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Category: History of Scienes

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The history of Islamic sciences is complex and dates back to the early days of Islam, the so-called Golden Age, in the second half of the 8th and the 9th centuries CE. During the reign of the 2nd Caliph Al Mansur (754-775 CE) time, the Bait al-Hikma (House of Knowledge), where numerous pre-Islamic texts from Greece, Mesopotamia, and India were studied and translated, was established in Baghdad, the capital of the Abbasid dynasty (r. 750-1250 CE).

Scholars hail Ulugh Beg´s (1394–1449) 15th-century observatory in Samarkand and associated madrasa as one of the most famous scientific institutions in the Islamicate world. The observatory produced unequaled astronomical observations that resulted in a star catalog called the Zij-i Sultani. A team of dedicated astronomers created the astronomical tables at the Samarkand observatory, and their work stood out for the accuracy with which the tables were computed. This web-edition of Ulugh Beg´s Zij presents three different editions: a complete digitized 18th century Arabic edition at the National Library of Egypt, a sample from a Persian edition at the Oxford Bodleian Library that belonged to 17th century Oxford Mathematician and Astronomer John Greaves, a printed edition of a 17th century Latin translation by Thomas Hyde at Stanford Special Collections. From the various manuscript and printed editions of Zij-i Sultani found and preserved in the libraries around the world, it can be deduced that it was immensely influential and remained actively in use.  Source: Fyza Parviz Jazra  https://web.stanford.edu/~fparviz/introduction.html#footnote-7-ref

Link to copy in the Bodleian Library  https://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/8772a1fe-ab37-45d6-80ff-f1430f0e6585

 

Related image can be found in these folders 

 

A copy of Ulugh Beg's Zij, kept in Samarkand can be seen here