Mahmud al Kashgari

Mahmud ibn Hussayn ibn Muhammed al-Kashgari was an 11th-century Uyghur scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar.

His father, Hussayn, was the mayor of Barsgan, a town in the southeastern part of the lake of Issyk-Kul and related to the ruling dynasty of Kara-Khanid Khanate.

Al-Kashgari studied the Turkic languages of his time and in Baghdad he composed the first comprehensive dictionary of Turkic languages, the k">Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk in 1072-74. It was intended for use by the Abbasid Caliphate, the new, Arab 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 , representing all the principal genres: epic, pastoral, didactic, lyr