__NOTOC__ Jamal ad-Din Muḥammad ibn Ṭāhir ibn Muḥammad al‐Zaydī al‐Bukhārī (variously transcribed Jamal ud-Din, Jamal al-Din (

Beauty Beauty is commonly described as a feature of objects that makes these objects pleasurable to perceive. Such objects include landscapes, sunsets, humans and works of art. Beauty, together with art and taste, is the main subject of aesthetics, o ...

of Faith), etc., Chinese name Zhamaluding) was a 13th-century Persian

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

. Originally from

Bukhara Bukhara ( Uzbek: /, ; tg, Бухоро, ) is the seventh-largest city in Uzbekistan, with a population of 280,187 , and the capital of Bukhara Region. People have inhabited the region around Bukhara for at least five millennia, and the city ...

, he entered the service of

Kublai Khan Kublai ; Mongolian script: ; (23 September 1215 – 18 February 1294), also known by his temple name as the Emperor Shizu of Yuan and his regnal name Setsen Khan, was the founder of the Yuan dynasty of China and the fifth khagan-emperor of ...

around the 1250s to set up an Islamic Astronomical Bureau in his new capital

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

, to operate in parallel with the traditional Chinese bureau. Kublai Khan thus maintained the bureaucratic structure, but allowed Chinese observations and predictions to be checked by respected Muslim scholars. He is credited with having taken seven astronomical instruments to Kublai Khan, as a present from

Hulagu Khan Hulagu Khan, also known as Hülegü or Hulegu ( mn, Хүлэгү/ , lit=Surplus, translit=Hu’legu’/Qülegü; chg, ; Arabic: fa, هولاکو خان, ''Holâku Khân;'' ; 8 February 1265), was a Mongol ruler who conquered much of We ...

including a Persian

astrolabe An astrolabe ( grc, ἀστρολάβος ; ar, ٱلأَسْطُرلاب ; persian, ستاره‌یاب ) is an ancient astronomical instrument that was a handheld model of the universe. Its various functions also make it an elaborate inclin ...

, a

globe A globe is a spherical model of Earth, of some other celestial body, or of the celestial sphere. Globes serve purposes similar to maps, but unlike maps, they do not distort the surface that they portray except to scale it down. A model glo ...

and an

armillary sphere An armillary sphere (variations are known as spherical astrolabe, armilla, or armil) is a model of objects in the sky (on the celestial sphere), consisting of a spherical framework of rings, centered on Earth or the Sun, that represent lines of ...

, in 1267. This is the earliest known reference to a spherical terrestrial globe of the Earth in

Chinese astronomy Astronomy in China has a long history stretching from the Shang dynasty, being refined over a period of more than 3,000 years. The ancient Chinese people have identified stars from 1300 BCE, as Chinese star names later categorized in the tw ...

. He is associated with a zij in Persian which has been lost but was translated into Chinese in 1383 by Ma‐shayihei with the title ''Huihuilifa'' (Islamic calendar). This contained Ptolemaic tables based on new values and adjusted to Beijing and has been reconstructed in recent years. In general, the activity of the Islamic Astronomical Bureau didn't make much difference to Chinese astronomy. However

Guo Shoujing Guo Shoujing (, 1231–1316), courtesy name Ruosi (), was a Chinese astronomer, hydraulic engineer, mathematician, and politician of the Yuan dynasty. The later Johann Adam Schall von Bell (1591–1666) was so impressed with the preserved astr ...

did evidently gain the idea of the

torquetum The ''torquetum'' or turquet is a medieval astronomical instrument designed to take and convert measurements made in three sets of coordinates: Horizon, equatorial, and ecliptic. It is said to be a combination of Ptolemy's astrolabon and the ...

from him (which he didn't bring), and produced a simplified version which omitted ecliptic coordinates which were not used in China. In 1286 he carried out a large-scale survey of the Yuan empire which was produced in 755 volumes as the ''Dayitongzh''. All but the introduction of this has been lost.

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* Islam in China 13th-century Iranian astronomers Year of death unknown Yuan dynasty people People from Bukhara Year of birth unknown Mongol Empire scholars {{Astronomer-stub

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