by DAVID BERLINSKI
Ulugh Beg Observatory, Samarkand, Uzbekistan, was built during the reign of Sultan Ulugh Beg who was also a mathematician and an astronomer PHOTO/Wikipedia
uring the living centuries of the Arab empire, a series of stellar observatories glittered like jewels throughout the archipelago of its conquests. The observatory played an important role in the religious life of devout Muslims. More so than either Jews or Christians, men of the faith were called upon carefully to mark the schedule of their devotions. Caliphs in Baghdad counted time by means of either a water clock or an hourglass, and yet the Quran commanded five-fold prayers each day, and it commanded the faithful to face the shrine of Kaaba in Mecca as they prayed—tasks requiring some very considerable mental dexterity. “At the last Judgment,” the Turkish devout Said Nursî remarked, “the ink spent by scholars is equal to the blood of martyrs.”
Those scholars celebrated at the last judgment were apt to be scholars of religion and so bound by the inerrancy of the Quran. “Allah turns over the night and the day,” reads a well-known Quranic verse, “most surely there is a lesson in this for those who have sight.” It is hardly surprising that Muslim mathematicians and astronomers, from the late seventh to the early fifteenth century, regarded their curiosity, on those occasions when they were called upon to justify it, as if its indulgence were an exercise calculated to increase their devotion.
But of all the human emotions, curiosity is the one least subject to the general proscription against gluttony, and once engaged, even if engaged initially in the service of religion, it has a tendency to grow relentlessly until in the end the scholar becomes curious about the nature of revelation itself.
Ulugh Beg
Muhammad Taragai Ulugh Beg was born in 1394 and died 55 years later, the victim of an assassination orchestrated by his son. The grandson of the murderous Tamerlane, Ulugh Beg became the ruler of Transoxiana on the death of his father. It was in Samarkand that he created an outstanding astronomical observatory.
A king and an astronomer, Ulugh Beg’s moral nature impressed his contemporaries. He was admired. Writing to his father, a young man by the name of Giyâth al-Din Jamshid al-Kâshi was concerned to establish Ulugh Beg’s reputation as a scientist as well as a ruler. “The King of Islam,” he writes, “the issuer of orders to the seven climes, may God preserve his realm and sovereignty, is a learned person.” There follows an earnest disclaimer. “I do not write this and make these assertions out of politeness.” Various encomia now follow. Ulugh Beg’s knowledge of the Quran is impeccable and wide-ranging. He knows most of the Quran by heart; he recites at least two sections before experts each morning. He makes no mistakes. His knowledge of grammar and syntax is very good, and he writes Arabic very well. Ulugh Beg, Al-Kâshi assures his father, is well-versed in jurisprudence, logic, and the theory of literary styles.
If Ulugh Beg emerges from Al-Kâshi’s letter as a man of parts, as he surely does, it is his scientific stewardship that most elicits Al-Kâshi’s admiration. Beyond his competence, there is his temper: rare in a scientist, unheard of in a king. According to Al-Kâshi, Ulugh Beg was determined to act in his observatory as one scientist among others:
If, in certain cases, there happens to be anything concerning which we, his servants, have some doubt, the point is discussed, and no matter from what side the clarification of the mistake comes, His Majesty will at once accept it without the least hesitation, [for] it is his aim to see that everything is thoroughly investigated, and to have the work at the observatory accomplished in the best possible manner.
Giyâth al-Din Jamshid al-Kâshi died as a young man, his death leaving his colleagues stunned and mournful. When, a few years later, Ulugh Beg composed the introduction to his monumental Zij—the observatory’s astronomical tables—he reflected on his own role in the work of the observatory, and supplied as an aphorism the noble living voice that is missing from Al-Kâshi’s letter. “Our accomplishments indicate what we are; look therefore at the things we have left behind.” He then credited his teachers and masters, “the most learned of the men of learning,” and finally with his own voice now in its proper register, he wrote in tribute to his friend, “the pride of the sagacious people of the world … the unraveler of the intricacies of problems … Giyâth al-Din Jamshid al-Kâshi, may God refresh his resting place.”
Inference for more