Mahmud al-Kashgari
Mahmud ibn Hussayn ibn Muhammed al-Kashgari (Arabic: محمود بن الحسين بن محمد الكاشغري - Maḥmūd ibnu 'l-Ḥussayn ibn Muḥammad al-Kāšġarī; Turkish: Mahmûd bin Hüseyin bin Muhammed El Kaşgari, Kaşgarlı Mahmûd; Uyghur: مەھمۇد قەشقىرى) was an 11th-century Uyghur scholar and lexicographer of Turkic languages from Kashgar.
His father, Hussayn, was the mayor of Barsgan, a town in eastern-southern part of Issyk Kul lake (nowadays village of Barskoon in Northern Kyrgyzstan's Issyk Kul region) and related to the Qara-Khanid in Kashgar ruling dynasty.
Work
Al-Kashgari studied the Turkic languages of his time and wrote the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, the Dīwānu l-Luġat al-Turk (Arabic: "Compendium of the languages of the Turks") in 1072-74. It was intended for use by the Caliphs of Baghdad, the new, Arabic allies of the Turks. Mahmud Kashgari's comprehensive dictionary, later edited by the Turkish historian, Ali Amiri, contains specimens of old Turkic poetry in the typical form of quatrains (Persio-Arabic رباعیات rubāiyāt; Turkish: dörtlük), representing all the principal genres: epic, pastoral, didactic, lyric, and elegiac. His book also included the first known map of the areas inhabited by Turkic peoples. This map is housed at the National Library in Istanbul.
