Ahmed-i Yesevî, who is known as Sheikh-i Turkestan and Pîr-i Turkestan, is a remarkable person who, as a Sufi poet and spiritual guide of a sect, continued his influence in the spiritual life of the Turkish nation for centuries and was influential on various sects. The fact that he is a khan of the Naqshbandi lineage also means that he is a very important and influential name for today's Turkey and the Central Asian Turkish states. It is also very important for us to understand the ideas and style of this great person who made great contributions to our culture and civilization. The works of such an influential name, which are considered among the foundations of both our language and literature, are his wisdom. Divan-ı Hikmet is essentially a collection of wisdom compiled by Yesevî dervishes centuries after Ahmed-i Yesevî. In this regard, some copies of Divan-ı Hikmet contain wisdom spoken by Yesevî dervishes in the same style and content.

In this study, there is an example of text editing using the edition critical method from carefully selected copies of Divan-ı Hikmet, which contains the wisdom of Ahmed-i Yesevî. In the copies we examined, Ahmed-i Yesevî's wisdom was identified, the text was created according to its order and subject tracking, and at the end of the study, the differences between the copies were presented separately by comparison method. Because it is not yet possible to determine Ahmed-i Yesevî's wisdom in terms of exact numbers and the breadth of the study, it is aimed to present only a sample of text edition criticism for the benefit of those concerned. The methods and examples of the text analysis part of the study titled Divân-ı Hikmet Ahmed-i Yesevî, which was started by us in 2011 and will be published in its entirety shortly, constitute the outline of this article.

Ahmed-i Yesevî, Divân-ı Hikmet, text edition critical