Ahmad Yasawi (Kazakh: Қожа Ахмет Ясауи, romanized: Qoja Ahmet Yasawï, قوجا احمەت ياساۋٸ; Arabic: أحمد يسوي‎, romanized: Ahmad Yasawī; 1093–1166) was a Turkic poet and Sufi, an early mystic who exerted a powerful influence on the development of Sufi orders throughout the Turkic-speaking world. Yasawi is the earliest known Turkic poet who composed poetry in Middle Turkic. He was a pioneer of popular mysticism, founded the first Turkic Sufi order, the Yasawiyya or Yeseviye, which very quickly spread over Turkic-speaking areas. He was a Hanafi scholar like his murshid (spiritual guide), Yusuf Hamadani.