ULUGH BEG’S PATRONAGE AND ASTRONOMICAL BOOK-MAKING

Among the numerous medieval Islamic astronomical works, star catalogues hold great value. One such catalogue, widely circulated in the Islamic world, is Kitāb Ṣuwar al-Kawākib al-Sābiṭa or Kitāb Ṣuwar al-Kawākib (A Book of Fixed Stars) by the Persian astronomer Abdurahman al-Sufi, written in 964 AD. It contains the coordinates of 1,017 stars arranged in 48 constellations. A distinctive feature of the very influential al-Sufi’s book is that it includes images of the constellations with both Arabic and Persian names. Of the surviving copies of Kitāb Ṣuwar al-Kawākib, a particularly valuable example is held in the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris. This copy is likely the most colorful and richly produced of al-Sufi’s work, featuring beautifully colored illustrations of the constellations. This paper explores the question of whether the ‘Paris’ copy of al-Sufi’s book once belonged to the Ulugh Beg library, and provides new evidence supporting this claim.

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