Takiyüddin

Taqi al-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf ash-Shami al-Asadi (1526–1585) was an Ottoman polymath who was active in Cairo and Istanbul. He authored over ninety books across a diverse range of subjects, including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics, and natural philosophy. In 1574, Sultan Murad III invited Taqi al-Din to establish an observatory in Istanbul. He constructed advanced instruments, such as an armillary sphere and mechanical clocks, and used them to observe celestial events like the Great Comet of 1577. His major astronomical work, "The tree of ultimate knowledge," aimed to correct and expand upon earlier astronomical tables. Taqi al-Din's methods for determining star coordinates were highly precise, even surpassing those of his European contemporaries like Tycho Brahe and Nicolas Copernicus. He also described an early steam turbine and worked on optics, investigating the nature of light and the law of reflection. Despite his innovations, his influence was somewhat limited due to the scarcity of surviving copies of his works.