Legends about eminent sacred Kazakhstan.

«Fleeing from the Russians, he left the free places.
Whoever saw this - learned; whoever heard - laughed.
The Russian became a lion, you turned into a fox,
Throw out the bad thoughts from your memory!

You will not be smart, who saw meat with lard.
Can a shallow lake compare with a deep sea?
Only a crazy woman starts a quarrel with her husband!
Throw out the bad thoughts from your memory!

A water snake does not curl up with a boa constrictor,
A simple ram does not butt with an argali,
A motley crow does not fight with a hawk.
Throw out the bad thoughts from your memory!»

Appeal of Muhammad-Safa to Adayevtsy in 1870, "Collection of information about  Caucasian mountaineers". Legends of Adayevtsy about saints of Hanafi sect, who lived and died in Mangyshlak". Proposed stories are written from words of Kafar Karadzhigitov, Bik-Bulat Yesekenov and mullah Khodja-Berdy. Issue VII. Tiflis. 1873.

Traditional Material Culture of Kazakhs.

Khoja Akhmet Yassaui, as we mentioned above, had 14,000 murids. Once, to test their loyalty to him, he tied a tube filled with water to his underwear, took a stick and went to the mosque. When the prayer began, Khozha Akhmet, praying in front of everyone, squeezed the tube - the water that was in it flowed out, the murids said:
- "Our mentor is urinating, his purity has been violated. "You should not pray with him," and one by one they left the mosque.
Only two murids continued to pray: Hakim ata and Shopan ata. When they finished praying and left the mosque, the murids met them and asked why they prayed for a man who had become unclean? They told them about the intestine with water tied up by Khoja Akhmet only to test his students.
Having learned about this, all the murids repented of their actions and again came to Khoja Akhmet to listen to his instructions and teachings. Shortly before his death, Khoja Akhmet, having prayed in the mosque and sitting in it, threw his asa tayak out the window. Asa tayak flew away.
Then he turned to his murids and said,
- "Whoever brings me my asa tayak, I will read Surah Fatiha to him." All the murids rushed out of the mosque to find the asa tayak, only Shopan ata stood up, reached the doors of the mosque, but immediately returned and sat down. Khoja Akhmet turned to him and asked:
- "Why are you sitting?"
- "I would go if you immediately passed me the Fatiha, the asa tayak is very far from here, to the west, he is in Mangistau, on the shore of a large sea," answered Shopan ata.
At this time, the murids who did not find the asa tayak returned to the mosque. Khoja Akhmet, turning to them, said:
- "Of such a large number of students, I have only one worthy one and a friend." Then Shopan ata read the fatiha and allowed him to go to Mangistau, to find his asa tayak, saying goodbye to him forever. Shopan ata set out on a journey, walked for several months, and finally arrived in Mangistau, where, by God's command, he found the place where the asa tayak had fallen, and saw that it had already turned into a tall tree, and under the tree sat a respectable-looking man who seemed to be awaiting the arrival of Shopan ata.
They soon became acquainted. Shopan ata married his daughter and stayed there forever. Soon, throughout Mangistau, word spread of Shopan ata's arrival, his wisdom and learning, people began to come to him to listen to his teachings, and ten thousand people became his murids.
Shopan ata had three children: sons Yesen (Ehsan) ata and Shahrikh ata and daughter Tergin bibi. Shopan ata performed many miracles during his life and after death, it is impossible to list them all. He is buried near the place where he found the asa tayak Khoja Akhmet.

Authority:
"Collection of information about Caucasian highlanders". Legends of Adaevites about saints of  Hanafi sect who lived and died in Mangyshlak". Proposed stories are written from words of Kafar Karadzhigitov, Bik-Bulat Yesekenov and Mullah Khodja-Berdy. Issue VII. Tiflis. 1873.

For many centuries, the underground complex was a place of pilgrimage for the nomads of Mangyshlak. There is no reliable historical information to date it accurately; the name Shopan Ata is not found in the written sources known to us. But legends about him are widespread among the local population.
One of them says that Shopan Ata was a student of the famous sheikh Khoja Ahmed Yasawi, who lived in the second half of the XIIth century in the city of Yasy - modern Turkestan. One day, after completing his studies, Khoja Ahmed gathered his followers - students and announced to them that they should shoot arrows through the shanrak - a hole in the arch of his yurt, and wherever the arrows land, they will preach the ideas of Sufism...
Shopan Ata's arrow, having flown to Mangyshlak, fell on a small mountain near the village of the rich cattle breeder Bayan. A few months later, Shopan Ata, having arrived here, found his arrow and hired himself out as a shepherd - shopan to Bayan.
Bay soon realized that his shepherd was not an ordinary person, gave him his daughter in marriage and patronized them. At the foot of the mountain, on the top of which the arrow fell, Shopan Ata built an underground mosque. It is known that Khoja Ahmed Yassawi is a historical figure, headed the first Turkic community of Sufis, which became the center of the dissemination of this teaching in Central Asia and Kazakhstan in the XIIh - XIIIth centuries (40, p. 613).
After the death of Khoja Ahmed in 1166, a small mausoleum was built over his grave in Turkestan, on the site of which at the end of the 14th century, on the instructions and at the expense of Timur, a huge building of the mausoleum-mosque was erected, which has survived to this day.
The first successor of Khoja Akhmed is considered to be his student - Suleiman-Bakyrgani, nicknamed Hakim-ata. His successor was Zengi-baba, whose mausoleum has also survived to this day (94. p. 165). Another folk legend tells of another student of the sheikh, nicknamed "Danishpan", who arrived in another area of ​​Mangyshlak at the same time as Shopan ata.
This legend tells that the youngest of the students of Khoja Akhmed, having released his arrow, remained sitting in the sheikh's yurt, although all the other students immediately went in search of their arrows.
The teacher was surprised and asked him:
- "Why is he delaying and not following his arrow?"
The student replied that it would take a lot of time to find it, and he wanted to bow to his mentor once again and listen to his advice before the long journey. The teacher, satisfied with his answer, blessed his student, gave him the laqab "Danishpan", which means a scientist-seer.
In the northwestern part of Mangyshlak there really is a mountain "Danishpan", at the foot of which there is an ancient cemetery, the general appearance of which was sketched in the middle of the 19th century by T. G. Shevchenko under the name "Danishpan".
Among the Kazakhs, Karakalpaks and Turkmens there are many similar traditions and legends. Some of them were recorded and published in the works of a number of Soviet scientists - M. E. Masson, S. P. Tolstov, T. A. Zhdanko and others. Thus, in the Karakalpak legend, recorded by T. A. Zhdanko in 1948, it is reported about the feud between the Karakalpaks and the Turkmens, about the punishment of the latter by Khoja Akhmed Yasawi and their flight from Turkestan to Mangyshlak (85, p. 95).
One of the Turkmen legends states that the founder of the Ogin tribe, Gezli Ata, was a contemporary and student of Khoja Akhmed (14, p. 162). All the historical information and folk legends given above provide grounds to date the Shopan Ata mosque complex to the end of the XIIth - beginning of the 13th centuries, when the first preachers of Sufism began to penetrate into the deepest corners of Desht-i-Kipchak.

Authority:
Mendikulov M. M. "Monuments of Folk Architecture of Western Kazakhstan". Alma-Ata, Oner, 1987.

Alexander Petrv
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