wolves. It has also been noticed that some accounts repost each other’s content, but apart from this, there is no other sign of direct interaction or communication between them. Since the aim of this study is to analyze the discourses of these Tengrist accounts, comments by TikTok users on the posts have been excluded from the sample of this study. Discursive material has been retrieved from the texts in the posts, and the author has translated them from Turkish to English. Discourses in these accounts have been categorized according to the contrast elements integrated into the posts.

3. Results

While analyzing the discourses in the sample of this study, the contrast element becomes evident across three main themes. Although these three discursive themes are highly interlinked, it is more accurate to analyze them under separate titles.

3.1. Discursive Theme: Arabs’ Religion

Magliocco (2009), while referring to native faith groups in the US, stated that some of these groups claimed that their genetic heritage created a birthright to the use of cultural materials, thus limiting their religions within the boundaries of ethnic or tribal ties (Magliocco 2009). This attitude is also evident in certain ethnic religions, such as Judaism worldwide, Hellenism in Greece, and Tengrist movements in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan. While establishing a direct connection between ethnicity and religion in identifying a collective identity, other religions, especially universal ones like Islam and Christianity, are categorized as the “other” in defining the cultural boundaries between in-group and out-group entities, thus aiming to preserve the ethnic part of the collective identity by strengthening it with a belief system accessible only by the members of that ethnicity and thus, eliminating the possibility of any “outsider” entry into the community through the use of an universal religion.

This attitude or strategy, which is very common in ethnic religions, is also visible in the posts by Tengrist accounts in Türkiye. Frequent use of phrases like “Tengri is the God of Turks” reduces Tengri to an ethnic or tribal deity and claims that Tengrism is the belief of Turks only. While emphasizing the ethnic essence of Tengrism, such posts also develop a contrast by placing Turks and Tengrism on one side and Arabs and Islam on the other. While developing such a contrast, these expressions, along with defining the Arab and Islam as the foreign other, most of the time present a tendency towards dismissing Islam as a universal religion and reducing it to the ethnic religion of Arabs. In this respect, phrases like “Arabs’ religion”, “Arabian tales” and “Arabs’ God” are frequently used in such posts:

“The God who sends his messages in Arabic is called the Arabs’ God.”

(TikTok, GökTürk 2025a)

“Instead of the fairy tales from the desert1, believe in the voices of your ancestors.”

(Tiktok, Göklü.Kam 2025a)

(quoting the Mongolian monarch Hulagu Khan in his speech to the Arab envoys who invited him to Islam2) “If your God can not speak Turkish, then he is no God. If he speaks only Arabic even though he can speak Turkish, then he is only the Arabs’ God”

(TikTok, Asil Türkler 2025)

As seen in these examples and in many others reviewed within this study, Islam is presented as the means of a foreign culture that, through Turks’ conversion to Islam, deeply damaged and dominated Turkish identity. Therefore, these posts often stress a call to return to the cultural roots embodied in Tengrism. The target mass of this call becomes evident within the second discursive theme analyzed below.

3.2. Discursive Theme: Arabization

Regarding ethnic-religion revivals worldwide, there is a considerable reaction from proponents of ethnic religions towards the universal ones dominant in their home countries. These reactions become apparent in either cultural or political claims that condemn universal religions as corrupted or assimilating structures. For instance, the cases of Tengrist revivals in Kazakhstan (Bulan et al. 2025) and Kyrgyzstan (Biard and Laruelle 2010) condemned Islam as an element that for a long time had degenerated the Kazakh and Kyrgyz national identities. Similarly, some branches of the Odinist movement in the USA had claimed that the Christian Church had been taken over by non-white entities, and for them, Odinism served as a means of preserving the racial homogeneity of white Americans by denying access to other racial groups to this new religious movement (Dobratz 2001). A similar reaction, which emphasizes the relationship between ethnicity and religion within the context of collective identity, can be read through the expressions used by Tengrist accounts on TikTok in Türkiye.

In the verbal expressions used in social media posts about Tengrism in Türkiye, which constitute the sample of this study, a frequent use of the term Arabization is evident. According to these expressions, Turks, as a separate ethnicity, had become kind of Arabized during the centuries following their conversion to Islam and had lost and forgotten most of their cultural norms and values by replacing them with Islamic/Arabic ones. Associating Islam totally with Arabness on cultural grounds, as seen in the first discursive theme, Islam is generally presented as a religion that deeply altered Turkish culture in a negative way, condemning Turks to losing their original identity and becoming assimilated by the Arabic/Islamic culture.

This claim of cultural assimilation becomes evident in various examples of discourses shared in posts on social media, such as:

“Quran is the assimilation book written by Arabs.”

(TikTok, Göklü.Kam 2025b)

“Minaret3 is the tombstone of Turkishness.”

(Tiktok, Göklü.Kam 2025c)

“Damn him, Nizam-ül Mülk4 who spread Arabs’ poison in madrasas5 as so-called education.”

(Tiktok, Göklü.Kam 2025d)

Either in these exemplary expressions, which sound highly hostile and radical in the first place, or in other examples, which sound relatively more moderate, there is a direct claim of Turks losing their Turkishness by adapting into Islamic culture, which is frankly expressed as Arabic culture. Emphasizing the connection between ethnicity and religion, these expressions condemn Islam as a foreign element that led to a deep transformation of the religious element of Turkish ethnicity, thus damaging and altering Turkish identity over the course of time following the Turks’ conversion to Islam. Therefore, the contrast relation in these posts under this discursive theme is simply constituted by elements of Islam/Arabness versus pre-Islamic Turkish ethnicity.

Reducing Islam from a universal religion to Arabs’ religion and naming it as the foreign/other element that damaged original Turkishness, posts by Tengrist accounts on TikTok also mention their claim of Arabized Turks through another contrast connection in their discourses. This time, the contrast connection is not directly drawn between Islam/Arabness and Turkish ethnicity, but on a different dimension, between “Arabized” and “enlightened” Turks. In this context, the frequent use of the term Bedouin6 to denote Arabized Turks is visible in some posts. A few exemplary uses of this kind of contrast are as follows:

“Yo Bedouin! If Arabs were a sacred nation, God would not place them in the desert.”

(TikTok, Göklü.Kam 2025e)

“Yo Bedouin! You shall hear the shaman drums in this country even if it drives you crazy.”

(TikTok, Göklü.Kam 2025f)

“One who gets emotional and cries upon hearing words in a language (Arabic7) he can’t understand is called a Bedouin.”

(Tiktok, Göklü.Kam 2025g)

As can be read in these expressions, the term Bedouin was used to denote Turks who are claimed to be assimilated into Arabic culture through Islam and therefore value their Islamic religious identity above their Turkish ethnic identity. Conversely, even though it is not openly expressed, those Turks who claim to possess Turkishness as an identity in its pre-Islamic form are kind of enlightened Turks, and all those Arabized Turks are to be awakened and enlightened by them:

“It is time to save ourselves from Arabian lies. We must return to our roots.”

(TikTok, GökTürk 2025b)

“Descendants of those converted to Islam under the threat of Arabs’ swords are returning to their roots, to Tengri, through reason.”

(TikTok, GökTürk 2025c)

The expressions in the last quote above lead us to another sub-theme within the discursive theme of Arabization: the question of how Turks converted to Islam. In this context, there are two general historical perspectives among Turkish public opinion. According to the first and relatively older perspective, Turks had voluntarily experienced a massive conversion to Islam, considering the similarities between their former beliefs and Islam. According to the second perspective, which is on the rise during the last few decades, Turks had been forced by Arab armies to convert to Islam (Erkoç 2018). The first perspective, which is also deeply rooted in the official history curriculum and in the national education sources, states that Gök-tanrı/Kök-Tengri (Sky-God) belief, in its monotheistic essence, was welcomed by the Turkic communities in Asia and upon hearing the calls of the Arab envoys who invited them to Islam, they had voluntarily and peacefully converted to this new religion which did not sound much new after all (Karakaş 2014). While under specific cases of conversion experienced by certain Turkic states like the Kara-Khanids (840–1212 A.D.), this claim has a historical truth, the second perspective, which claims that Turkic communities had been forced to convert to Islam against the attacks and invasions of Islamic/Arab armies, is also based on certain cases with historical truth (Aydın 2024). In various Tengrist social media accounts, this situation is stressed in a way to emphasize that not all Turks had once converted to Islam peacefully, but through the use of force, and these posts aim to make Turkish social media users remember their “true” history in which their ancestors have been forcefully “assimilated”:

“Turkish shamans found God in the nature freely. Arabs came and imprisoned God in the mosques with their swords.”

(TikTok, Göklü.Kam 2025h)

“Arabs’ religion came with the sword. We will send it back through reason.”

(Tiktok, Göklü.Kam 2025i)

“Those who forgot the massacres in Khorassan, Curcan and Talkan8 can’t be considered as Turks!”

(TikTok, GökTürk 2025d)

Referring to wars between Arabs and various Turkic states in Western and Central Asia during the expansion of Islam towards the East, such expressions, while aiming to make Turks remember this history, also aim to emphasize that Turkishness has a long history predating the Islamic era. Therefore, a return to the roots through Tengrism is presented as an ideal way to escape Arabization and restore the original, true nature of Turkishness.

3.3. Discursive Theme: Tengrism Versus Islam

As stated above, the perspective that claimed that Turks had voluntarily converted to Islam is based on the similarities between Tengrism and Islam, which made it easier for the massive conversion of Turks. Of these similarities, the monotheistic character of both religions has been emphasized as the most significant one by various scholars in Türkiye and some pioneer scholars like İbrahim Kafesoğlu (1912–1984), Osman Turan (1914–1978), Bahaeddin Ögel (1923–1989) and Hikmet Tanyu (1918–1992) even named Tengrism as a Hanif religion (Karakaş 2014), that is, beliefs, according to Islamic thought, which have a monotheistic nature and have been influenced and shaped by the sole creator although they do not belong to the chain of Abrahamic religions.

Tengrist accounts on social media, while drawing strict frontiers between Islam and Tengrism by categorizing them as two religions appealing to separate ethnicities, namely Arabs and Turks, also stress the differences between these religions in their posts. These differences are most evident in the contexts of deity typology, religious duties, gender, and religious ethics and violence. Therefore, a third discursive theme emerges from this comprehensive comparison of both religions. These comparative discourses do not always place Islam directly as the “other” but rather build a contrast through an indirect/implied comparison. Some characteristics of both religions are compared to inform viewers about Tengrism and to highlight the differences between the two, thereby emphasizing Tengrism’s authenticity as the original and true religion of the Turks.

Examining social media posts, the first context of comparison between two religions emerges as the deity typology. In this sense, a few exemplary quotations from these posts present the basic differences between the two religions:

“Tengri does not need a prophet or a holy book.”

(TikTok, GökTürk 2025e)

“In Tengrism, there is no holy book. The belief is kept alive through traditions and social values.”

(Tiktok, Kutlu Tengri 2025a)

“Tengri is not oppressive and interventionist.”

(Tiktok, Kutlu Tengri 2025b)

“A Turk is not a servant, but a comrade of Tengri. Arabs’ religion turns humans into servants, simply slaves.”

(Tiktok, Göklü.Kam 2025j)

“Tengri does not punish or torment anyone just because they do not worship or pray to him. Tengri loves all his creations.”

(Tiktok, Gök Tengrinin Kurtları 2025a)

The deity typology for Tengri presented in these examples directly contradicts with the basic characteristics of the Islamic deity Allah who, according to Islamic doctrine, sent his message to mankind via his prophets and the Holy Quran, has already written the destiny of each individual even before his/her birth and has full control over humans’ earthly lives, and finally will punish those who did not fulfill their religious duties in the afterlife. Contrary to the deity typology in Islam, Tengri is presented as a more libertarian God who does not intervene in their earthly lives through strict religious rules set by prophets and holy books. All these characteristics of Tengrism emphasized in these exemplary posts can be briefly summarized in a quote as follows:

“Tengrianism is not a prophetic religion, that is, not a religion proclaimed by someone, and not a “religion of salvation,” but it is an original, traditional faith, a kind of worldview system based on the oral transfer of knowledge and without a written statement of doctrine, without a single Text, which would be attached sacral importance. Everything said to one degree or another distinguishes Tengrianism from all Abrahamic religions.”

(Zholobova 2020)

A second context of comparison between two religions is religious duties which has frequently been emphasized in social media posts by many Tengrist accounts, such as:

“There is no compulsory worship in Tengrism such as fasting and prayer. Human beings are considered to walk the true path as long as they respect nature and Tengri.”

(TikTok, Kutlu Tengri 2025a)

The connection drawn between worship and nature is noteworthy here, since Tengrism is a highly nature-based belief. Humans’ co-existence with nature in a respectful and peaceful manner is one of the founding principles of Tengrism, and followers of contemporary Tengrist movements in various Central Asian countries are concerned with its fundamentally ecological nature (Laruelle 2007). The same ecological attitude is visible in posts by Tengrist accounts in Türkiye, and instead of Islamic worship techniques with rules, certain nature-based rituals and celebrations are presented as the techniques of religious worship in Tengrism.

In terms of gender equality, Tengrist accounts often put forward the equal social status of women with men as a phenomenon which was recognized, praised, and respected during the pre-Islamic era in Turkic communities and present Tengrism as a religion which preserves the same attitude towards the social status of women:

“In comparison to many other religions, there exists a relatively more comprehensive and natural understanding of equality. There is no hierarchy among women and men. Everyone is equal before the nature and Tengri.”

(TikTok, Kutlu Tengri 2025c)

“Women are symbols of fertility. But, in the Arabs’ religion, they are fields of men” (to cultivate9).

(TikTok, Göklü.Kam 2025k)

As seen in these examples, the social status of women in Islamic societies is presented as inferior when compared to that of men, and Tengrism is presented as a relatively more equalitarian religion in terms of gender. It is possible to read a not direct but rather implied statement which condemns Islam as an outsider element that terminated the gender equality which had been enjoyed in the Turkic world prior to their conversion to Islam.

A final context of comparison is religious ethics and violence, which forms a significant part of the comparisons between Tengrism and Islam in social media posts. The posts within this context are highly critical of certain incidents and practices that took place during the early expansion of the Islamic geography and certain religious texts in the Holy Quran:

“Tengri never asks anyone to fight in his name, because Tengri does not need to expand his dominion or to be protected.”

(TikTok, Göklü.Kam 2025l)

“Can you call a religion as a true one if that religion commands you to kill all those who do not convert?”

(TikTok, Göklü.Kam 2025m)

“You have a God who asked for a share from spoils of war and a prophet who married his daughter-in law.”

(TikTok, GökTürk 2025f)

All three exemplary posts above point to the nature of warfare, which was both a common practice during Islam’s expansion and a holy duty, which has also been stated in various verses in the Holy Quran. A few examples of such verses are as follows:

“Fighting has been made obligatory upon you ‘believers’, though you dislike it.”

(Surah al-Baqarah 2025, 216)

“Fight in the cause of Allah, and know that Allah is All-Hearing, All-Knowing.”

(Surah al-Baqarah 2025, 244)

“Fight against them ‘if they persecute you’ until there is no more persecution, and ‘your’ devotion will be to Allah ‘alone’.”

(Surah al-Baqarah 2025, 193)

“Fight in the cause of Allah ‘only’ against those who wage war against you.”

(Surah al-Baqarah 2025, 190)

“Kill them wherever you come upon them.”

(Surah al-Baqarah 2025, 191)

“Believers, fight for the cause of Allah, whereas disbelievers fight for the cause of the Devil. So, fight against Satan’s ‘evil’ forces.”

(Surah an-Nisa 2025, 76)

Combining the meanings of both the posts and the verses mentioned above, the main element in such a critical comparison between Islam and Tengrism is violence in warfare, and this perspective also questions the presence of such verses that command believers of a universal religion to fight in the name of its deity. In addition to this, the wars between the Islamic armies and the non-Muslim (pagan, Christian, Jewish) communities in Asia during the expansion of Islam since the middle of the 7th century also contribute to this presentation of Islam as a religion based on violence. The dominant perspective among Turkish Tengrists, who claim that Turks had converted to Islam by use of force, should be remembered here as well. Therefore, on one side of the contrast built into these discourses, there is Islam as a religion with a violent nature and history, and on the other, Tengrism, which is claimed to be based on a relatively peaceful philosophy.

Closely related to religious violence, another comparison is visible in the phrase “You have a God who asked for a share from the spoils of war and a prophet who married her daughter-in-law,” which questions Islamic ethics in a critical manner. Here, “spoils of war” refer to the material goods which were looted from those non-Muslim communities who refused to convert to Islam and the verse in Quran which states that “Know that whatever spoils you take, one-fifth is for Allah and the Messenger, his close relatives, orphans, the poor, and ‘needy’ travelers” (Surah al-Anfal 2025) is implied as a reference in this context. While the question of why a deity asks for earthly materials looted from others forms the basis of this critical expression, “you have a prophet who married his daughter-in-law” adds to the critical questioning of Islamic ethics through the event of Prophet Muhammad’s marriage to his adopted son Zaid’s ex-wife, Zaynab. As a controversial issue in Islamic history, this marriage between the prophet and his daughter-in-law has been a subject of debate among many scholars in Türkiye (Dursun 2017; Tekin 2013). The legitimization of this marriage by a verse in the Holy Quran, stated as follows, is also a critical point in this context, since such an action is not deemed as an ethical action by the proponents of this critical perspective, and by Tengrists as well, as seen in their posts:

“So, when Zaid totally lost interest in ‘keeping’ his wife, We gave her to you in marriage, so that there would be no blame on the believers for marrying the ex-wives of their adopted sons after their divorce. And Allah’s command is totally binding.”

(Surah al-Azhab 2025, 37)

A last critical comparison within the context of religious ethics observed in the posts by Tengrist accounts concerns promises to believers about the afterlife. According to various verses in the Quran, those male Muslims who deserve to reside in heaven in the afterlife will be given beautiful female servants called the Huri who will take care of their needs. (Surah an-Naba 2025, 33; Surah ad-Dukhan 2025, 54; Surah ar-rahman 2025, 72). Although the question of what kind of needs will be taken care of is not openly explained in these verses, a general opinion about this issue is that these female servants will function as concubines. Posts by Tengrist accounts refer to this issue in a critical manner and establish a comparison with Tengrism as seen in examples given below:

“There is no promise of sexual meta in Tengrism.”

(TikTok, Gök Tengrinin Kurtları 2025b)

“There is no Huri in Tengrist belief. Tengrism is the most ethical belief on earth.”

(TikTok, Gök Tengrinin Kurtları 2025c)

As seen in the examples above, posts on Tengrist accounts developed a comparative discourse that consisted of basic sub-themes or contexts: deity typology, religious duties, gender, religious ethics, and violence. Within this comparative discourse, while the “other” element of contrast is obviously Islam, this point is not stated directly in all examples but rather implied. By emphasizing these characteristics of Islam in a critical manner and comparing them with their counterparts in Tengrist belief, Tengrism is presented as an ideal religion for Turks.

4. Discussion

Having interpreted the discourses by Tengrist social media accounts in Türkiye, it became obvious that the meanings implied in these posts are constructed on a contrast consisting of two elements namely Tengrism which is associated with Turkish ethnicity and idealized as the true and original belief of ethnic Turks, and Islam, which is associated with Arab ethnicity and culture and is reduced from an universal religion to an ethnic religion in a sense. While all the three separate but interlinked discursive themes mentioned before put forward this situation in which Tengrist movement in Türkiye appears to aim a kind of cultural revival or cultural reclamation related to the re-definition of Turkish ethnicity, other factors and developments within the Turkish society in the recent years should also be taken into consideration in order to reach a more comprehensive evaluation of the Tengrist movement in Türkiye. Hence, new questions emerge within this topic, which urge us to develop further questions: Is the Tengrist movement in Türkiye simply a religious movement, or is it a new phenomenon developing alongside certain political and cultural responses by segments of Turkish society? Is it a symbolic reaction based on these responses rather than the revival of an ethnic religion?

Before starting a discussion and evaluation of these questions, quoting Cemil Kılıç, one of the earliest public figures in Türkiye to open debates about Turkish Tengrism, would be useful for summarizing the evaluation of the discourses analyzed before and for building a bridge to link them to the questions raised above. Kılıç, a Turkish theologian and a renowned figure in academic debates on religion, stated that:

“Tengrism is becoming widespread among the Turkish youth who regard Islam as a means of Umayyad/Abbasid Arab cultural imperialism. According to Tengrism, Islam is the religion of Arabs. We have replaced our national names with Arabic ones. We have replaced our national alphabet with the Arabic one. Islam led to the entry of thousands of Arabic words into Turkish vocabulary and formed a barrier against the development of Turkish language. Islam is religion hostile to Turks and Arabized them through the understanding of ummah10. That’s why Turks should return to their roots and abandon this Arabs’ religion. Summing up, these are the main thoughts of Tengrists.”

(Kılıç 2018)

Kılıç, repeatedly expressing that he is not a Tengrist but a Muslim himself, based these opinions on his observations about and encounters with Tengrist people in Türkiye. Quoting another figure who actually opened up the debates on Tengrism will complement Kılıç’s statements. Public debate about Tengrism broke out in Türkiye following the appeal of a lawyer named Burhanettin Mumcuoğlu to the Turkish courts, demanding that his religious identity be changed from Islam to Tengri. Following the court’s decision, which ratified this demand, Mumcuoğlu became the first—and still only—Turkish citizen who officially possessed the term “Tengri” on his identity card. Identifying himself as a person with a nationalist ideology and posing to the cameras in traditional Central Asian outfits, Mumcuoğlu stated that:

“I am not a Tengrist, actually. I had a different purpose in doing this. In the official citizenship information system, there are a few registered religions that citizens can choose from among to identify themselves. I thought that the ancient religion of the Turks should also be registered as well…Following this, so many people who defined themselves as Tengrists have contacted me…I also aimed to disprove the dominant discourse which stated that %99 of the Turkish society is composed of Muslims…It is a fact that most of these Tengrists are Turkish nationalists who care about Turkish culture and beliefs…”

(Erdem 2022)

The statements by both figures point to a cultural response that is shaped by concerns about Turkish ethnicity and motives of Turkish nationalism; they also enable us to raise further questions about the political nature of the Tengrist movement in Türkiye. Considering the developments in the Turkish political arena in the last two decades, Tengrism can be interpreted as a new wave or form of Turkish nationalism, which is a symbolization of political/ideological responses towards the policies and actions by the Justice and Development Party (JDP)11, that is in power since 2002. JDP, as a political party founded upon the political heritage of political Islam in Türkiye and identifying itself with a conservative ideology mostly emanating from Islamic values and the Ottoman historical background, has followed a policy of redefining the concept of Turkishness with relatively more emphasis on the concept of Muslimhood compared to the ethnic/national components of Turkish identity. Moreover, during JDP’s term in power, ideological polarization also became apparent within Turkish society, particularly between its secularist and conservative segments. Certain developments under JDP rule such as Türkiye’s rapproachment with the Islamic world on economic, political and cultural grounds, Turkish state’s open door policy in receiving millions of refugees mostly from Arabic countries like Syria and increasing emphasis of religion by the government elites on policies of especially culture and education has been leading to displeasement among and negative responses by especially secular and nationalist segments of Turkish society who also constitute the bulk of the political opposition in Turkish political arena. Even the political nationalist movement in Türkiye has been divided in this process, with the formation of new nationalist political parties such as the Good Party (GP)12 and the Victory Party (VP)13, which broke from the Nationalist Movement Party (NMP)14. Currently, political nationalism in Türkiye is represented through these three main political parties, of which, GP and VP rather represent an ideology of Turkish nationalism based on ethnic and secular elements and remain as parties in opposition, while NMP clings to its traditional Muslim-Turkish ethnoreligious definition of Turkishness and Turkish nationalism and is allied with the ruling JDP through a political alliance namely the Cumhur Alliance.

Linking these developments and situations with the statements of the two figures who opened up the debates on Tengrism will be useful in elaborating the connection between the rise of Tengrism and the political responses against the government’s policies and discourses, which concentrate around the element of Islam:

“Nowadays, Tengrism is rising especially among the nationalist youth as a Turkist challenge against Islamist and Ottomanist discourses of so-called nationality…By the way, I should also specify that Tengrism is a variant of secular nationalism against the type of nationalism filled with religious themes. Tengrists do not credit the religious discourses of nationalist movements. Instead, they react to them.”

(Kılıç 2018)

Just like Kılıç, Mumcuoğlu mentioned the same reactionary situation as follows:

“In Türkiye, there is a secular nationalist movement on the rise especially among the youth as a response to the policies implemented by JDP for long years.”

(Erdem 2022)

While both statements point to a political response deeply rooted in Tengrist orientation in Türkiye, examining the content of the social media posts in the sample of this study also contributes to evaluating the rise of Tengrism within a political context. Of the 21 accounts analyzed in this study, 9 focused solely on Tengrism in their posts, while the remaining 12 included considerable political content. These contents consist mainly of pictures of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the Turkish Republic and a significant symbol of secularism, pictures of Ümit Özdağ, the founder and leader of the Victory Party which identifies itself with a nationalist and anti-immigrant political agenda, and words and phrases written in the ancient Gokturk alphabet, which are frequently used by the Good Party and Victory Party electorate as symbols of Turkish ethnicity. Therefore, connecting the political opposition, consisting of secular and nationalist segments, with the Tengrist movement, which is developing as a new form of political/ideological response to the government, seems possible at first glance.

Reviewing the academic literature on Tengrist movements in other Turkic communities, a strong emphasis on defining these movements as politics-based becomes highly apparent. Accordingly, the Tengrist movement in Kazakhstan (Bulan et al. 2025) and Kyrgyzstan (Güngör 2013) has been analyzed as cultural/political responses to re-Islamization and globalization in the post-Soviet era. Laruelle (2007) in her comprehensive study, preferred to use the term “political Tengrism” and defined the political essence of these Tengrist movements as follows:

“By condemning the universality of the great religions and by asserting that Islam is serving foreign interests, political Tengrism constitutes one of the possible versions of Kazakh, Kyrgyz and Tatar nationalism… Tengrism being politically deployed in the service of post-Soviet nationalisms in Kyrgyzstan and Tatarstan, and to a lesser extent, in Kazakhstan, Bashkortostan and Buryatia. Although the ideologues of Tengrism may be marginal to the political mainstream, it is nonetheless important to analyse the role of ‘ethnicized’ forms of religious expression and their relationship with the search for post-Soviet national identities.”

(Laruelle 2007)

Based on these inferences, there are clear similarities between Tengrist experiences in Türkiye and those in other Turkic societies in the context of politics. While some post-Soviet nationalist movements in these Turkic societies aimed to redefine a national identity which, according to them, had been damaged or degenerated by Russian cultural imperialism and Islam, and the reclamation of national identities in the new era was seen as possible through the integration and popularization of ethnic values such as a revived ancestral religion. Considering the discourses by the Turkish government in the recent years which place Turks within the Islamic ummah rather than identifying them as a separate ethnic or national group, and even the government’s efforts to re-define the concept of Turkish citizenship through new terms like “Türkiyelilik”15 which plays down Turkish ethnicity and culture in favor of re-defining Turkish nationality within a citizenship-based context, it seems possible to a certain extent to associate the Tengrist movement as a political response towards such government initiatives. Yet, this situation raises another question: the necessity of referring to the actual political actors or elites behind the rise of such a movement, if it is to be regarded as a merely political response.

In various studies, Tengrist revivals in ex-Soviet countries have been interpreted as invented traditions designed and developed by certain political and cultural elites for identity renewal issues, which achieved popularity only among cultured urban people (Biard and Laruelle 2010; Laruelle 2007). The use and meaning of invented traditions in these interpretations are in conformity with the conceptualization of Hobsbawm, as he defined invented traditions as a means of controlling the masses by enabling them to channel their energy to internalized practices which will ensure the loyalty of the masses to the political regime (Hobsbawm 2012). From Hobsbawm’s constructivist perspective on nation-building, it is possible interpret Tengrism as an invented tradition in the service of post-Soviet nationalist movements. Those political and cultural elites who pioneered the revival of Tengrism as an invented tradition in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have been mentioned by their names in various studies (Güngör 2013; Laruelle 2007), but in the case of Tengrism in Türkiye, there is a lack of information about any political or cultural elites who pioneered and owned this movement. Kılıç and Mumcuoğlu appear as the first figures who opened up the debates about Tengrism, but as they have already mentioned, they had been in contact with many people with Tengrist beliefs even before their first statements about the issue. In terms of political representation, unlike the case in Kyrgyzstan where Tengrists founded their own political party named Mekenim Kirgizstan (Güngör 2013), there is no political party in Türkiye yet to own Tengrism as an issue and speak in their name. Visual content like pictures of Atatürk and Ümit Özdağ in some Tengrist accounts might be interpreted as clues towards associating Tengrists with the secular and nationalist opposition parties and groups, but since there is no official link between the Tengrists and any political organization openly expressed, the presence of such content in some of these accounts’ posts should be interpreted as personal choices and orientations in a political sense. In terms of getting organized within civil society, the only non-governmental organization associated with Tengrism is currently Gök-Der, the Association for the Sustenance of Gokturk Belief and Culture, but little information about their activities and membership numbers is yet available. The association defines its mission on its website as introducing the Tengrist belief to people, enabling its popularization and transmission to new generations, and achieving official status for this religion, allowing it to be freely registered on identity cards and taught within the national education curriculum16. Of the 21 accounts analyzed within this study, only one has been identified as being associated with this organization. Therefore, just as various political parties in Türkiye own various issues and put them forward in their political agenda, the Tengrist movement still seems to lack such an organizational framework on political grounds and labeling it merely as a symbol of political response, yet lacks sufficient information.

Along with the political response element in trying to interpret the Tengrist movement in Türkiye, another element that should be referred to is a phenomenon that developed in parallel to the rise in debates about Tengrism. This parallelism, along with the statements of figures like Kılıç and Mumcuoğlu, led to another question within the issue of Tengrism, which is whether Tengrism is merely a new religious movement or a symbolic embodiment of cultural/political responses on the rise in Türkiye? Here, the second element that should be elaborated on is the debates about the rise of deism in Türkiye.

The earliest allegations about the rise of deism among the Turkish society emerged from various academic activities. The results of a 2017 field study conducted by the private public opinion research agency MAK Consulting provided the first basis for public debates about the rise of deism. Among the results of this quantitative research project titled “The Research on How the Turkish Society Views Religion and Religious Values”, which was held with a sample consisting of 5400 participants from various cities in Türkiye, a serious rise in the ratio of people with deist and atheist orientations was emphasized (Türkiye’de Toplumun Dine ve Dini Değerlere Bakışı 2017). Although this research project was the first academic initiative to mention deism as a new social phenomenon in Türkiye, it drew little public attention. The academic initiative that led to deism becoming a publicly known and debated phenomenon was held in 2018 in the city of Konya with the participation of 50 teachers employed in Imam Hatip Schools17. The results of this activity, titled “Youth and Belief Workshop,” put forward allegations about a new trend on the rise among the students of Imam Hatip Schools. According to this, faced with inconsistencies in the religious education curriculum and with their teachers providing unsatisfactory explanations, these students were increasingly turning towards deism (Çepni 2018). As the results of this workshop became publicly known through the news in mass media, reactions arose from governmental figures like President Erdoğan, Devlet Bahçeli18, and Ali Erbaş19, who denounced these allegations as unreal and conspiratorial and stated that deism was a dangerous orientation that should be avoided. Following these reactions, the alleged presence of a deist trend became a topic of public debate in Türkiye, especially on various social media platforms, and the boundaries of this trend extended beyond the case of Imam Hatip students to encompass the whole society. While this trend was generally mentioned as an outcome of the reactions against the JDP government’s policies of increasing the role and presence of Islam in social and cultural life by those in political opposition, it was, on the contrary, presented as a conspiratorial discourse developed by the political opposition and not possessing any realistic bases.

The debates on the rise of deism became associated with those on the rise of Tengrism through statements by two figures mentioned earlier, namely Burhanettin Mumcuoğlu and Cemil Kılıç. Mumcuoğlu, the first Turkish citizen whose religious affiliation was officially recorded as Tengrist, stated that Tengrism was an authentic form of Turkish deism (Erdem 2022). Following him, the theologian Cemil Kılıç offered a more comprehensive statement, defining Turkish Tengrism as a response to the government’s cultural policies and therefore identifying it as an embodiment of deism, namely Turkish deism (Kılıç 2018). Kılıç, in another article, emphasized not only the cultural, but also the political and ideological dimensions of Tengrism where he stated that the rise of Tengrism among the Turkish society would continue unless Turkish theologians took certain necessary innovative measures in reintroducing Islam to the masses:

“Can Tengrism, which rose a reaction to political Islam, become massive? Can this reaction towards the Arabization of Turkish peoples via Islam become institutionalized and turn into a religion? Or, can this trend be neutralized through a new and modern interpretation of Islam? The answers to these questions vary according to the attitudes of Muslim scholars of religion. Muslims scholars should stop praising Arab culture, Turkish names should be popularized (instead of Arabic names20). Turkish identity and language should be respected. The negative attitude towards religious worship in Turkish language should change. Modern values such as gender equality should be important. Religious formations such as sects and cults should be neutralized and Islam should be revised in purity. Otherwise, the rise of Tengrism is inevitable.”

(Kılıç 2022)

Kılıç’s statements apparently identify Tengrism as a reactionary response to the cultural and political grievances of certain segments of Turkish society against the prevailing conditions in Türkiye under JDP rule. Therefore, Kılıç identified Tengrism not as a new religious movement or a religious revival, but rather as a symbol of a cultural/political reaction shaped by deism at its core. Kılıç’s analyses must depend on certain observations and findings, but the question of whether Tengrism is simply a Turkish version of deism or not yet remains highly complex.

Along with the Tengrist accounts on social media, this study also examined a considerable number of accounts with deist posts, and there are apparent similarities in the discourses used by both account groups. First, it is obvious that the “Arabs’ religion” theme has been widely used by many deist accounts, which condemn Islam as a human construct based on Arab history and culture. Therefore, the universality of Islam in encompassing the whole of humanity and the divine origins of Islam are being denied, as seen in the use of this theme by Tengrist accounts. But considering the differences in content between the two account groups, a direct connection between Tengrism and deism cannot be fully established. First, deist accounts do not give references to direct Tengrist motifs like Tengri, holy spirits like Umay, shamans and Tengrist practices, and only emphasize their allegations against the universality of Islam through a genuinely deist point of view. Secondly, while a bulk of Tengrist accounts share posts with the “Arabs’ religion” theme, which aligns with deist discourses, they also integrate Tengrist motifs into their posts, emphasizing a cultural bond with pre-Islamic Turkish culture. Although the statements by Mumcuoğlu and Kılıç provide the basis for the increasing visibility of Turkish social media users who identify Tengrism as Turkish deism, differences in the content posted by both account groups make it impossible to reach such a conclusion. Therefore, in light of such insufficient findings, it would not be scientifically proper to claim that Tengrism is simply an authentic version of Turkish deism; rather, a mutual interaction between these two trends can be acknowledged to a certain degree.

5. Conclusions

Since there is little information about the Tengrist movement in Türkiye and the only resources related to this phenomenon are available on social media, it remains unclear whether this is a new religious movement. Based on the findings of this study, Tengrist discourses tend to reflect cultural and political reactions from among especially nationalist and secular segments of Turkish society against the religiously conservative policies of the JDP government. In this sense, even though it lacks essential elements such as leadership and a visible organizational framework, as in the cases of political Tengrism in Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, the Tengrist trend in Türkiye appears to have serious potential to develop into a political Tengrist movement. Yet it would not be wrong to mention the future possibility of developing into a new religious movement, given the contrast with Islam, although the realization of such a possibility does not currently seem very likely. Therefore, there emerges the need for further studies to qualitatively analyze this trend if the public visibility of Tengrists in the Turkish society increases with more people identifying themselves with this movement and enabling a sample for interviews rather than anonymous social media accounts.