Mahmud of Kashgar

Maḥmūd al-Kāšġarī محمود الكاشغري
Upal, Mausoleum of Mahmud al-Kashgari
Born	1005 Kashgar, Kara-Khanid Khanate
Died	1102 Upal, Kara-Khanid Khanate
Residence	Kashgar
Scientific career
Fields	Linguistics, Lexicography, Turkology

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, Mehmud Qeshqiri, Мәһмуд Қәшқири) was an 11th-century Kara-Khanid 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 (nowadays village of Barskoon in northern Kyrgyzstan's Issyk-Kul Region) 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 Dīwān Lughāt al-Turk (Arabic: "Compendium of the languages of the Turks") 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 (Persio-Arabic رباعیات rubā'iyāt; 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.