Yusuf Balasaguni completes the Kutadgu Bilig
In 1069–1070 Yusuf of Balasagun completed in Kashgar the Kutadgu Bilig, ‘The Wisdom of Felicity’, a long didactic poem in Karakhanid Turkic on the art of just government, and presented it to the ruler of Kashgar, who made him his privy chamberlain (khass hajib). This Islamic ‘mirror for princes’ is the earliest known work of Islamic literature in Turkic.
- Date
- between 1069 and 1070exact date unknown: an interval is given
- Place
- Kashgar (Shule)today: Kashgar, Xinjiang, China · Central and Northern Asia
- Participants
- Yusuf Balasaguni, Kara-Khanid Khanate
- Threads
- Central Asia and the Steppe (11th–12th c.)
- Also known as
- Kutadgu Bilig; Qutadgu Bilig; Wisdom of Royal Glory; The Wisdom of Felicity; Yusuf Khass Hajib; Кутадгу билиг; Благодатное знание; Юсуф Хас-Хаджиб
The poem was completed in Kashgar in the year 462 of the Hijra (1069–1070), after eighteen months of work, and presented to the Karakhanid ruler of Kashgar, Tabghach Bughra Khan, who rewarded its author with the title khass hajib, ‘privy chamberlain’. It is written in rhyming couplets in the mutaqarib metre — more than 6,500 of them, in 85 chapters. The title has been translated in various ways; Vasily Bartold rendered it as ‘The Knowledge that Bestows Happiness’.
The poem is built around four characters, each embodying a principle named by the author: the king Kün Toğdı (‘Rising Sun’), Justice; the vizier Ay Toldı (‘Full Moon’), Fortune; the sage Ögdülmish (‘Highly Praised’), Intellect; and the dervish Odğurmish (‘Awakened’), Man’s Last End. Their conversations discuss the duties of the ruler and of the various groups of his subjects and seek to reconcile Turkic and Islamic traditions of wisdom, while Persian loanwords and calques show the influence of Persian culture.
The Kutadgu Bilig survives in three manuscripts: one copied in Herat in 1439, now in Vienna, and two found in Cairo in 1896 and in Namangan in 1913. Its author, born in Balasagun around 1015–1019, is believed to have died in Kashgar, where a mausoleum was built in his honour in 1865.
Connections
Related events
- Satuq Bughra Khan and the conversion of the Karakhanids to Islambetween 932 and 955 – 960 · Central and Northern Asiaa century after the Karakhanids accepted Islam, the poem sought to reconcile Turkic and Islamic wisdom
- The Kara-Khanid Khanate splits into western and eastern khanatesbetween 1040 and 1042 · Central and Northern Asiathe poem was written for the ruler of Kashgar in the eastern Karakhanid khanate
- Mahmud al-Kashgari compiles the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turkbetween 1072 and 1077 · Middle East and Egyptthe two great works of Karakhanid Turkic culture were completed within a few years of each other
Same place
- Ban Chao’s campaigns in the Tarim Basin73–102 · Central and Northern Asia
- Ban Chao repels a Kushan army90 · Central and Northern Asia
Adjacent events in the thread
- The Cumans reach the Black Sea steppes and the borders of Rus’between 1054 and 1055 – between 1061 and 1062 · Eastern Europe
Meanwhile in the world
Other regions, within a year of this event
Western and Central Europe
- Norman conquest of SicilyMay 1061 – between 1090 and 1091
Eastern Europe
Balkans and Anatolia
- Michael Psellos writes the Chronographiac. 1059 – c. 1078
- Battle of Manzikert26 August 1071
Middle East and Egypt
- The caliphate of al-Mustansir and the ‘Mustansirite hardship’13 June 1036 – 29 December 1094
- Mahmud al-Kashgari compiles the Dīwān Lughāt al-Turkbetween 1072 and 1077
Africa
- Al-Bakri describes Ghana in the ‘Book of Roads and Kingdoms’between 1067 and 1068
- The Almoravids: from a desert reform movement to an empirebetween 1039 and 1046 – 1147
- K2 (Bambandyanalo) and the rise of Mapungubwec. 1000 – c. 1220
- Igbo-Ukwu: bronze casting in the West African forest800–899 – 1100–1199
South Asia
East Asia
- Wang Anshi’s New Policies26 February 1069 – 16 September 1086
Southeast Asia and Oceania
- Polynesians settle the Society Islandsbetween 1025 and 1120
- Anawrahta builds the Pagan Empire1044–1077
North America
- Classic Mimbres: the painted bowls of the Mogollonc. 1000 – between 1130 and 1150
- Pueblo II: stone pueblos and the Chaco worldc. 900 – c. 1150
Latin America
- Collapse of Tiwanakuc. 1000 – c. 1150
- Tula and the Toltecs: the leading city of central Mexicoc. 900 – c. 1150
- Middle Sicán: the Lambayeque culture at its height at Batán Grandec. 900 – c. 1100
- Chimor: the Chimú kingdom and its capital Chan Chanc. 900 – c. 1470
The same period
Sources
- Wikipedia (English): Kutadgu Bilig
- Wikipedia (English): Yūsuf Balasaguni
- Wikipedia (Russian): Кутадгу билиг
- Wikipedia (Russian): Юсуф Баласагуни
- Yusuf Khass Hajib. Wisdom of Royal Glory (Kutadgu Bilig): A Turko-Islamic Mirror for Princes / Transl. R. Dankoff. — Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1983.
- Wikidata: Q1753178