FUNCTIONS OF TRANSFIGURATION MOTIF IN THE VELAYETNAMES

Abstract

With the acceptance of ṣūfī thought movements in the Islamic world from the 9th century, hagiographies began to be written in which the life stories and miraculous deeds of the ṣūfīs were narrated. The hagiographies written about the saints who belong to the Bektashi tradition are called “velāyetnāme". Velāyetnāmes are rich works in terms of the motif and motif diversity. “Transfiguration” is one of these motifs. Apart from the function of transfiguration / metamorphism, punishing and getting out of the difficult situation, it also appears with different functions in velāyetnāmes. İn this study Hacı Bektaş Veli, Hacim Sultan, Othman Baba, Koyun Baba, Şücaeddin Velī, Abdal Mūsa, Kaygusuz Abdal, Seyyid Ali Sultan, Demir Baba, Veli Baba, Pirī Baba, Dediğī Sultan menāqıbnāmes which are known as Bektashi velāyetnāmes; Akhī Evran and Sheikh Abu al-Vafā menāqıbnāmes were examined. The shape-shifting motifs related to our subject were functionally classified and compared with their examples in other narrative genres. In the article, transfiguration / metamorphism motifs identified in Bektashi velāyetnāmes were divided into sub-headings of transfiguration aimed at punishing, rewarding, overcoming a difficult situation, fulfilling a certain request, lessoning, protecting, proving guardianship, communicating, defeating the opponent, separating those who fight, covering the distances, helping those in need, warning those who envy the saint, deceiving, fulfilling a certain task and these motifs have been studied functionally. In this study, the different functions of the shape-shifting motifs in the velāyetnāmes, along with the punishment and getting rid of the difficult situation, will be revealed. Keywords: Motif, Velāyetnāme, Transfiguration, Metamorphosis.