The tradition of narrative poetry, which evolved into the mathnawi form in post-Islamic Turkish literature, is an important genre that conveys religious miracles and wonders in a simple language understandable to the common people. Stories such as “The Story of the Pigeon”, “The Story of the Deer” and “The Story of the Dragon” which are appended to the end of some Mevlid texts, can be evaluated in this context. One of these stories, “The Story of the Camel” holds a privileged place both in terms of its narrative diversity and the symbolic functions it undertakes. This study, which for the first time examines three different camel stories identified in Turkish literature through a comparative typology, distinguishes itself from previous research in the literature with its methodological approach. Furthermore, the article proves through intertextual data that a manuscript cataloged as a separate work under the National Library Manuscript Collection number 06 Mil Yz A 8295/6 is actually a part of the Sinanoglu Mevlid. Perceiving the manuscript as a separate work necessitates questioning the fluidity between the narratives. Beyond the classification errors in the catalog records, the article aims to reveal how the text, detached from the main Mevlid texts, transformed into an independent narrative among the people, and to highlight the thematic and structural differences / similarities of the three separate camel stories.
Classical Turkish literature, epos, mathnawi, camel, miracle.