The idea of Tengrism as a single ancient faith of Turkic peoples is barely supported by historical facts. That claim was made by Kazakh scholar Zhaksylyk Sabitov, according to infohub.kz.
According to the researcher, the nomads themselves left virtually no descriptions of Tengrism in medieval sources. It remains unknown what this faith meant to them in everyday life. Because of the lack of reliable information, scholars can only speculate about the origins of many traditions.
"It's the same story as when two blindfolded people approach an elephant: one touches the trunk, the other the tail, and on that basis they draw a picture of the whole animal. In other words, researchers haven't drawn a proper elephant, haven't studied Tengrism," Sabitov noted.
The historian considers the main reasons for this to be the absence of a large source base and canonical religious texts: reconstructing the real picture from fragments of manuscripts is nearly impossible.
At the same time, Zhaksylyk Sabitov does not deny that Tengrism did exist during the era of the Turkic Khaganates.
"Already after the fall of the Turkic Khaganates, we see Manichaeism prevailing among the Uyghurs, and in the early 11th century other religions spread — Nestorianism reached the Naimans and the Keraites. So there was no shortage of different faiths there," the expert added.
Overall, as the historian reported, Arab geographical literature of the 8th–12th centuries reveals a great diversity of religions. Moreover, some of them are extremely difficult to explain or reduce to a single Tengrism.
Earlier, Kursiv wrote that Sultan Baibars may have been not a Kazakh but a Crimean Kipchak.