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56-493: Mīrzā Muhammad Tarāghāy bin Shāhrukh ( Chagatay : میرزا محمد تراغای بن شاهرخ ; Persian : میرزا محمد طارق بن شاهرخ ), better known as Ulugh Beg ( Persian : الغ‌بیک ; 22 March 1394 – 27 October 1449), 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

112-463: 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 the tropical year as 365 5 49 15, 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

168-522: A desert wanderer for Islam, Having joined battle with infidels and Hindus I readied myself to become a martyr, God be thanked I am become a ghazi. Uzbek ruler Muhammad Shaybani Khan wrote a prose essay called Risale-yi maarif-i Shaybāni in Chagatai in 1507, shortly after his capture of Greater Khorasan , and dedicated it to his son, Muhammad Timur. The manuscript of his philosophical and religious work, "Bahr ul-Khuda", written in 1508,

224-518: A modern borrowed pronunciation from Tatar that is not consistent with historic Kazakh and Kyrgyz treatments of these letters Many orthographies, particularly that of Turkic languages, are based on Kona Yëziq. Examples include the alphabets of South Azerbaijani , Qashqai , Chaharmahali , Khorasani , Uyghur , Äynu , and Khalaj . Virtually all other Turkic languages have a history of being written with an alphabet descended from Kona Yëziq, however, due to various writing reforms conducted by Turkey and

280-407: 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 Tycho Brahe ,

336-512: A purely empirical and mathematical science. This allowed him to explore alternatives to the Aristotelian notion of a stationary Earth, as he explored the idea of a moving Earth instead (though Emilie Savage-Smith asserts that no Islamic astronomers proposed a heliocentric universe ). He found empirical evidence for the Earth's rotation through his observation on comets and concluded, on

392-579: A son Mirim Çelebi who would be a great mathematician and astronomer in the future. Ali Kuşçu composed "risalah dar hay’at" in Persian for Mehmed II at Constantinople in 1470. Also he wrote "Sharh e resalye Fathiyeh", "resalye Mohammadiye" in Constantinople, which are in Arabic on the topic of mathematics. He then finished "Sharh e tejrid" on Nasir al-Din al-Tusi 's "Tejrid al-kalam". That work

448-823: A spear with a dragon 's head, a fine horse with saddle, and variegated gold-embroidered silk stuffs" to Ulugh Beg, as well as silk stuffs and garments for the Timurid prince's family. 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

504-602: A tendency to disregard certain characteristics of Chaghatay itself, e.g. its complex syntax copied from Persian . Chagatai developed in the late 15th century. It belongs to the Karluk branch of the Turkic language family. It is descended from Middle Turkic , which served as a lingua franca in Central Asia, with a strong infusion of Arabic and Persian words and turns of phrase. Mehmet Fuat Köprülü divides Chagatay into

560-410: 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

616-659: Is called "Sharh e Jadid" in scientific community. Qushji improved on Nasir al-Din al-Tusi 's planetary model and presented an alternative planetary model for Mercury . He was also one of the astronomers that were part of Ulugh Beg 's team of researchers working at the Samarqand observatory and contributed towards the Zij-i-Sultani compiled there. In addition to his contributions to Zij, Ali Kuşçu wrote nine works in astronomy, two of them in Persian and seven in Arabic . A Latin translation of two of Qushji's works,

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672-487: Is devoted to the description of diseases, their recognition and treatment. One of the manuscript lists is kept in the library in Budapest . Prominent 19th-century Khivan writers include Shermuhammad Munis and his nephew Muhammad Riza Agahi. Muhammad Rahim Khan II of Khiva also wrote ghazals . Musa Sayrami 's Tārīkh-i amniyya , completed in 1903, and its revised version Tārīkh-i ḥamīdi , completed in 1908, represent

728-754: Is located in London Ötemish Hajji wrote a history of the Golden Horde entitled the Tarikh-i Dost Sultan in Khwarazm . In terms of literary production, the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are often seen as a period of decay. It is a period in which Chagatai lost ground to Persian. Important writings in Chagatai from the period between the 17th and 18th centuries include those of Abu al-Ghazi Bahadur : Shajara-i Tarākima (Genealogy of

784-482: Is uncertain whether the former had any influence on the latter. However, it is likely that they both may have arrived at similar conclusions due to using the earlier work of Nasir al-Din al-Tusi as a basis. This is more of a possibility considering "the remarkable coincidence between a passage in De revolutionibus (I.8) and one in Ṭūsī’s Tadhkira (II.1[6]) in which Copernicus follows Ṭūsī’s objection to Ptolemy’s "proofs" of

840-671: Is written in Chagatai, as is the famous Baburnama (or Tuska Babure ) of Babur , the Timurid founder of the Mughal Empire . A Divan attributed to Kamran Mirza is written in Persian and Chagatai, and one of Bairam Khan 's Divans was written in Chagatai. The following is a prime example of the 16th-century literary Chagatai Turkic, employed by Babur in one of his ruba'is . Islam ichin avara-i yazi buldim, Kuffar u hind harbsazi buldim Jazm aylab idim uzni shahid olmaqqa, Amminna' lillahi ki gazi buldim I am become

896-623: The Gur-e-Amir in Samarkand, where they were found by Soviet archaeologists in 1941. Ulugh Beg had thirteen wives: 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. Chagatay language Ali-Shir Nava'i

952-671: 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... = 365 6 10 8 (an error of +58 seconds). In his measurements over the course of many years he used

1008-693: The Ming dynasty . In 1416, Ming envoys Chen Cheng and Lu An presented silk and silver stuffs to Ulugh Beg on behalf of the Yongle emperor. In 1419, The Timurid sent his own emissaries, Sultan-Shah and Muhammad Bakhshi, to the Ming court. Ulugh Beg's emissaries came across Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh and other envoys representing Shah Rukh, Prince Baysunghur , and other Timurid authorities in Beijing; however, they stayed at separate hostelries. Ghiyāth al-dīn Naqqāsh even saw

1064-598: The Perso-Arabic alphabet . This variation is known as Kona Yëziq, ( transl.  old script ). It saw usage for Kazakh , Kyrgyz , Uyghur , and Uzbek . А а Ә ә U u, Oʻ oʻ Ұ ұ, Ү ү О о, Ө ө О о, Ө ө ئۆ/ئو, ئۈ/ئۇ Ө ө, У у, Ү ү Ө ө, У у, Ү ү A a Э э, е Э э, е ئە/ئا Ә ә Ә ә Е e, I i Ы ы, І і Ы ы, И и ئى، ئې The letters ف، ع، ظ، ط، ض، ص، ژ، ذ، خ، ح، ث، ء are only used in loanwords and do not represent any additional phonemes. For Kazakh and Kyrgyz, letters in parentheses () indicate

1120-688: The Soviet Union , many of these languages now are written in either the Latin script or the Cyrillic script . The Qing dynasty commissioned dictionaries on the major languages of China which included Chagatai Turki, such as the Pentaglot Dictionary . The basic word order of Chagatai is SOV. Chagatai is a head-final language where the adjectives come before nouns. Other words such as those denoting location, time, etc. usually appear in

1176-577: The Tract on Arithmetic and Tract on Astronomy , was published by John Greaves in 1650. Qushji's most important astronomical work is Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy . Under the influence of Islamic theologians who opposed the interference of Aristotelianism in astronomy, Qushji rejected Aristotelian physics and completely separated natural philosophy from Islamic astronomy , allowing astronomy to become

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1232-596: The Turkic peoples , who spoke this language claimed political descent from the Chagatai Khanate. As part of the preparation for the 1924 establishment of the Soviet Republic of Uzbekistan , Chagatai was officially renamed "Old Uzbek", which Edward A. Allworth argued "badly distorted the literary history of the region" and was used to give authors such as Ali-Shir Nava'i an Uzbek identity. It

1288-644: The Uzbek SSR . However, when it became evident that the language was too archaic for that purpose, it was replaced by a new literary language based on a series of Uzbek dialects. Ethnologue records the use of the word "Chagatai" in Afghanistan to describe the "Tekke" dialect of Turkmen . Up to and including the eighteenth century, Chagatai was the main literary language in Turkmenistan and most of Central Asia. While it had some influence on Turkmen,

1344-509: 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°. In mathematics , Ulugh Beg wrote accurate trigonometric tables of sine and tangent values correct to at least eight decimal places. Once Ulugh Beg became governor of Samarqand , he fostered diplomatic relations with the Yongle emperor of

1400-671: The Periods of the Moon ) and Sharh-e Tajrid in Kirman. He moved to Herat and taught Molla Cami about astronomy (1423). After professing in Herat for a while, he returned to Samarkand. There he presented his work on the Moon to Ulugh Beg, who found it so fascinating that he read the entire work while standing up. Ulugh Beg assigned him to Ulugh Beg Observatory , which was called Samarkand Observatory at that time. Qushji worked there until Ulugh Beg

1456-538: The Turkish term kuşçu —"falconer" —due to the fact that Ali's father Muhammad was the royal falconer of Ulugh Beg . Sources consider him Turkic or Persian . He attended the courses of Qazi zadeh Rumi , Ghiyāth al-Dīn Jamshīd Kāshānī and Muin al-Dīn Kashi . He moved to Kerman, Iran ( Persia ), where he conducted some research on storms in the Oman sea . He completed Hall-e Eshkal-i Ghammar ( Explanations of

1512-516: The Turkmens) and Shajara-i Turk (Genealogy of the Turks). Abu al-Ghāzī is motivated by functional considerations and describes his choice of language and style in the sentence ‘I did not use one word of Chaghatay (!), Persian or Arabic’. As is clear from his actual language use, he aims at making himself understood to a broader readership by avoiding too ornate a style, notably saj’ , rhymed prose. In

1568-492: The Yongle emperor riding a black horse with feet which had been gifted by Ulugh Beg. In 1439, the Zhengtong emperor ordered an artist to produce a painting of a black horse with white feet and a white forehead that had been sent by Ulugh Beg. Six years later, the Ming emperor sent a letter to Ulugh Beg in order to express his gratitude for all the " tribute " from Samarqand. The emperor sent "vessels made of gold and jade,

1624-531: The arts and intellectual activities. It is thought that he spoke five languages: Arabic ,  Persian ,  Chaghatai Turkic , Mongolian , and a small amount of  Chinese . During his rule (first as a governor, then outright) the  Timurid Empire  achieved the cultural peak of the Timurid Renaissance through his attention and patronage.  Samarkand was captured and given to Ulugh Beg by his father  Shah Rukh . He built

1680-411: The basis of empirical evidence rather than speculative philosophy, that the moving Earth theory is just as likely to be true as the stationary Earth theory. His predecessor al-Tusi had previously realized that "the monoformity of falling bodies, and the uniformity of celestial motions," both moved "in a single way", though he still relied on Aristotelian physics to provide "certain principles that only

1736-522: The best sources on the Dungan Revolt (1862–1877) in Xinjiang . The following are books written on the Chagatai language by natives and westerners: Sounds /f, ʃ, χ, v, z, ɡ, ʁ, d͡ʒ, ʔ, l/ do not occur in initial position of words of Turkish origin. Vowel length is distributed among five vowels /iː, eː, ɑː, oː, uː/. Chagatai has been a literary language and is written with a variation of

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1792-515: 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. He was a grandson of the great conqueror and king, Timur (Tamerlane) (1336–1405), and

1848-461: 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

1904-687: 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 . The teenage 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

1960-404: The following periods: The first period is a transitional phase characterized by the retention of archaic forms; the second phase began with the publication of Ali-Shir Nava'i 's first divan and is the highpoint of Chagatai literature, followed by the third phase, which is characterized by two bifurcating developments. One is preservation of the classical Chagatai language of Nava'i, the other

2016-482: The founding of Sahn-ı Seman Medrese , one of the first centers for the study of various traditional Islamic sciences in the Ottoman Empire, Ali Kuşçu was also the author of several scientific works and textbooks on astronomy. Ali Kuşçu was born in 1403 in the city of Samarkand , in present-day Uzbekistan . His full name at birth was Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed al-Qushji . The last name Qushji derived from

2072-472: The front vowel inflections; and, if the stem contains [q] or [ǧ], which are formed in the back of the mouth, back vowels are more likely in the inflection. These affect the suffixes that are applied to words. Ali Qushji Ala al-Dīn Ali ibn Muhammed (1403 – 18 December 1474 ), known as Ali Qushji ( Ottoman Turkish  : علی قوشچی, kuşçu – falconer in Turkish ; Latin : Ali Kushgii )

2128-519: 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

2184-579: The heavenly bodies moving in uniform circular motion . Qushji's work was an important step away from Aristotelian physics and towards an independent astronomical physics . This is considered to be a "conceptual revolution" that had no precedent in European astronomy prior to the Copernican Revolution in the 16th century. Qushji's view on the Earth's motion was similar to the later views of Nicolaus Copernicus on this issue, though it

2240-407: The increasing influence of dialects of the local spoken languages. Uzbek and Uyghur , two modern languages descended from Chagatai, are the closest to it. Uzbeks regard Chagatai as the origin of their language and Chagatai literature as part of their heritage. In 1921 in Uzbekistan , then a part of the Soviet Union , Chagatai was initially intended to be the national and governmental language of

2296-463: 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

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2352-453: 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

2408-402: 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 declination of celestial objects. The image, which can be found in this article, shows the remaining portion of the instrument, which consists of

2464-525: The name he was 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

2520-424: The natural philosophers could provide the astronomer." Qushji took this concept further and proposed that "the astronomer had no need for Aristotelian physics and in fact should establish his own physical principles independently of the natural philosophers." Alongside his rejection of Aristotle's concept of a stationary Earth, Qushji suggested that there was no need for astronomers to follow the Aristotelian notion of

2576-604: The oldest son of Shah Rukh , both of whom came from the Turkicized Mongol Barlas tribe of Transoxiana (now Uzbekistan ). His mother was a noblewoman named Gawhar Shad , 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,

2632-628: The order of emphasis put on them. Like other Turkic languages , Chagatai has vowel harmony (though Uzbek , despite being a direct descendant of Chaghatai, notably doesn't ever since the spelling changes under USSR; vowel harmony being present in the orthography of the Uzbek perso-arabic script). There are mainly eight vowels, and vowel harmony system works upon vowel backness . The vowels [i] and [e] are central or front-central/back-central and therefore are considered both. Usually these will follow two rules in inflection : [i] and [e] almost always follow

2688-509: The second half of the 18th century, Turkmen poet Magtymguly Pyragy also introduced the use of classical Chagatai into Turkmen literature as a literary language, incorporating many Turkmen linguistic features . Bukharan ruler Subhan Quli Khan (1680–1702) was the author of a work on medicine, "Subkhankuli's revival of medicine" ("Ihya at-tibb Subhani") which was written in the Central Asian Turkic language (Chaghatay) and

2744-448: The two languages belong to different branches of the Turkic language family. The most famous of Chagatai poets, Ali-Shir Nava'i, among other works wrote Muhakamat al-Lughatayn , a detailed comparison of the Chagatai and Persian languages. Here, Nava’i argued for the superiority of the former for literary purposes. His fame is attested by the fact that Chagatai is sometimes called "Nava'i's language". Among prose works, Timur 's biography

2800-471: 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 fewer stars than are present in the star catalogue of Ptolemy . Ulugh Beg utilized dimensions from al-Sufi and based his star catalogue on

2856-530: 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 Jadāvil-i Mavāzi' S̱avābit , sive, Tabulae Long. ac Lat. Stellarum Fixarum ex Observatione Ulugh Beighi and reprinted in 1767 by G. Sharpe . More recent editions are those by Francis Baily in 1843 in Vol. XIII of

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2912-751: 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. Astronomy piqued Ulugh Beg's interest when he visited the Maragheh Observatory at a young age. This observatory, located in Maragheh , Iran, is where the well-known astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi practised. In 1428, Ulugh Beg built an enormous observatory , 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

2968-576: Was a Timurid theologian , jurist , astronomer , mathematician and physicist , who settled in the Ottoman Empire some time before 1472. As a disciple of Ulugh Beg , he is best known for the development of astronomical physics independent from natural philosophy , and for providing empirical evidence for the Earth's rotation in his treatise, Concerning the Supposed Dependence of Astronomy upon Philosophy . In addition to his contributions to Ulugh Beg 's famous work Zij-i-Sultani and to

3024-573: Was also referred to as "Turki" or "Sart" in Russian colonial sources. In China, it is sometimes called "ancient Uyghur ". In the twentieth century, the study of Chaghatay suffered from nationalist bias. In the former Chaghatay area, separate republics have been claiming Chaghatay as the ancestor of their own brand of Turkic. Thus, Old Uzbek, Old Uyghur, Old Tatar , Old Turkmen, and a Chaghatay-influenced layer in sixteenth-century Azerbaijanian have been studied separately from each other. There has been

3080-628: Was assassinated. After Ulugh Beg's death, Ali Kuşçu went to Herat, Tashkent , and finally Tabriz where, around 1470, the Ak Koyunlu ruler Uzun Hasan sent him as a delegate to the Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II . At that time Husayn Bayqarah had come to reign in Herat but Qushji preferred Constantinople over Herat because of Sultan Mehmed's attitude toward scientists and intellectuals. When he came to Constantinople (present-day Istanbul ), his grandson Ghutb al-Dīn Muhammed had

3136-592: Was the greatest representative of Chagatai literature. Chagatai literature is still studied in modern Uzbekistan , where the language is seen as the predecessor and the direct ancestor of modern Uzbek , and the literature is regarded as part of the national heritage of Uzbekistan. The word Chagatai relates to the Chagatai Khanate (1225–1680s), a descendant empire of the Mongol Empire left to Genghis Khan 's second son, Chagatai Khan . Many of

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