Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf

Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf (1526 to 1585), known in Turkish as Takiyuddin, was an Ottoman polymath active in Cairo and Constantinople. He wrote more than ninety books on subjects including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics and natural philosophy. In 1574 the Ottoman Sultan Murad III invited him to build an observatory in the capital, where he constructed instruments such as an armillary sphere and mechanical clocks and observed the Great Comet of 1577. His major work from the observatory is a set of astronomical tables dedicated to Murad III, prepared from observations in Egypt and Constantinople to correct and complete the Zij-i Sultani of Ulugh Beg. He also described a steam turbine for turning a spit in 1551, and wrote on optics, where he worked on reflection and refraction. He was born in Damascus, and his ethnicity has been described as Arab, Kurdish, Syrian and Turkish.