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How Turkish schools have presented Turkish history as part of the Turkish national project is a really interesting topic that I know a little about, but I am not an expert on - I hope someone can chime in a bit on that.
However, I do know a bit about the history of Turkic nomads in Central Asia, and considering that the Turkic peoples that came to Anatolia starting with the Seljuk invasions were already Muslim, we probably need to go back to Central Asian nomads if we want to examine Turkic paganism. Also note that I'll be using the term "Turkic" instead of "Turks" or "Turkish", since the latter tend to get associated with the national identity in Anatolia.
So as far as Turkic peoples went, their folk religion was essentially shamanistic. "Shamanism" itself is a term that tends to be treated as a synonym for animism or folk religion - no one really uses the term "pagan" because it's basically a pejorative and a really, really ill-defined term, which essentially just gets used as "not our religion".
Anyway, back to shamanism. Shamanism proper describes traditional religious practices in Siberia and northern Eurasia, some of whose native peoples (but not all) are Turkic speakers. The Yakuts in Siberian Yakutia/Sakha are probably the best example of a Turkic people who preserved shamanic practices down to recent times.
Essentially, they see creation as divided into three "worlds": an "upper world" of various skies and colors, associated with light spirits (aiyy), the "middle", physical, world that humans and animals inhabit, and a "lower", metallic world inhabited mostly by harmful spirits (abaasy). These worlds in turn get subdivided according to various categories, such as directions, so that the skies to the East are good, and to the West are bad.
In any case, while there is a sense of an overall Creator spirit, there really aren't clear-cut distinctions between the spirits mentioned and "gods". Occasionally a Goddess of the Earth is mentioned, but usually if a human wants something in this physical world (livestock, children, etc) they need to negotiate with whatever spirits have the power over such things. This is where shamans come in, as they are men, or more often women, who through various means are able to contact the spirits and communicate with them. Offerings also played a major role in appeasing spirits, and interestingly the Yakut seemed to organize spirits into clans, similar to their own social structure.
The version of this type of shamanism and cosmology that was practiced by steppe peoples, such as the Mongols and nomadic Turkic peoples, is called Tengrism, as tengri is the term associated with the sky (and hence the major spirits in that cosmology that would be addressed, similar to the Yakut practices mentioned above).
So, without reiterating Islamic beliefs, suffice it to say that these are very different - they are not monotheistic (nor terribly theistic in general) and follow a very different cosmology and traditional practice.
It's also worth noting that most traditional Turkic shamanists didn't encounter Islam as their first new religion. The region had long had contacts with Zoroastrians, Manicheans, Buddhists, and Christians, for the latter most notably Nestorian Christians. While Islam was first brought to the region with the Arab conquests of Transoxiana starting in the late 7th century AD, the spread of Islam among the native peoples of Central Asia was a very prolonged process that arguably wasn't completed until the 19th century. It's also worth noting that the supposed infidel status of many Central Asian peoples was considered by Central Asian Muslim states as justification for making war on them and using them as a major source of slaves, which in part explains the origins of such groups as the Mamluks.
In terms of steppe nomads, specifically the peoples who became what are now known as the Kazakhs and Kyrgyz, this meant that for much of their history as Muslims, their religion was something perhaps not syncretic, but two-tiered. Namely, that while such peoples were nominally Muslim from 1043, and hojas (pilgrims to Mecca as well as descendants of the Prophet) were part of the elite, there was suprisingly little to no proselytization, mosques or madrassas, let alone knowledge of Arabic, the Quran, or Muslim practices, among most nomadic peoples in the area until the 18th century. Islamic law was never used as a legal system by these peoples, who instead used adat, or customary tribal law.
The folk religion as practiced by Kazakhs in the mid 19th century and described by the Russophone Kazakh ethnographer Chokan Valikhanov in the 1850s remained very shamanistic and animistic. Spirits of the dead were supposed to inhabit the sun, moon, earth, and different animals, and could be contacted and used as mediators in a struggle between good (kei) and evil (kesir), with some vague understanding that Muhammad and Islamic teachings were a manifestation of the former.
Similar to the Siberian shamanism and Tengrism mentioned above, these spirits could be supplicated with sacrifices (usually of livestock), and similarly non-human spirits also inhabited the earth, water, fire and various animals important to nomads. Again there was a vague sense that Muslim saints might be stand-ins for these animistic spirits.
So despite Turkic animism being different from Islamic beliefs and teachings, for many, if not most Turkic peoples, the two were not necessarily in conflict, but influenced each other to produce worldviews and cultural practices.
Interestingly, the replacement of these animistic practices with more rigorous teaching of orthodox Islamic beliefs actually came to the steppes with the Russian conquest. The Russian Empire, starting under Catherine the Great, had an officially-recognized, state supported network of Muslim clergy members, known as the Central Spiritual Muslim Directorate, which was used especially in the 19th century to promote adherence to orthodox Sunni Islamic beliefs as part of Russian conquest. I talk a bit about the history of that organization here, and describe the process of Russian conquest of the steppes here.
look! Turks believed ancient times in Tengrism. But it's not the same Tengrism nor the similar tengrism you see in the eastern part of the Asia today such as Mongols tengrism , or other Turkic groups such as yakut or tuvan tengrism...
Also Turks didn't convert to Islam right away. it was a long process. it took almost couple of centuries to Turks to become completely Muslim..
so what is Tengrism. well to come to that. First you should know that most of the Turkic history in early times were written by non turkic people. Only couple of the Turkic monument (orchun inscription, yenisei etc) survived written by Turk them self's . because Tengrism was a religion which support to warrior nomadic lifestyle and living harsh environment as animal husbandry made Tengrism more nature for Turkic people. also constantly moving pastoral to pastoral and a dynamic life style made things even harder. But it evolve around a supreme GOD who called KOK TENGRI (today turkish Tanri) word of the Tengri is actually Turkic. but during course of the years also influence of the mongol animistic side 18 centuries researchers named tengrism as shamanistic polytheistic religion. while ancient Turkish Tengri was monotheistic... here is some of early Tengrism text actually before mongol tengrism. because you see after 13 centuries huge Mongolian animistic tengrism rising among the Turkic people and other ethnic groups but Turkish were at the time already Muslim..
Michael the Syrian's Chronicle This long wall was constructed between the mountain and the sea and blocked them from entering. [The Turks] are modest with regard to women, and gentle and moderate in their ways. They worship one god, the sky, which they [gok] tangri, since gök[gök] in their language means "blue." They worship one god and call him Kö'k'tanri (Gök tanrı today türkish) which means "blue god, " because they believe that the sky is a god.
Byzantine historian Theophylact Simocatta wrote "Turks respect the fire in an extraordinary way; they honor the water, air, soil. But they just called one God, who created the heavens and the earth, and worshiped him.
Ayupov ın the issue of Tengrianism "Tengrism as a variety of religious ideas includes the following key points: the idea of monotheism, when Tengri is viewed as the only God, the worship of Heaven and natural phenomena as a manifestation of natural religion, the idea of Tengri's transcendence as a comprehensive impersonal beginning, the all-pervading impersonal force of categorical abstractions of the conception of the universe, open worldview as the realization of social refraction of existence,"
so how come some polytheistic, shamanistic elements were implemented in the Tengrism and made look like a multiple God and Goddess in the tengrism. to simply answer that we have to go to Xiongnu time, which Turks made a first contact with ancestors of mongols and other ethnics. most people still deny the fact of the ruling class of the Xiongnu was actually Turkic origin. but turks believed thet the core was ruling turkic confederation and they were believed in KOK TENGRI whom chooses the ruler with KUT(turkish kutlamak : celebrated, honored) given person absolute rule.. for example ATTILA HUN (scourge of god) means that turkic people somehow given ruling power over other people. during Xiongnu time modu chanyou donghu (eastern barbarians) were conquered. and huge ancestors of mongol were absorbed in the Xiongnu empire. they had animistic and polytheistic religion and were influenced by Turkic tengrism. Even Modu chanyu ( Kut’u Tanhu ) also mentioned in his letters in 176 BC to the chinese that "chosen by ONE Tengri " tengri as singular form. but never forced mongols to change their religion. also culture influence was so high that some early historians think that mongols were actually Tungus Turkic mix. main difference with eastern barbarian and Turkic people that turkic people never eaten pigs nor did animal husbandry with pigs. many historical evidence show that turkic people uses cattle , deer , sheep mainly horses and Turkic people love horses meat, sheep meat some historian suggest Tungus or donghu and Turkic word DOMUZ, tonguz , tomuz created by that word. people who live with pig and do animal husbandry..here you see great changes in mongol history and cultural facts.. which later centuries mongol empire rises and chengiz khan name timurjin (ironsimither , turkic origin) chengiz khan (sea or ocean, turkic origin) are actually Turkic words.
Turkic tengri writings in other turkic languages : Tenri, Tengere, Tangrı, Tanrı, Tangara, Ture, Tenir
so today historians called that ancient Turkic Tengrism as a Imperial tengrism a monoteistic tengrism which evolve around multiple spirits and beings. let explain with examples
for example : Orchun inscriptions tells: