Nasir al-Din Tusi and the Foundation of the Maragha Observatory

This study focuses on the circumstances of the foundation of the most important scientific endeavour of the Turko-Mongol period in West Asia, the Maragha Observatory in Azerbaijan, through a close reading of the sources and scrutinisation of a wide variety of primary
material, in manuscript and print form. It focuses on the role of the prominent thirteenth century polymath Nasir al-Din Tusi and his scientific networks in a first study of its kind.