The text reflects the author's and his society's beliefs, feelings and practices with regard to quite a few topics and depicts interesting facets of various aspects of life in the Kara-Khanid Khanate.

The author of the Kutadgu Bilig was named Yūsuf and was born in Balasagun, which at the time was the winter capital of the Karakhanid empire and was located near present-day Tokmok in Kyrgyzstan.

The original metre is composed of preceding short and long vowels: Since Turkic language did not differentiate between short and long vowels, he transformed them to open and close syllables, for example: (The snow molten, the earth full of fragrance, taking off the winter clothes, the world is in new elegance.

——Kutadgu Bilig·Volume 4·2) The Kutadgu Bilig is structured around the relations between four main characters, each representing an abstract principle (overtly stated by the author).

In addition, the author of the Kutadgu Bilig states in the text that he was trying to make a Turkic version of something like the Shāh-nāmeh.