Born : Mirza Muhammad Taraghay, 22 March 1394
Died : 27 October 1449 (aged 55)
Mīrzā Muhammad Tāraghay bin Shāhrukh (Chagatay: میرزا محمد طارق بن شاہ رخ, Persian: میرزا محمد تراغای بن شاہ رخ),
better known as Ulugh Beg (الغ بیگ)
(March 22, 1394 in Sultaniyeh, Persia – October 27, 1449, Samarkand,
Uzbekistan), was a Timurid sultan, as well as an astronomer and mathematician.
Ulugh Beg was notable for his work in astronomy-related mathematics, such
as trigonometry and spherical geometry, as well as his general interests in the
arts and intellectual activities. It is thought that he spoke five languages:
Arabic, Persian, Turkic, Mongolian, and a small amount of Chinese. During his
rule (first as a governor, then outright) the Timurid Empire achieved its
cultural peak through Ulugh Beg's attention and patronage. Samarkand, which was
captured and given to Ulugh Beg by his father Shah Rukh, became the
headquarters of Muslim culture.
He built the great Ulugh Beg Observatory in Samarkand between 1424 and
1429. It was considered by scholars to have been one of the finest
observatories in the Islamic world at the time and the largest in Central Asia.
Ulugh Beg was subsequently recognized as the most important observational
astronomer from the 15th century by many scholars. He also built the Ulugh Beg
Madrasah (1417–1420) in Samarkand and Bukhara, transforming the cities into
cultural centers of learning in Central Asia.
However, Ulugh Beg's scientific expertise was not matched by his skills in
governance. During his short reign, he failed to establish his power and
authority. As a result, other rulers, including his family, took advantage of
his lack of control and he was subsequently overthrown and assassinated.
Early life
Jade dragon cup that once belonged to Ulugh Beg, 1420–1449 AD, British
Museum.
He was a grandson of the great conqueror, Timur (Tamerlane) (1336–1405),
and the oldest son of Shah Rukh, both of whom came from the Turkicized Barlas
tribe of Transoxiana (now Uzbekistan). His mother was a noblewoman named
Goharshad, daughter of a member of the representative Turkic tribal
aristocracy, Ghiyasuddin Tarkhan.
Ulugh Beg was born in Sultaniyeh during his grandfather's invasion of
Persia. He was given the name Mīrzā Muhammad Tāraghay. Ulugh Beg, the name he
most commonly known by, was not truly a personal name, but rather a moniker,
which can be loosely translated as "Great Ruler" (compare modern
Turkish ulu, "great", and bey, "chief") and is the Turkic
equivalent of Timur's Perso-Arabic title Amīr-e Kabīr.
As a child he wandered through a substantial part of the Middle East and
India as his grandfather expanded his conquests in those areas. After Timur's
death, Shah Rukh moved the empire's capital to Herat (in modern Afghanistan).
Sixteen-year-old Ulugh Beg subsequently became the governor of the former
capital of Samarkand in 1409. In 1411, he was named the sovereign ruler of the
whole of Mavarannahr.
Science
The teenaged ruler set out to turn the city into an intellectual center for
the empire. Between 1417 and 1420, he built a madrasa ("university"
or "institute") on Registan Square in Samarkand (currently in
Uzbekistan), and he invited numerous Islamic astronomers and mathematicians to
study there. The madrasa building still survives. Ulugh Beg's most famous pupil
in astronomy was Ali Qushchi (died in 1474). Qadi Zada al-Rumi was the most
notable teacher at Ulugh Beg's madrasa and Jamshid al-Kashi, an astronomer,
later came to join the staff.
He was also famous in the fields of medicine and poetry. He used to debate
with other poets about contemporary social issues. He liked to debate in a
poetic style, called Bahribayt among local poets. According to the Russian
medical book Mashkovskiy, Ulugh Beg discovered a mixture of alcohol with
garlic, apparently preserving it to help treat conditions like diarrhea,
headache, stomach ache and intestine illnesses. He also offered advice for
newly married couples, which indicate recipes containing nuts, dried apricot,
dried grape etc. He claimed these to be useful to increase men's virility. This
recipe has been given in Ibn Sina's books also.
Astronomy
Ulugh Beg and his astronomical observatory scheme, depicted on the 1987
USSR stamp. He was one of Islam's greatest astronomers during the Middle Ages.
The stamp says "Uzbek astronomer and mathematician Ulugbek" in
Russian.
Ulugh Beg and his astronomical observatory scheme, depicted on the 1987
USSR stamp. He was one of Islam's greatest astronomers during the Middle Ages.
The stamp says "Uzbek astronomer and mathematician Ulugbek" in
Russian.
Observatory built by Ulugh Beg in the 1420s. The site was later
rediscovered by Russian archaeologists in 1908.
Observatory built by Ulugh Beg in the 1420s. The site was later
rediscovered by Russian archaeologists in 1908.
From an early age, astronomy piqued his interest after he paid a visit to
what was still present of the Maragheh Observatory located in Maragheh, Iran.
This is the observatory where the well-known astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi
practiced.
Science
The teenaged ruler set
out to turn the city into an intellectual center for the empire. Between 1417
and 1420, he built a madrasa ("university" or
"institute") on Registan Square in Samarkand (currently
in Uzbekistan), and he invited numerous Islamic astronomers and mathematicians to
study there. The madrasa building still survives. Ulugh Beg's
most famous pupil in astronomy was Ali Qushchi (died in
1474). Qadi Zada al-Rumi was the most notable teacher at Ulugh Beg's
madrasa and Jamshid al-Kashi, an astronomer, later came to join the staff.
He was also famous in
the fields of medicine and poetry. He used to debate with other poets about
contemporary social issues. He liked to debate in a poetic style, called Bahribayt among
local poets. According to the Russian medical book Mashkovskiy,
Ulugh Beg discovered a mixture of alcohol with garlic, apparently preserving it
to help treat conditions like diarrhea, headache, stomach ache and intestine
illnesses. He also offered advice for newly married couples, which indicate
recipes containing nuts, dried apricot, dried grape etc. He claimed these to be
useful to increase men's virility. This recipe has been given in Ibn
Sina's books also.
Astronomy
Ulugh Beg and his
astronomical observatory scheme, depicted on the 1987 USSR stamp. He was one of
Islam's greatest astronomers during the Middle Ages. The stamp says "Uzbek
astronomer and mathematician Ulugbek" in Russian.
Observatory built
by Ulugh Beg in the 1420s. The site was later rediscovered by Russian
archaeologists in 1908.
From an early age,
astronomy piqued his interest after he paid a visit to what was still present
of the Maragheh Observatory located in Maragheh, Iran. This
is the observatory where the well-known astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi practiced.
Ulugh Beg
Observatory in Samarkand. In Ulugh Beg's time, the walls were lined
with polished marble
In 1428, Ulugh Beg
built an enormous observatory, called the Gurkhani Zij, similar
to Tycho Brahe's later Uraniborg as well as Taqi
al-Din's observatory in Constantinople. 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 about 36 meters (118 feet) and the optical separability of
180" (seconds of arc). The Fakhri sextant was the largest instrument at
the observatory in Samarkand (an image of the sextant is on the side of this
article). There were many other astronomical instruments located at the
observatory, but the Fakhri sextant is the most well-known instrument there.
The purpose of the Fakhri sextant was to measure the transit altitudes of the
stars. This was a measurement of the maximum altitude above the horizon of the
stars. It was only possible to use this device to measure the decline of
natural objects in space. The image, which can be found in this article,
shows the remaining portion of the instrument, which consists of the
underground, lower portion of the instrument that was not destroyed. The
observatory built by Ulugh Beg was the most pervasive and well-known
observatory throughout the Islamic world.
With the instruments
located in the observatory in Samarkand, Ulugh Beg composed a star catalogue
consisting of 1018 stars, which is eleven less stars than are present in the
star catalogue of Ptolemy. Ulugh Beg utilized dimensions
from al-Sufi and based his star catalogue on a new analysis that was
autonomous from the data used by Ptolemy. Throughout his life as an astronomer,
Ulugh Beg came to realize that there were multiple mistakes in the work and
subsequent data of Ptolemy that had been in use for many years.
Using it, he compiled
the 1437 Zij-i-Sultani of 994 stars, generally
considered the greatest star catalogue between those
of Ptolemy and Brahe, a work that stands alongside Abd al-Rahman
al-Sufi's Book of Fixed Stars. The serious errors which he found in
previous Arabian star catalogues (many of which had simply updated Ptolemy's
work, 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 Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi's catalogue Book of Fixed Stars from
the year 964, which were too far south for observation from Samarkand. This catalogue,
one of the most original of the Middle Ages, was first edited by Thomas
Hyde at Oxford in 1665 under the title Tabulae longitudinis et
latitudinis stellarum fixarum ex observatione Ulugbeighi and reprinted
in 1767 by G. Sharpe. More recent editions are those by Francis
Baily in 1843 in vol. xiii of the Memoirs of the
Royal Astronomical Society and by Edward Ball
Knobel in Ulugh Beg's Catalogue of Stars, Revised from all Persian
Manuscripts Existing in Great Britain, with a Vocabulary of Persian and Arabic
Words (1917).
In 1437, Ulugh Beg
determined the length of the sidereal year as 365.2570370...d = 365d 6h 10m 8s (an error of +58 seconds). In his measurements
over the course of many years he used a 50 m high gnomon. This value
was improved by 28 seconds in 1525 by Nicolaus Copernicus, who
appealed to the estimation of Thabit ibn Qurra (826–901), which had
an error of +2 seconds. However, Ulugh Beg later measured another more
precise value of tropical year as 365d 5h 49m 15s, which has an error of +25 seconds, making it more
accurate than Copernicus's estimate which had an error of +30 seconds.
Ulugh Beg also determined the Earth's axial tilt as 23°30'17" in
the sexagesimal system of degrees, minutes and seconds of arc, which
in decimal notation converts to 23.5047 degrees.
Mathematics
In mathematics,
Ulugh Beg wrote accurate trigonometric tables
of sine and tangent values correct to at least eight
decimal places.
War of
succession and death
Ulugh Beg's headstone
at the foot of Timur's in the Gur-e-Amir
In 1447, upon learning
of the death of his father Shah Rukh, Ulugh Beg went to Balkh. Here,
he heard that Ala al-Dawla, the son of his late brother Baysunghur,
had claimed the rulership of the Timurid Empire in Herat.
Consequently, Ulugh Beg marched against Ala al-Dawla and met him in battle
at Murghab. He defeated his nephew and advanced toward Herat, massacring
its people in 1448. However, Abul-Qasim Babur Mirza, Ala al-Dawla's
brother, came to the latter's aid and defeated Ulugh Beg.
Ulugh Beg retreated to
Balkh where he found that its governor, his oldest son Abdal-Latif Mirza,
had rebelled against him. Another civil war ensued. Abdal-Latif recruited
troops to meet his father's army on the banks of the Amu Darya river.
However, Ulugh Beg was forced to retreat to Samarkand before any fighting took
place, having heard news of turmoil in the city. Abdal-Latif soon reached
Samarkand and Ulugh Beg involuntarily surrendered to his son. Abd-al-Latif
released his father from custody, allowing him to
make pilgrimage to Mecca. However, he ensured Ulugh Beg never
reached his destination, having him, as well as his brother Abdal-Aziz
assassinated in 1449.
Eventually, Ulugh Beg's
reputation was rehabilitated by his nephew, Abdallah
Mirza (1450–1451), who placed his remains at Timur's feet in
the Gur-e-Amir in Samarkand, where they were found
by Soviet archaeologists in 1941.
Marriages
Ulugh Beg had thirteen
wives:
· Aka Begi Begum,
daughter of Muhammad Sultan Mirza bin Jahangir Mirza and
Khan Sultan Khanika, mother of Habiba Sultan known as Khanzada Begum and
another Khanzada Begum;
· Sultan Badi al-mulk
Begum, daughter of Khalil Sultan bin Miran Shah and Shad
Malik Agha;
· Aqi Sultan Khanika,
daughter of Sultan Mahmud Khan Ogeday;
· Husn Nigar Khanika,
daughter of Shams-i-Jahan Khan Chaghatay;
· Shukur Bi Khanika,
daughter of Darwish Khan Jochi;
· Rukaiya Sultan Agha, an
Arlat lady, and mother of Abdal-Latif Mirza, Ak Bash Begum and Sultan
Bakht Begum;
· Mihr Sultan Agha,
daughter of Tukal bin Sarbuka;
· Sa'adat Bakht Agha,
daughter of Bayan Kukaltash, mother of Qutlugh Turkhan Agha;
· Daulat Sultan Agha,
daughter of Khawand Sa'id;
· Bakhti Bi Agha,
daughter of Aka Sufi Uzbek;
· Daulat Bakht Agha,
daughter of Sheikh Muhammad Barlas;
· Sultanim Agha, mother
of Abdul Hamid Mirza and Abdul Jabrar Mirza;
· Sultan Malik Agha,
daughter of Nasir-al-Din, mother of Ubaydullah Mirza, Abdullah Mirza and
another Abdullah Mirza;
Legacy
The Ulugh Beigh
crater on the moon, named for Ulugh Beg.
· The crater, Ulugh
Beigh, on the Moon, was named after him by the German
astronomer Johann Heinrich von Mädler on his 1830 map of the Moon.
· 2439 Ulugbek,
a main-belt asteroid which was discovered on 21 August 1977
by N. Chernykh at Nauchnyj, was named after him.
Exhumation
Soviet
anthropologist Mikhail M. Gerasimov reconstructed the face of Ulugh
Beg. Like his grandfather Timurlane, Ulugh Beg is close to the Mongoloid type
with slightly Europoid features. His father Shah Rukh had predominantly
Caucasoid features, with no obvious Mongoloid feature.
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