Mahmud al-Kashgari

Maḥmūd al-Kashgari
محمود الكاشغري
Upal, Mausoleum of Mahmud al-Kashgari
Born1005
Barsgan (now Kyrgyzstan), Kara-Khanid Khanate
Died1102 (aged 97)
Upal, Kara-Khanid Khanate
Resting placeUpal, China
Scientific career
FieldsLinguistics, Lexicography, Turkology

Mahmud ibn Husayn ibn Muhammad al-Kashgari was an 11th-century Kara-Khanid scholar and lexicographer of the Turkic languages from Kashgar.

His father, Husayn, 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. Around 1057 C.E., Mahmud al-Kashgari became a political refugee, before settling down in Baghdad.