Poetry, a literary genre based on imagery and emotion, has been an aesthetic way of expressing religious feelings and thoughts since the earliest times of humanity. In geographies exposed to occupation and anti-religious policies, such as Kazakhstan, the need to repair social damage with faith and spirituality has also affected poets, and religion has been reflected in poetry as a social phenomenon. Kazakh poet Abish Kekilbayev, who began his writing career in the relatively softening environment after Stalin’s death, has reflected his Islamic faith in his poems. This study examines the reflection of Islamic faith in Abish Kekilbayev’s poems and the poet’s poetics in the context of the impact of the socio-cultural transformation experienced in Kazakhstan on religion. The article covers the poet’s religious poems written during the Soviet period and the period of independence. The interaction of the socio-cultural transformation during the independence period with religious literature is examined through the example of Abish Kekilbayev, and the kind of society the poet envisions using concepts such as prayer, repentance, contentment, patience, and servitude is revealed. As a result of the effort to place Abish’s poems in a tradition within the literature of Turkish peoples with religious content, it has been concluded that the poet is closer to a didactic lodge literature that aims to convey religious values that should be taught to the public and can be considered as the continuation of the tradition of wisdom, rather than a mystical literature that feeds on the eloquence of classical literature.
Abish Kekilbayev, Islam, poetry, Kazakh literature.