Rabghuzi

The only source for Rabghūzī is his Qiṣaṣ-i Rabghūzī, a text in the Islamic religious genre known as Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʾ (stories about the prophets), including around seventy poems, some in Khwārazm Turkish and others in Arabic. The text was commissioned by an otherwise unknown Mongol prince called Nāṣir al-Dīn Tuḳ Bugha and completed in 1310/1311 CE. In the assessment of H. E. Boeschoten and J. O'Kane, though inspired by Arabic and Persian predecessors, Rabghūzī's compilation of The Stories of the Prophets has a distinctly original quality with regard to its content and style. It is true that the Qurʾanic material on the prophets and Qurʾanic exegisis form the basis for the work, and Rabghūzī certainly had a firm command over the subject matter. But popular stories, epic themes and a fair amount of poetry have been integrated into the text as well. In view of the directness and the relatively simple structure of the work's language, one can well imagine that Rabghūzī's Qiṣaṣ must have been useful as a source book for preachers.

The text survives in five manuscripts from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries CE, along with what M. van Damme has called "a host of new mss" copied from the eighteenth century to the twentieth, updating the language to then more current forms of Turkic.

The authorities additionally record the headings Nāṣir ad-Dīn Rabghūzī, Nasiriddin Burhanidin Rabghuzi and Nāṣir al-Dīn ibn Burhān al-Dīn Rabghūzī. His recorded language was Khorezmian Turkic.