Islam Akhun

Islam Akhun was an Uyghur con-man who forged numerous Sino-Indian manuscripts on birch bark and passed them off as ancient Khotanese manuscripts. Through George McCartney and Nikolai Petrovsky, the British and Russian consuls in Kashgar, his works found their way into museums in London and St. Petersburg and fooled some of the most brilliant linguists of their time, including Dr. Rudolf Hoernle. Dr. Hoernle published papers based on these manuscripts and tried, unsuccessfully, to decipher these pseudo-Brahmi manuscripts.

Doubting the authenticity of the works, Sir Aurel Stein met with Islam Akhun in Khotan in the spring of 1901. Stein questioned Akhun on the manuscripts and concluded that the manuscripts were fake. Eventually, he exposed Akhun for imitating Brahmi characters and inventing similar-looking characters.

References

• Baumer, Christoph (2000). Southern Silk Road: In the Footsteps of Sir Aurel Stein and Sven Hedin. Orchid Press. ISBN 974-8304-38-8.
• Hopkirk, Peter (1980). Foreign Devils on the Silk Road: The Search for the Lost Cities and Treasures of Chinese Central Asia. Amherst: The University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 0-87023-435-8.