Nasreddin
philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes
Nasreddin () or Nasreddin Hodja (variants include Mullah Nasreddin Hodja, Nasruddin Hodja, Mullah Nasruddin, Mullah Nasriddin, Khoja Nasriddin, Khaja Nasruddin) (1208–1285) is a character commonly found in the folklores of Central Asia and a hero of humorous short stories and satirical anecdotes. His adventures are celebrated in dozens of languages, starting with Turkish, and others such as Serbo-Croatian, Macedonian, Persian, Arabic, Greek, Corsican, and Russian. There have been frequent claims about his historical existence, with some pointing to purported physical or archaeological evidence such as a commemorative tombstone in the city of Akşehir, Turkey. The specific date or place of Nasreddin's birth, and his historicity, remain an open question.
Nasreddin appears in thousands of stories, sometimes witty, sometimes wise, but in many of which he is presented as a (holy) fool or as the butt of a joke. A Nasreddin story usually has a subtle humour and a pedagogic nature. The International Nasreddin Hodja festival is celebrated between 5 and 10 July every year in Akşehir.
In 2022, "The tradition of telling comic tales about Nasreddin Khoja" was added in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list after it was jointly submitted in 2020 by the governments of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkey and Turkmenistan.
Origin and legacy
There are many claims about his origin.
The first anecdotes about Nasreddin Hoca in Turkish-language sources are found in the سالتوق نامه Saltuḳ-nāme by Ebülhayri Rumi (d.
The public source identifies “Nasreddin” as philosopher, Sufi and wise man from Turkey, remembered for his funny stories and anecdotes. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Nasreddin, philosopher and Sufi.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 22, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q178638. VIAF identifies the subject as 19151776730418010638. The Library of Congress control number is no2014048545. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1208, 1285, 2022 and 2020.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nasreddin” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.