Ruhnama

The Ruhnama, or Rukhnama, translated into English as Book of the Soul or Book of the Spirit, is a two-volume work written by Saparmurat Niyazov, the president of Turkmenistan from 1990 to 2006. The book explores the philosophical relationship between ethics and the success of states, using Turkmenistan as a case study. Turkmenistan is presented as a modern continuation of the historical nation-states of the Seljuk Empire, Oghuz Yabgu State, and other Turkmen-founded states. It offers an overview of Turkmen history, religion, and culture. The book was designed to serve as a form of state propaganda, emphasizing the foundations of Turkmen identity.

The Ruhnama was introduced to Turkmen culture gradually but eventually pervasively. Niyazov first placed copies in the nation's schools and libraries but eventually went as far as to make an exam on its teachings an element of the driving test. It was mandatory to read Ruhnama in schools, universities and governmental organisations. New governmental employees were tested on the book at job interviews.

After Niyazov's death in December 2006, its popularity remained high.^{[citation needed]} However, in the following years, its ubiquity had waned as President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow removed it from the public school curriculum and halted the practice of testing university applicants on their knowledge of the book.^{[citation needed]}

Epics had played multiple important roles in the social life of Central Asia across centuries. Pre-modern rulers of these regions usually appropriated the text and invented a connection between themselves and the epic-cast, to seek legitimacy for their new order.

Joseph Stalin had considered these epics to be "politically suspicious" and capable of inciting nationalist feelings among the masses; almost all significant Turkmen epics were condemned and banned by 1951–52. These epics would be rehabilitated back into public (and academic) discourse only with the onset of Glasnost. Ruhnama built on this rehabilitation phase.

Niyazov claimed to have received a prophetic vision where Turkmen ancestors of eminence urged him to lead Turkmens to the "golden path of life". The first version was released in the 1990s but soon withdrawn because it did not fulfill Niyazov's expectations. Preparations for the revised book were underway as early as April 1999, when Niyazov declared that Mukkadesh Ruhnama (The Holy Ruhnama) would be the second landmark text of Turkmens, after the Quran.

The first volume was finally published in December 2001. On 18 February 2001, it was accepted at the 10th joint meeting of the State Assembly of Elders of Turkmenistan and the National Assembly. In September 2004, Niyazov issued a second volume. An edited volume of the Ruhnama, published a year later, quotes his overall purpose to have lain in highlighting the nation's significant contributions to fields of art and science.

Victoria Clement and Riccardo Nicolosi suspect that the work was ghost-written.