How did Ulugh Beg's "Book of the Fixed Stars" end up in Istanbul, and then in Paris?
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How did Ulugh Beg's "Book of the Fixed Stars" end up in Istanbul, and then in Paris?

In April 1891, a beautiful calligraphic copy of the astronomical treatise by al-Sufi, "Suwar al-kawakib al-sabita" ("Images of the Fixed Stars"), with 74 colored illustrations (Arabe 5036), made for the personal library of Ulugh Beg, likely in Samarkand during 1430-1440 while constructing his famous observatory, arrived at the National Library of France.

At the time of purchase, the manuscript was owned by someone named J. Klatz. The manuscript came from Istanbul, as evidenced by an ex-libris dated 1228/1813 by Muhammad Sadik Hafiz Efendi Kethuda-zade, the spiritual leader of Anatolia. A seal on pages 1a and 161a with the name "Sultan Muhammad," possibly belonging to a Timurid prince, indicates that the book moved from Central Asia to the Ottoman Empire during the Safavid-Ottoman wars.

You can learn more about the topic in the book-album "Illustrated manuscripts from Mawarannahr in the collections of France" (Volume XXIX) in the series "The Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan".

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How did Ulugh Beg's "Book of the Fixed Stars" end up in Istanbul, and then in Paris?