Back to the Roots? Tengrism as a Challenge to Islam in Contemporary Türkiye

While new religious movements are increasingly widespread worldwide, a recent case emerged in Türkiye. Based on the allegations about the rise of Tengrism—the religion of ancient Turks—among the Turkish society and the increasing visibility of Turkish Tengrist accounts on various social media platforms, the question of whether there is a new challenge to the dominance of Islam in Türkiye or not arose. While there is little information about the presence of a Tengrist movement in Türkiye, social media, as the only ground of their public visibility, stands as the sole source of information about this phenomenon. In this sense, with the aim of analyzing the Tengrist movement in Türkiye, 21 social media accounts that frequently post about Tengrism have been studied with respect to the discourses used in their posts. To this aim, the critical discourse analysis technique has been applied, and the discourses of these Tengrist accounts have been categorized and analyzed under three main discursive themes. Reading the findings in these discursive themes in accordance with the political developments in Türkiye, it has been concluded that the Tengrist movement in Türkiye is an outcome of political and cultural responses by certain segments of Turkish society and that it yet lacks the necessary grounds to turn into a new religious movement while possessing potential in this sense.