Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf (1526–1580)
Born 1526 CE, died 1580 CE.
Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf ash-Shami al-Asadi (Arabic: تقي الدين محمد بن معروف الشامي; Ottoman Turkish: تقي الدين محمد بن معروف الشامي السعدي; Turkish: Takiyüddin 1526–1585) was an Ottoman polymath active in Cairo and Istanbul. He was the author of more than ninety books on a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics, and natural philosophy. In 1574 the Ottoman Sultan Murad III invited Taqi ad-Din to build an observatory in the Ottoman capital, Istanbul. Taqi ad-Din constructed instruments such as an armillary sphere and mechanical clocks that he used to observe the Great Comet of 1577. He also used European celestial and terrestrial globes that were delivered to Istanbul in gift exchanges. His major work from the use of his observatory is titled "The tree of ultimate knowledge [in the end of time or the world] in the Kingdom of the Revolving Spheres: The astronomical tables of the King of Kings [Murad III]" (Sidrat al-muntah al-afkar fi malkūt al-falak al-dawār– al-zij al-Shāhinshāhi).
Text from the Wikipedia article Taqi_ad-Din_Muhammad_ibn_Ma'ruf, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.