Ashgabat, with others along the border with Iran and in the western city of Turkmenbashy. The Turkmen adopted Islam between the 12th and 14th centuries. Sufi orders like the Yasawiya and Kubrawiya greatly contributed to the conversion of the Turkmens to Islam. The great majority of Turkmen readily identify themselves as Muslims and acknowledge Islam as an integral part of their cultural heritage. The country of Turkmenistan encourages the conceptualization of "Turkmen Islam", or worship that is often mixed with veneration of elders and saints, life-cycle rituals, and Sufi practices. Since Turkmenistan's independence saw an increase in religious practices and the development of institutions like the Muftiate and the building of mosques, today it is often regulated. The government leadership of Turkmenistan often uses Islam to legitimize its role in society by sponsoring holiday celebrations such as iftar dinners during Ramadan and presidential pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia. This sponsorship has validated the country's two presidents ( and ) as pious Turkmen, giving them an aura of cultural authority. The Russian Academy of Sciences has identified many instances of syncretic influence of pre-Islamic Turkic belief systems on practice of Islam among Turkmen, including placing offerings before trees. The Turkmen word taňry, meaning "God", derives from the Turkic Tengri, the name of the supreme god in the pre-Islamic Turkic pantheon. The Turkmen language features a multitude of euphemisms for "wolf", because of a belief that speaking the actual word while tending a flock of sheep will invoke a wolf's appearance. In other examples of syncretism, some infertile Turkmen women, rather than praying, step or jump over a live wolf in order to assist them in getting pregnant, and children born subsequently are typically given names associated with wolves; alternatively the mother may visit shrines of Muslim saints. The future is divined by reading of dried camel dung by special fortune tellers. Language Turkmen (Turkmen: , ) is a Turkic language spoken by the Turkmens of Central Asia, mainly of Turkmenistan, Iran and Afghanistan. It has an estimated five million native speakers in Turkmenistan, a further 719,000 speakers in Northeastern Iran and 1.5 million people in Northwestern Afghanistan. The Turkmen language is closely related to Azerbaijani, Turkish, Gagauz, Qashqai and Crimean Tatar, sharing common linguistic features with each of those languages. There is a high degree of mutual intelligibility between these languages. However, the closest language of Turkmen is considered Khorasani Turkic,