Ulugh Beg, here depicted on a Soviet stamp, was one of Islam's greatest astronomers during the Middle Ages.

This is a sub-article to Muslim astronomers, Muslim mathematicians and Muslim leaders.

Ulugh Beg (1394 – October 27, 1449) was a Timurid ruler (1447 - 1449) and also astronomer, mathematician and sultan. His name also appears as Uluğ Bey, Ulugh Bek and Ulug Bek. The name is not truly a personal name, but rather a moniker, which can be loosely translated as Great Ruler or Patriach Ruler. Image File history File links Ulugh Beg, Astronomer and last great ruler of the Timurids, comemmorated on Soviet stamp File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... Image File history File links Ulugh Beg, Astronomer and last great ruler of the Timurids, comemmorated on Soviet stamp File history Legend: (cur) = this is the current file, (del) = delete this old version, (rev) = revert to this old version. ... The Middle Ages formed the middle period in a traditional schematic division of European history into three ages: the classical civilization of Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and modern times, beginning with the Renaissance. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... A Muslim leader is a Muslim that leads. ... Bey is the Turkish word for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. ... // Events Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, travels with King Richard II of England to Ireland. ... October 27 is the 300th day of the year (301st in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 65 days remaining. ... Events January 6 - Constantine XI is crowned Byzantine Emperor. ... Flag of the Timurid Empire according to the Catalan Atlas c. ... Events March 6 - Nicholas V becomes Pope. ... An astronomer or astrophysicist is a scientist whose area of research is astronomy or astrophysics. ... This article is in need of attention from an expert on the subject. ... A sultan (Arabic: سلطان) is an Islamic title, with several historical meanings. ... Bey is the Turkish word for chieftain, traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. ...

The grandson of the conqueror Timur the Lame (1336-1405) and oldest son of Shah Rukh, both of whom came from the Mongol Barlas tribe of Transoxiana (then Persia, now Uzbekistan). His mother was the Persian princess Gauhar Shad. Ulugh Beg was born in Sultaniyya in Iran. As a child he wandered through a substantial chunk of the Middle East and India as his grandfather expanded his conquests in those areas. With Timur's death, however, and the accession of Ulugh's father to much of the Timurid Empire, he settled in Samarkand which had been Timur's capital. After Shah Rukh moved the capital to Herat (in modern Afghanistan), sixteen year-old Ulugh Beg became the shah's governor in Samarkand in 1409. In 1411 he became a sovereign of the whole Mavarannahr khanate. Reconstruction of Timur from exhumation of his tomb. ... Events End of the Kemmu restoration and beginning of the Muromachi period in Japan. ... Events May 29 - Ralph Neville, Earl of Westmoreland, meets Archbishop Richard Scrope of York and Earl of Norfolk Thomas Mowbray in Shipton Moor, tricks them to send their rebellious army home and then imprisons them June 8 - Archbishop Richard Scrope of York and Thomas Mowbray, Earl of Norfolk, executed in... Shah Rukh Mirza (also known as Shahrukh or Shah Rokh) (August 30, 1377 - March 12, 1447), was the ruler of the eastern portion of the empire established by Timur (Tamerlane), governing most of Persia and Transoxiana between 1405 and 1447. ... The Mongols are an ethnic group that originated in what is now Mongolia, Russia, and China, particularly Inner Mongolia. ... Map showing modern Transoxiana. ... The term Persian Empire refers to all empires that have ruled over the Iranian plateau. ... The term Persian Empire refers to all empires that have ruled over the Iranian plateau. ... Akhangan tomb, where Gohar-Taj is buried. ... Zanjan Province ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... Flag of the Timurid Empire according to the Catalan Atlas c. ... Colour photograph of Ulugh Beg Madrasa taken in Samarkand ca. ... Herāt (Persian هرات) is a city in western Afghanistan, in the valley of the Hari Rud river in the province also known as Herat, and was traditionally known for wine. ... Colour photograph of Ulugh Beg Madrasa taken in Samarkand ca. ... Events January 1 - The Welsh surrender Harlech Castle to the English. ... Events February 11 : Peace of ToruÅ„ 1411 signed in ToruÅ„, Poland Births September 21 - Richard Plantagenet, 3rd Duke of York, claimant to the English throne (died 1460) Juan de Mena, Spanish poet (died 1456) Deaths June 3 - Duke Leopold IV of Austria (born 1371) November 4 - Khalil Sultan, ruler of... Map showing modern Transoxiana. ... For the Star Trek character see Khan Noonien Singh. ...

The teenaged ruler set out to turn the city into an intellectual center for the empire. In 1417 - 1420 he built a madrasa ("university" or "institute") on Registan Square in Samarkand, and invited numerous Islamic astronomers and mathematicians to study there. Ulugh Beg's most famous pupil in mathematics was Ghiyath al-Kashi (circa 1370 - 1429). Events Antipope Benedict XIII is deposed, and Pope Martin V is elected. ... Events May 21 - Treaty of Troyes. ... Madrassa in the Gambia The word madrassa in the Arabic language (and other languages of the Islamic nations such as Persian, Turkish, Indonesian etc. ... Categories: Central Asia geography stubs | Buildings and structures in Uzbekistan ... Mathematics is often defined as the study of topics such as quantity, structure, space, and change. ... Kashani, dubbed, the Second Ptolemy, was an outstanding Persian mathematician of the middle ages. ... Events Beginning of the rule of Poland by Capet-Anjou family. ... Events January 10 - Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, founds the European Order of the Golden Fleece February 12 - Battle of Rouvray (or of the Herrings). English Forces under Sir John Fastolf defend a supply convoy carrying rations to the Earl of Suffolks army at Orleans from attack by...

His own particular interests concentrated on astronomy, and in 1428 he built an enormous observatory, called the Gurkhani Zij, similar to Tycho Brahe's later Uraniborg. Lacking telescopes to work with, he increased his accuracy by increasing the length of his sextant; the so-called Fakhri Sextant had a radius of circa 36 meters and the optical separability of 180" (seconds of arc). Using it he compiled the 1437 Zij-i Sultani of 994 stars, generally considered the greatest of star catalogues between those of Ptolemy and Brahe. The serious errors which he found in the Arabian star catalogues (the authors had simply copied from Ptolemy, adding the effect of precession to the longitudes) induced him to redetermine the positions of 992 fixed stars, to which he added 27 stars from Al Sufi's catalogue from 964, which were too far south for observation from Samarkand. This catalogue, the first original one since Ptolemy, was edited by Thomas Hyde at Oxford in 1665 (Tabulae longitudinis et latitudinis stellarum fixarum ex observatione Ulugbeighi), by G. Sharpe in 1767, and in 1843 by Francis Baily in vol. xiii. of the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society. Lunar astronomy: the large crater is Daedalus, photographed by the crew of Apollo 11 as they circled the Moon in 1969. ... // Events October 12 - English forces under Thomas Montacute, 4th Earl of Salisbury besiege Orléans. ... Observatory of Strasbourg An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial and/or celestial events. ... Tycho Brahe Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe (December 14, 1546 – October 24, 1601), was a Danish nobleman astronomer as well as an astrologer and alchemist. ... Uraniborg was the astronomical/astrological observatory of Tycho Brahe; built circa 1576-1580 on Hven (also known as Ven or Hveen), an island in the Öresund; between Zealand and Scania. ... 50 cm refracting telescope at Nice Observatory. ... A sextant is a measuring instrument used to measure the angle of elevation of a celestial object above the horizon. ... The metre (Commonwealth English) or meter (American English) (symbol: m) is the SI base unit of length. ... Angular resolution describes the resolving power of a telescope. ... Events foundation of All Souls College, University of Oxford. ... The Pleiades star cluster A star is a massive body of plasma in outer space that is currently producing or has produced energy through nuclear fusion. ... In astronomy, many stars are referred to simply by catalogue numbers. ... Claudius Ptolemaeus, given contemporary German styling, in a 16th century engraved book frontispiece. ... Precession (also called gyroscopic precession) is the phenomenon by which the axis of a spinning object (e. ... Al Sufi from The Depiction of Celestial Constellations Abd Al-Rahman Al Sufi ( December 7, 903 – May 25, 986) was a Persian astronomer also known as Abd ar-Rahman as-Sufi, or Abd al-Rahman Abu al-Husain, and known in the west as Azophi. ... Events Nicephorus II begins campaign to recapture Cilicia. ... Claudius Ptolemaeus, given contemporary German styling, in a 16th century engraved book frontispiece. ... Thomas Hyde (1636 - 1703) was an English orientalist. ... Events March 4 - Start of the Second Anglo-Dutch War. ... 1767 was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... 1843 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... Francis Baily (April 28, 1774 – August 30, 1844), English astronomer, was born at Newbury, Berkshire. ...

In 1437 Ulugh Beg determined the length of the sidereal year as 365.2570370...^d = 365^d 6^h 10^m 8^s (an error +58^s). In his measurements within many years he used a 50 m high gnomon. This value was improved by 28^s 88 years later in 1525 by Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), who appealed to the estimation of Thabit ibn Qurra (826-901), which was accurate to +2^s. The sidereal year is the time for the Sun to return to the same position in respect to the stars of the celestial sphere. ... The gnomon is the part of a sundial which casts the shadow. ... Events January 21 - The Swiss Anabaptist Movement was born when Conrad Grebel, Felix Manz, George Blaurock, and about a dozen others baptized each other in the home of Manzs mother on Neustadt-Gasse, Zürich, breaking a thousand-year tradition of church-state union. ... Nicolaus Copernicus Nicolaus Copernicus (Polish: Mikołaj Kopernik, German: Nikolaus Kopernikus; February 19, 1473 – May 24, 1543) was a Polish polymath, now remembered as providing the first modern formulation of a heliocentric (Sun-centered) theory of the solar system. ... Events Ottoman sultan Mehmed II defeats the White Sheep Turkmens lead by Uzun Hasan at Otlukbeli Axayacatl, Aztec ruler of Tenochtitlan invades the territory of neighboring Aztec city of Tlatelolco. ... // Events February 21 - Battle of Wayna Daga - A combined army of Ethiopian and Portuguese troops defeat the armies of Adal led by Ahmed Gragn. ... Abul Hasan Thabit ibn Qurra ibn Marwan al-Sabi al-Harrani, (826 – February 18, 901) was an Arab astronomer and mathematician. ... Events The Danish king accepts Christianity. ... Events Mesoamerican ballgame court dedicated at Uxmal Kingdom of Taebong established in Korean peninsula Fuzhou city was expanded with construction of a new city wall (Luo City). Births Deaths February 18 - Thabit ibn Qurra, Arab astronomer and mathematician Categories: 901 ...

Ulugh Beg was also notable for his work in astronomy-related mathematics, such as trigonometry and spherical geometry. Trigonometry (from the Greek trigonon = three angles and metro = measure) is a branch of mathematics dealing with angles, triangles and trigonometric functions such as sine, cosine and tangent. ... Spherical geometry is the geometry of the two-dimensional surface of a sphere. ...

Unfortunately Ulugh was not much of a great administrator as he was a great scientist. He lost some battles to rival kingdoms, and in 1448 massacred the people of Herat after defeating Mirza Ala-u-dowleh son of Bai sunqur. Within two years he was beheaded by his own eldest son, 'Abd al-Latif, while on his way to Mecca. Eventually, however, he was rehabilitated by his relative Babur, founder of the Mughal Empire, who placed Ulugh Beg's remains in the tomb of Timur in Samarkand, found by archeologists in 1941. Herāt (Persian هرات) is a city in western Afghanistan, in the valley of the Hari Rud river in the province also known as Herat, and was traditionally known for wine. ... Abd al-Latif (d. ... This article is about the city in Saudi Arabia. ... Zahir-ud-din Mohammad Babur February 14, 1483 – December 26, 1530, (also spelled ), emperor and founder of the Mughal dynasty of India. ... Extent of Mughal empire in the late 1600s: the Mughals ruled all but the southern tip of the subcontinent. ... For the movie, see 1941 (film) 1941 (MCMXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ...

In honour of his achievements, Ulugh Beigh crater on the Moon has been named for him, the spelling used by the German astronomer Johann Heinrich von Mädler (1794-1874) who proposed the name in his 1830 map of the Moon. Ulugh Beigh is the remnant of a lunar crater that is located just to the west of the Oceanus Procellarum lunar mare. ... Crust composition Oxygen 43% Silicon 21% Aluminium 10% Calcium 9% Iron 9% Magnesium 5% Titanium 2% Nickel 0. ... J. H. von Mädler. ... 1794 was a common year starting on Wednesday (see link for calendar). ... 1874 (MDCCCLXXIV) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar). ... Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix commemorates the July Revolution 1830 was a common year starting on Friday (see link for calendar). ...

See also

• List of modern era Iranian scientists
• List of classical era Iranian scientists
• Bukhara/From the history of the city.

Photo taken from medieval manuscript by Qotbeddin Shirazi. ... Photo taken from medieval manuscript by Qotbeddin Shirazi. ... From the history of the city. ...

External links

• The observatory and memorial museum of Ulugbek
• Bukhara Ulugbek Madrasah
• Registan the heart of ancient Samarkand.
• Biography by School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St Andrews, Scotland

Shah Rukh Mirza (also known as Shahrukh or Shah Rokh) (August 30, 1377 - March 12, 1447), was the ruler of the eastern portion of the empire established by Timur (Tamerlane), governing most of Persia and Transoxiana between 1405 and 1447. ... Timurids Map The Timurids were a mixed Turkic-Mongol and Persian (Turco) dynasty of Central Asia established by Timur (Tamerlane). ... Abd al-Latif (d. ...

References

• This article incorporates text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica, a publication in the public domain.

To be merged: Muhammad Taraghay ibn Sharuh simply known as Ulughbek (1394–1449) was a well-known Turkic Timurid sovereign and astronomist, who lived and reigned in what now is the territory of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan. The 11th edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (1910–1911) is the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ... // Events Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, travels with King Richard II of England to Ireland. ... Events January 6 - Constantine XI is crowned Byzantine Emperor. ... This is the disambiguation page for the terms Turk, Turkey, Turkic, and Turkish. ... Timurid can refer to several entities, related to Timur: Timurid Dynasty Timurid Empire Timurid Emirates This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ...

Ulughbek was born in 1394 to the Prince Shahrukh, one of the four sons of the great warlord Amir Timur nicknamed the Lame. // Events Roger Mortimer, 4th Earl of March, travels with King Richard II of England to Ireland. ... Reconstruction of Timur from exhumation of his tomb. ...

During his childhood, enjoying guardianship of most famous scholars of the Orient of his time, he showed great interest and abilities in natural sciences, especially in astrology. After his grandfather Temur's death, the famous warlord's offspring began the battle for his empire. Shahrukh emerged victorious of the battle most of other pretenders having been killed. Shahrukh appointed his son amir (governor) of Mawara-un-nahr (Transoxania in European terminology) with the capital in Samarqand. Unlike most Temurid princes, Ulughbek did not see further conquests of the neighboring territories as a priority, emphasizing establishment and maintenance of internal peace and stability. Regardless of his efforts in preserving his country's unity, Ulughbek could not prevent plots arranged by his sons Abd-al-Latif and Abd-al-Aziz and other closest relatives and clergymen. These plots would ultimately prove to be lethal for both the remains of once powerful Timurid empire and Ulughbek himself. Transoxiana (sometimes also spelled Transoxania) is the now-largely obsolete name used for the portion of Central Asia corresponding approximately with modern-day Uzbekistan and southwest Kazakhstan. ... Samarkand (Samarqand or Самарқанд in Uzbek) (population 400,000) is the second-largest city in Uzbekistan, capital of the Samarkand region (Samarqand Wiloyati). ... Abd-al-Latif ibn Muhammad Taraghay Ulughbek (Abdullatif in modern Uzbek) (around 1420–1450), was the eldest son of Ulughbek the famous sovereign of Transoxiana and astronomist. ...

The situation in the empire even aggravated after the Emir Shahrukh's death in 1447. The islamic clergy and Ulughbek's closest surrounding was resentful of the relatively liberal religious and social policy rendered by their sovereign. They began instigating riots to overthrown Ulughbek in Abd-al-Latif's favor with Ulughbek in his turn severely suppressing them thus causing much controvercy in the muslim world.

According to a famous version, being tired of all these politics and understanding that he was a man of science rather than throne Ulughbek decided to abdicate in his son Abd-al-Latif's favour. But his abdication was not sufficient for his enemies and they decided to kill him. Ulughbek was assasinated and beheaded by a group of religious fanatics led by Abbas, a son of one of clergymen executed by Ulughbek's order.

Ulughbek's contribution to the science of astronomy cannot be overestimated. In 1428 he guided and sponsored construction of an observatory, one of the most precise and technologically advanced of the world at that time. This observatory however was destroyed shortly after Ulughbek's assassination. It has been suggested that Targeted killing be merged into this article or section. ...

Ulughbek also contributed a lot to the general religious and secular education by constructing medressehs in both Samarqand and Bukhara. Bukhara (Bokhara in XIX century English, Buxoro or Бухоро in Uzbek (the Cyrillic alphabet was officially phased out for Uzbek after independence); بُخارا /Bukhârâ/ in Persian, Buhe/Puhe Tang Chinese, Бухара in Russian; also Boxara in Tatar) is the fifth-largest city in Uzbekistan, and capital of the Bukhara region (Bukhoro Wiloyati). ...