A TURKISH SULTAN IN QUEST OF KNOWLEDGE: MEHMED II’S PATRONAGE OF SCIENCE AND SCHOLARS IN FIFTEENTH CENTURY ISTANBUL

The Turkish Sultan Mehmed II (r. 1451-1481), known as The Conqueror (<italic>Fatih</italic>) after his conquest of Istanbul in 1453 undertook a vast program for promoting the new capital city as a scientific centre of the Islamic World by assembling leading scholars from Central Asia, Iran, Egypt, and Syria. The social complex (<italic>Fatih Külliyesi</italic>) which included a mosque, eight large and eight small <italic>madrasas</italic>, a timekeeper’s office, a hospital and other facilities was Mehmed II’s main enterprise in sciences. <italic>Madrasas</italic> providing religious and legal scholars needed by the state represent one aspect of his patronage of sciences. Besides, due to his personal interest in astronomy, mathematics and cartography, the Sultan set up a multilingual private library, commissioned science books to be copied and translated and maps composed. Among the scholars he invited to Istanbul was Alī Qushjī (d. 1474), the Director of Samarkand Observatory and a collaborator of Ulugh Beg. Qushjī moved to Istanbul where he taught mathematical sciences during the last two years of his life, bringing a breath of fresh air to Ottoman scientific life. In this paper Sultan Mehmed II's patronage of science and scholars and al-Qushjī's work in Istanbul will be revisited.