"Kitab Suwar al-Qawaqib" ("The Book of Fixed Stars")

Description

The National Library of France features a unique manuscript – a copy of the manuscript Suwar al-Kawakib as-Sabita (The Book of Fixed Stars) by Al-Sufi, made for Ulugbek's personal library circa 1430-1440 in Samarkand during the construction of the latter's famous observatory. It was copied in around 1435 and is thus one of the earliest extant books on astronomy.

Ulugbek went down in history not only as a great ruler, but also as an outstanding scientist, scholar, poet, calligrapher, patron of artists and writers. This manuscript is another confirmation of how much he was devoted to science. The first page of the manuscript shows a calligraphic ex-libris written by the famous scientist on the throne himself.

The 74 miniatures adorning the book show an amazingly sophisticated drawing technique, full of smallest elements. Each of the drawings is an image of a particular constellation. In one of them, Ulugbek himself is depicted as Cepheus, a constellation named after the mythological king of Ethiopia. This technique of imparting the features of a current ruler to some historical king was common for the manuscripts of the past.

The production of a facsimile edition of this unique manuscript was an important step aimed at popularizing the achievements of medieval science.

The project to create a facsimile of the manuscript Kitab Suwar al-Qawaqib, stored in the National Library of France, was implemented by the World Society for the Study, Preservation and Popularization of the Cultural Legacy of Uzbekistan. Firdavs Abdukhalikov was the author and inspirer of the project. It took three years for the leading European publishing house Mueller & Schindler to produce the facsimile. 

The project was sponsored by the oilfield service company Eriell Group.