The prominent astronomer-king of the Timurid dynasty

Compiled By: Syed Ali Shahbaz
On October 27, 1449 AD, the prominent astronomer-king of the Timurid dynasty, Mirza Mohammad Taraghay Ulugh Beg, was killed by his rebellious son, Abdul-Latif "Pidarkush" (Persian for Killer of Father), while on his way to Mecca for pilgrimage after being deposed, after a reign of two years as king, and 38 years as absolute governor of Transoxiana (Today's Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and southern Kazakhstan).
Born in Soltaniyeh near Zanjan in Iran, his father was Shahrukh, the son and successor of the fearsome Turkic conqueror, Amir Timur, while his mother was the cultured and religious Iranian lady, Gowharshad, the builder of the famous mosque adjacent to the shrine of Imam Reza (AS), in Mashhad.
His seat of government was Samarqand, where as absolute governor to his father, he built the great Ulugh Beg Observatory with the assistance of the famous Iranian astronomer, Ghiyas od-Din Jamshid Kashani. He also built the Ulugh Beg Madrasahs in Samarqand and Bukhara, transforming the two cities into cultural centres of learning.
He determined the length of the sidereal year as 365.2570370, making it more accurate than the estimate of Nicolaus Copernicus, who had based his calculation mostly on that of Thabet Ibn Qurra. He also determined the Earth's axial tilt as 23.52 degrees, which remained the most accurate measurement for hundreds of years. In mathematics, he wrote accurate trigonometric tables of sine and tangent values correct to at least eight decimal places. The crater "Ulugh Beg", on the Moon, is named after him.