The UNESCO General Conference unanimously passed a resolution declaring 1991, the 750th anniversary of the poet's birth, International Yunus Emre Year.

[citation needed] Like the Oghuz Book of Dede Korkut, an older and anonymous Central Asian epic, the Persian folklore that inspired Yunus Emre in his occasional use of Hayran as a poetic device had been handed down orally to him and his contemporaries.

He remains a popular figure in a number of countries, stretching from Azerbaijan to the Balkans, with seven different and widely dispersed localities disputing the privilege of having his tomb within their boundaries.

His poems, written in the tradition of Anatolian folk poetry, mainly concern divine love as well as human destiny:

Ali ile Hasan-Hüseyin anda Sevgisi gönülde, muhabbet canda Yarın mahşer günü hak divanında Ya Muhammed canım pek sever seni