Mahdī Khān Astarābādī - Encyclopaedia of Islam, THREE
[Article]
Tucker, Ernest
Leiden
Brill
(696 words)
Mahdī Khān Astarābādī (d. mid 1170s/early 1760s) was Nādir Shāh's court historiographer and scribe, who achieved fame also as a lexicographer and scholar of the eastern Turkic Chaghatay language. Neither the dates nor the locations of his birth and death are known, but his name suggests family ties to Astarābād. He first served at the Ṣafavid court in about 1140/late 1720s and was noted to have sent a letter of congratulation to Nādir upon his capture of Isfahan from the Afghans in the autumn of 1142/1729.