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 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, 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. He advocated monolingualism and the linguistic purism of the Turkic languages and held a belief in the superiority of nomadic people over urban populations. Most of his Turkic-speaking contemporaries were bilingual in Tajik, which was then the urban and literary language of Central Asia. One of al-Kashgari's most historically significant poems, tells of the Turko-Islamic conquest of the last of the renowned Central Asian Buddhist kingdoms, the Kingdom of Khotan of the Iranian Sakas: The non-Muslim Turks worship of Tengri was mocked and insulted by the Muslim Turk Mahmud al-Kashgari, who wrote a verse referring to them - The Infidels - May God destroy them! Kashgari claimed that the Prophet assisted in a miraculous event where 700,000 Yabāqu "infidels" were defeated by 40,000 Muslims led by Arslān Tegīn claiming that fires shot sparks from gates located on a green mountain towards the Yabāqu. The Yabaqu were a Turkic people. Muslims used to call the Uyghur Buddhists as "Tats", which referred to the "Uighur infidels" according to the Tuxsi and Taghma, while other Turks called Persians "tat". Uyghur Buddhists used to call the muslims as "Chomak" While Kashgari displayed a different attitude towards the Turks diviners beliefs and "national customs", he expressed towards Buddhism a hatred in his Diwan where he wrote the verse cycle on the war against Uighur Buddhists. Buddhist origin words like toyin and Burxān or Furxan had negative connotations to Muslim Turks. Kashghari viewed the least Persian mixed Turkic dialects as the "purest" and "the most elegant". Muslim writers Mahmud Kashghārī had more some information about China in their writings, Kashgari viewed Kashgar as part of China as Tang China had controlled Kashgar as one of the Anxi protectorate's "Four Garrisons" seats. Tabgach, originally denoting the Northern Wei's dynastic clan Tuoba, referred metonymously to China in Kashgari's time, Khitay to the Khitans. Persian chīn and māchīn and Arabicṣīn and māṣīn were names for China: after the Tang dynasty, Southern China was referred to as Machin-Masin and Northern China as Chin-Sin; although before that the names' referrents were reversed.
Death
Some researchers think that Mahmud al-Kashgari died in 1102 at the age of 97 in Upal, a small city southwest of Kashgar, and was buried there. There is now a mausoleum erected on his gravesite. But some modern authors reject this assertion, saying that the date of his death is just unknown. Some claim Mahmad Kashghari was Hazrat Mullam.
Legacy
He is claimed by Uyghur, Kyrgyz, and Uzbek nationalists as part of their respective ethnic groups. An oriental study university, situated in the capital city of Bishkek in post-Soviet Kyrgyzstan, was named after Makhmud Kashghari, in the 1990s. UNESCO declared 2008 the Year of Mahmud al-Kashgari.
