Abai was born in Karauyl village in Chingiz volost of Semipalatinsk uyezd of the Russian Empire (this is now in Abay District of East Kazakhstan).

influence continued to grow in Kazakhstan, resulting in greater educational possibilities as well as exposure to a number of different philosophies, whether Russian, Western or Asian.

In this sense, Abai's creative poetry affected the philosophical theological thinking of educated Kazakhs.

Today, Kazakhs revere Abai as one of the first folk heroes to enter into the national consciousness of his people.

Kazakh National Pedagogical University is named after Abai, so is one of the main avenues in the city of Almaty.

Statues of him have been erected in many cities of Kazakhstan, as well as Ashgabat,[3] Beijing, Moscow, New Delhi, Tehran, Berlin, Cairo, Istanbul, Antalya, Kyiv, Tashkent, Sarajevo, Bucharest and Budapest.

[4] Abai is featured on the Kazakhstani Tenge,[5] a subway station in Almaty is named after him,[6] along with a street, a square, a theater, and many schools.

[citation needed] Another film describing his father's life was made in December 2015, titled "Qunanbai".

[16] Another monument was unveiled in Paris, France, as part of a celebration of the 30th anniversary of Kazakhstan's independence,[17] as well as in Atyrau in front of the center of Abai.

Translations made by him include poems by Mikhail Lermontov, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Lord Byron, Ivan Krylov's Fables and Alexander Pushkin's Eugene Onegin.

Abai's major work is The Book of Words (қара сөздері, Qara sózderi), a theological philosophic treatise and collection of poems where he encourages his fellow Kazakhs to embrace education, literacy, and good moral character in order to escape poverty, enslavement and corruption.

[citation needed] On 9 May 2012, after two days of protests in Moscow following Vladimir Putin's inauguration as President of the Russian Federation for the third term, protesters set up camp near the monument to Abai Qunanbaiuly on the Chistoprudny Boulevard in central Moscow, close to the embassy of Kazakhstan.