published in Kazan in 1825. The Turkish translation of the text published in Kazan was done by philologist Ahmed Vefik Pasha and initially published in 1864. The most influential Western publication was Histoire des Mogols et des Tatares par Aboul-Ghazi Behadour Khan, publiée, traduite et annotée par le baron Desmaisons, St.-Pétersbourg, 1871-1874. Nikita Bichurin was the first to notice that the biography of the epic ancestor of the Turkic people Oguz-Kagan by Abu al-Ghazi and the Turco-Persian manuscripts (Rashid al-Din, Hondemir, Abulgazi) has a striking similarity with the Maodun biography in the Chinese sources (feud between father and son and murder of the former, the direction and sequence of conquests, etc.). That observation, confirmed by other scholars, associated in the scientific literature the name of Maodun with the epic personality of the Oguz-Kagan. The similarity is even more remarkable because at the time of the writing, no Chinese annals were translated into either oriental or western languages, and Abu al-Ghazi could not have known about Eastern Huns or Maodun. The literary significance of Shajara-i Turk is that Abu al-Ghazi openly spoke against Chaghatay literary language because it carried a strong Persian influence. Abu al-Ghazi language is easy, simple folk language of the Khiva Uzbeks and is quite different from the Chaghatay literary language. The style of Abu al-Ghazi, despite a scientific nature of his compositions, is distinguished by clarity and richness of vocabulary, and is interspersed with the falk Uzbek expressions and proverbs. Abu al-Ghazi's son, Abu al-Muzaffar Anusha Muhammad Bahadur, reassigned to complete the work of his father Shajara-i Turk to a certain Mahmud bin Mulla Muhammad Zaman Urgench. It was finalized in 1665. The work lists a Turkic genealogy starting from biblical Adam and the primogenitor of the Turks, Oguz-Khan, and provides legendary details on their descendants including Chengiz Khan and the Shaybanid dynasty, providing a good picture of Mongol and Turkic views of history at that time. Works Shajara-i Tarākima ("Genealogy of the Turkmens", 1659) Shajara-i Turk ("Genealogy of the Turks", 1665) Edition: Translation: Legacy 16413 Abulghazi, an asteroid which was discovered on 28 January 1987 by Eric Walter Elst at La Silla Observatory, Chile, was named after him. References Further reading External links "Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2006. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 11 June 2006 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9003414> 1603 births 1663 deaths Historians of Central Asia 17th-century Iranian historians Khans of Khiva Uzbeks Expatriates of the Khanate of