A CATEGORIZED AND STATISTICAL EXAMINATION OF RELIGIOUS TERMINOLOGY IN KUTADGU BILIG.

This article explores the religious lexicon found in Qutadg‘u Bilig, an 11thcentury Turkic literary work written during the flourishing period of Islamic civilization in Central Asia. The study highlights the influence of Islamic culture on the vocabulary of the text, identifying approximately 600 terms of Islamic origin, with 400 Arabic and over 120 Persian loanwords. The analysis reveals that despite the strong Islamic influence, the text avoids direct Quranic citations and hadith references, instead incorporating religious concepts through paraphrased meanings. A significant portion of the article is dedicated to categorizing 44 religious terms found in the text, classifying them into thematic groups such as worship and religious practices, theology and faith, halal and haram, eschatology, Islamic sources, symbolic religious terms, and religious rituals. A linguistic analysis of these terms demonstrates the interplay between Arabic, Turkic, and Persian languages, reflecting the historical and cultural integration of Islam within Turkic society