Abstract
The research topic actualizes the spirituality and mental traditions of the Kazakhs, on the example of the little-known book of I. Altynsarin. The purpose and main directions of research are dictated by the content of the Head of State’s article «The Seven Facets of the Great Steppe», the program «Rouhani Zhangyru», which gave impetus to the idea of studying the sacral values of the people and the works of predecessors who left a noticeable trace on their preservation and synthesis. About the scientific and practical significance of the work «says» our choice of an artifact created by Arabic graphics as a subjectof research and related social connections as its object. The Soviet period excluded the developmentof historians associated with religion; the study will replenish this sector of scientific research. The textbookson the basics of Islam and translations published now in the republic will be possible in practiceto be compared with their forerunner. The research is based on the methods of historical science, dialecticalmethod, historicism, comparative analysis, verification of sources, quantitative, applicable ingeneral and separately to each source and historiographical work, as well as ethnology and anthropologymethods: accumulation and systematization, visualization; sociological methods: observations andsampling. The main results of the source analysis, against the background of foreign historiography, werethe conclusions about the undoubted authorship of Altynsarin for the first official textbook on the basicsof Islam, which corresponded to the cultural needs and ethnicity of Kazakh students. The value of theconducted research is consistent with the world historiography of the theme of missionary work and thepreservation of local cultural traditions; the study for the first time reveals the stages of creating the firstKazakh textbook for secular education on the basics of religion, created in the second half of the 19thcentury.