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Scientists from Steppes and Central Asia

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    Posted: 18-May-2006 at 20:53

al-Farabi
in full Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn Tarkhan ibn Uzalagh al-Farabi Latin Alpharabius or Avennasar
born c. 878, Turkistan
died c. 950, Damascus?
A logician and one of the great philosophers of medieval Islam.


Muslim philosopher, one of the preeminent thinkers of medieval Islam. He was regarded in the Arab world as the greatest philosophical authority after Aristotle.

Muhammad ibn Tarhan ibn Uzlug el-Farabi, also known as Alpharabius or Avensar in medieval Latin texts, born 878 in Turkistan, died 950, one of the most brilliant and famed of Muslim philosophers; also know as the second teacher, (Aristotle being the first). He was of Turkish origin. Farabis father was in the Turkish bodyguard of the caliph, and his life was spent in Baghdad and Aleppo.


Farabi, al: Encyclopedia Britannica, 1980 edition, Vol.4, p.51.
 


Farabi was born in Vasic, a district of Oghuz Karacuk (Farab) city in Turkistan. He received his early education in Bukhara, Turkistan and continued the rest of his education in Baghdad. He led a simple Sufi life in Damascus when he died. He left many works in logic, metaphysics, morality and politics.

Farabi introduced philosophy to Islam, the newly acquired religion of Turks. He found Islam as a religion was of itself not sufficient for the needs of a philosopher. He saw human reason as superior to revelation. Religion provided truth in a symbolic form to non-philosophers, who were not able to apprehend it in more pure forms. The major part of Farabis writings was directed to the problem of the correct ordering of the state. He argued that just as God rules the universe, so should the philosopher, as the most perfect kind of man, rule the state; he thus relates the political upheavals of his time to the divorce of the philosopher from the government.

Philosophy in Farabis cultural environment faced many obstacles which did not occur in the time of Aristotle and Plato. As a Turkish philosopher, it is necessary to see Farabis originality and contributions within this context, as he tried to reconcile philosophy with Islam as a radical monotheistic religion. Farabi successfully utilized the mystic element as one of characteristics of Turkish-Islamic thought while he was resolving this problem. He made rational mysticism a characteristic in the Turkish religious perception and tried to reconcile religion and philosophy as two separate ways leading the truth.

One of Farabis views that has an important place in Turkish-Islamic thought is his perception of morality and politics. According to him, happiness is a purpose that everybody desires to have and it is absolute good due to its nature. Every action which leads human beings to this purpose and will make them happy is good and the action that prevents him from becoming so is bad and human beings have the potential to distinguish what is good and what is bad. Since wisdom can comprehend what is good and what is bad, human beings should have a balanced freedom in the field of morality.

Farabi has an irreplaceable place in Turkish-Islamic thought and Sufism, as opposed to Arabic-Islamic thinking, with an influence reaching over eleven hundred centuries.

Reference: Philosophy among the Early Muslim States, Prof.Dr. Hanifi Ozcan, The Turks, Vol.2, Yeni Turkiye Yayinlari, Istanbul, 2002.

http://www.turkishculture.org/philosophers/Farabi.html

 

Turkish Contributions to Philosophical Culture

http://www.muslimheritage.com/uploads/philosophy.pdf

http://www.muslimheritage.com/features/default.cfm?ArticleID=473

Two fantastic article's a must read!



Edited by Bulldog - 18-May-2006 at 20:54
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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jun-2006 at 18:01
Hezarfen Ahmet elebi - Scientist

Although the history of flight is popularly known to have started with the Montgolfier brothers in 1783, almost one and a half centuries ago, a Turkish scientist, Hezarfen Ahmet elebi (1609-1640) flew across the Bosphorus from the Galata Tower.

Ahmet elebi, because of his vast scientific knowledge was given the name Hezarfen, meaning a thousand sciences. In his early studies of flying, he was motivated by the 10th century Turkish scientist Ismail Cevheri. elebi, after carefully studying Cevheris findings and when he felt confident enough arranged a public demonstration. He climbed the Galata Tower and launched himself into the wind; he passed over the Boshphorus and landed in the slopes of skdar on the Anatolian side.

This event created a great sensation. Sultan Murat IV was delighted and wanted to award Hezarfen but religious leaders and palace advisers soon changed his mind. Hezarfen was exiled to Algeria where he soon at the age of 31.

Being one of the three airports in Istanbul, Hezarfen Airport is a good example of Turks fidelity to this hero.

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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05-Jun-2006 at 18:04

Lagari Hasan Celebi

[Category: 'Lagari Hasan Celebi' facts and bio]

Lagari Hasan Celebi (Turkish: Lagari Hasan elebi) is considered the first person to have flown. In the 17th century (17th century: (16th century - 17th century - 18th century - more centuries)...
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he was launched in the air in a rocket (rocket: A jet engine containing its own propellant and driven by reaction propulsion) , which was composed of a large cage with a conical top filled with gunpowder. The flight was accomplished as a part of celebrations performed for the birth of Ottoman Emperor (Ottoman Emperor: the ottoman empire was an imperial power that existed from 1299 to 1923 (634 years),...
[follow hyperlink for more...]) 
Murat IV (Murat IV: murad iv (june 16, 1612 - february 9, 1640) was the sultan of the...
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's daughter.

He is believed to have made a soft landing in the Bosporus (Bosporus: A strait connecting the Mediterranean and the Black Sea; separates the European and Asian parts of Turkey; an important shipping route)  and was rewarded by the sultan with a valuable military position in the Ottoman (Ottoman: Thick cushion used as a seat)  army. The flight was estimated to have lasted about 20 seconds and the maximum height reached around 300 meters.
 
 
 
Now this is really amazing, could someone provide more information regarding this matter or recommend any books on the mater?
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  Quote HistoryGuy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jun-2006 at 10:21
Has anyone heard of Tulu Bey? My family is descended from him, but I have no clue who he was... Can anyone help me out?Confused
هیچ مردی تا به حال به شما درباره خدا گفته.
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  Quote DayI Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jun-2006 at 11:02
where are you from? When did Tulu bey lived and where? What is his ethnic? 
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  Quote Seljuk Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jun-2006 at 15:09
may be he means ulugh bey? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulugh_Beg

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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jul-2006 at 21:39
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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jul-2006 at 21:42
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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jul-2006 at 21:44
Amir Khushraw
 
The Great Turk Genius Amir Khushraw and his accomplishments in music
 
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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jul-2006 at 21:58

The Legacy of Ulugh Beg

Kevin Krisciunas[1]
 

Muhammed Taragai Ulugh Beg (1394-1449) was a Turk who ruled the province of Transoxiana (Maverannahr), a region situated between the River Oxus (Amu Darya) and the River Jaxartes (Syr Darya), the principal city of which was Samarkand. Ulugh Beg's grandfather was the famous conqueror Timur (1336-1405). Ulugh Beg became the ruler of Transoxiana in 1447 upon the death of his father. But his rule was of short duration. Two years later he was killed by an assassin hired by his son 'Abd al Latif.

Were it only for his role as prince, viceroy, and martyr, few scholars would know of Ulugh Beg. But his memory lives on because he was an observatory builder, patron of astronomy, and astronomer in his own right. He was certainly the most important observational astronomer of the 15th century. He was one of the first to advocate and build permanently mounted astronomical instruments. His catalogue of 1018 stars (some sources count 1022) was the only such undertaking carried out between the times of Claudius Ptolemy (ca. 170 A.D.) and Tycho Brahe (ca. 1600). And, as we shall briefly discuss here, his attitude towards scientific endeavors was surprisingly modern. The administration of Transoxiana was the responsibility of Ulugh Beg's father for most of Ulugh Beg's life. The prince had the opportunity (and the inclination) to pursue scholarly matters. His interest in astronomy dates from an early age, when he visited the remains of the Maragha Observatory, made famous by the astronomer Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (1201-74). The principal accomplishment at Maragha was the Zij-i ilkhani, or Ilkhanic Tables.[2]

A principal source of our information about the astronomical activity at Samarkand is a letter of one Ghiyath al-Din Jamshid al-Kashi (d. 1429), which is available in Turkish and English (see Sayili 1960). This letter, originally in Persian, was written in 1421 or 1422. From it we deduce that serious astronomical activity began in Samarkand in 1408-10, and that the construction of Ulugh Beg's observatory was begun in 1420. Amongthe astronomers known to have been active at Samarkand, we know only a few by name, but according to al-Kashi there were sixty or seventy scholars at the madrasa who were well enough versed in mathematics to participate in some capacity in the astronomical observations and/or seminars.

The observations were carried out systematically from 1420 to 1437. While observatories today are expected to carry on indefinitely, this was not the case in olden times. Rather, observations were carried out, for example, to update tables of planetary motions in order to predict their future positions. al-Kashi tells us (see Sayili 1960, p.106):

As to the inquiry of those who ask why observations are not completed in one year but require ten or fifteen years, the situation is such that there are certain conditions suited to the determination of matters pertaining to the planets, and it is necessary to observe them when these conditions obtain. It is necessary, e.g., to have two eclipses in both of which the eclipsed parts are equal and to the same side, and both these eclipses have to take place near the same node. Likewise, another pair of eclipses conforming to other specifications is needed, and still other cases of a similar nature are required. It is necessary to observe Mercury at a time when it is at its maximum morning elongation and once at its maximum evening elongation, with the addition of certain other conditions, and a similar situation exists for the other planets.

Now, all these circumstances do not obtain within a single year, so that observations cannot be made in one year. It is necessary to wait until the required circumstances obtain and then if there is cloud at the awaited time, the opportunity will be lost and gone for another year or two until the like of it occurs once more. In this manner there is need for ten or fifteen years. One might add that because it takes Saturn 29 years to return to the same position amongst the stars (that being its period of revolution about the Sun), a period of 29 years might have been the projected length of the Samarkand program of observations. A number of instruments were used for the observations of the planets and for determining the relative positions of the stars.[3] The largest instrument in Samarkand was the so-called Fakhri sextant. It was a 60-degree stone arc mounted on the north-south meridian line. Such an instrument was used to determine the transit altitudes of stars (i.e. their maximum angular distances above the horizon). From the most southern and northern positions of the Sun, observed over the course of a year, one can easily determine the obliquity of the ecliptic (i.e. the tilt of the Earth's axis of rotation with respect to the plane of its orbit.) The mean of these extrema, or the meridian altitude of the Sun at the moment of the vernal or autumnal equinox allows one (by definition) to determine one's latitude.[4] According to Ulugh Beg the obliquity of the ecliptic was 23 degrees 30' 17" (differing by only 32" from the true value for his time). His value for the latitude of Samarkand was 39 degrees 37' 33". Now, to the reader unaccustomed to astronomical topics, these might seem like just numbers, the accuracy of which may mean nothing. The most interesting thing about the Fakhri sextant in Samarkand was that its radius was 40 meters! (This is very nearly equal to the height of the dome of the 200-inch reflector at Palomar Mountain, California.) The Fakhri sextant was by far the largest meridian instrument ever built. It could achieve a resolution of a several seconds of arc -- on the order of a six-hundredth of a degree, or the diameter of an American penny at a distance of more than half a kilometer. Because the Fakhri sextant was an arc fixed on the meridian,it could only be used for determining the declinations of celestial bodies. (This being before the invention of accurate clocks, it could not be used for the determinations of relative right ascensions.) Because it was a 60-degree arc, it could not be used to observe stars along the full north-south meridian. Thus, it could not be used, say, to determine the angular separations of pairs of stars, or for observing stars near the northern or southern horizons. Consequently, other observational instruments were used at Samarkand, among them parallactical lineals and equinoctial and solstitial armillary spheres. These were made of metal and wood and were on the order of 1 meter in size. Hand held astrolabes are not to be included in this list because they were "star finders" and were used for rough time determination, rather than for the accurate determination of stellar or planetary positions. Typically, two people were required to make individual observations at any given time. At Samarkand it was the practice for a larger number of people to discuss the results. In modern terms, this is like peer review, the purpose of which is to eliminate sources of error and to ensure the health of the observational program. Ulugh Beg himself has allowed that in scientific questions there should be no agreeing until the matter is thoroughly understood and that people should not pretend to understand in order to be pleasing. Occasionally, when someone assented to His Majesty's view out of submission to his authority, His Majesty reprimanded him by saying 'you are imputing ignorance to me.' He also poses a false question, so that if anyone accepts it out of politeness he will reintroduce the matter and put the man to shame.[5]

The foreword to Ulugh Beg's Zij contains four parts: 1) the chronology, describing various systems of time reckoning; 2) practical astronomy (how observations are made and used); 3) the apparent motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets, based on a geocentric system of the universe; and 4) astrology. Besides the tables of motions of the Sun, Moon, and planets,Ulugh Beg's Zij was significant for its catalogue of about 1000 stars, giving their names and ecliptic coordinates. In an appendix to this paper I give a list of published works that contain all or part of Ulugh Beg's Zij.[6] In Flamsteed's Historia Coelestis Britannica (1725) and Baily's 1843 treatise we can directly compare Ulugh Beg's positions with those of Ptolemy,Tycho Brahe, and others. With modern stellar positions, proper motions, and an accurate treatment of precession, it would be interesting to make a statistical analysis of, say, the 100 brightest stars, to see how these catalogues compare as to average accuracy.[7]

In The Observatory in Islam Sayili concludes (pp. 391, 393) by stating:

The observatory as an organized and specialized institution was born in Islam; it went through very important stages of evolution within Islam itself; it passed on in a rather highly developed state to Europe, and this was followed, shortly afterwards, by the creation of modern observatories of Europe, in an unbroken process of evolution superposing upon the traditions borrowed from Eastern Islam...The question is of significance...in the case of the Samarqand Observatory because it appears as probably the most important Islamic observatory from the standpoint of influences exerted upon Europe.

I can accept the first half of Sayili's perspective. The astronomical programs carried out at Baghdad (9th century), Cordova (10th century), Cairo (10th to 12th centuries), Toledo (11th century), Castile (under the Christian King Alfonso X; 13th century), Maragha (13th century), and at Samarkand (15th century) were far more extensive than anything carried out by the ancient Greeks, with the possible exception of Hipparchus. The Arabs honored learning and kept alive the study of astronomy by preserving Ptolemy's Almagest and adding to its mathematical formulation. The Ma'munic, Hakemite, Toledan, Ilkhanic and Alphonsine Tables, along with the tables contained in Ulugh Beg's Zij have come down to us because scholars knew they were important. But the influence of the Samarkand Observatory on European astronomy was more indirect than direct. While copies of Ulugh Beg's Zij existed in various libraries such as Oxford and Paris not long after its composition (see Razvi 1985), it only became known in Europe in the mid-17th century, nearly five decades after the publication of Tycho Brahe's much more accurate data (see appendix to this paper).

If the activities in Samarkand influenced European ones, why does Ulugh Beg only get cursory mention (on pp. 328 and 347, but not in the index) of Dreyer's classic 1890 biography of Tycho Brahe? In Thoren's even more authoritative 1990 biography of Tycho there is no mention of Ulugh Beg at all. It was work such as Tycho's, not Ulugh Beg's, that led in turn to the efforts at Greenwich (founded 1675), Pulkovo (founded 1839), and the United States Naval Observatory (founded 1844), among other institutions, and these modern, national, facilities did not need or use Ulugh Beg's work as a fundamental component of the construction of accurate star catalogues. Yet, to be fair, astronomers and historians have found many uses for ancient and medieval observations, such as studies of the spin down rate of the Earth, studies of the motion of the Moon and planets, and the dating of historical events. Ulugh Beg's observations being the best of their century allow them to stand as a permanent observational archive for our benefit. For example, Shcheglov (1977) has recently used information from the modern excavation of Ulugh Beg's large meridian instrument for a study of continental drift. The most direct influence of the Samarkand Observatory was on the construction of the five observatories, or Jantar Mantars, built by Maharajah Jai Singh (1686-1743) in India. Jai Singh was a Hindu prince in the court of a Muslim Mogul emperor. These observatories were built at New Delhi, Ujjain, Mathura, Varanasi, and Jaipur. The largest instrument was 27 meters high. For more information see Kaye (1918), Mayer (1979), Sharma (1987), and Bedding (1991). While recognition of Ulugh Beg's contributions to astronomy was delayed, an extensive body of information now exists on the activity of his observatory in Samarkand.[8] We now know that at the time Ulugh Beg's observatory flourished it was carrying out the most advanced observations and analysis being done anywhere. In the 1420's and 1430's Samarkand was the astronomical capital of the world. As such it is deserving of further study.

http://vlib.iue.it/carrie/texts/carrie_books/paksoy-2/cam6.html

 

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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jul-2006 at 22:03
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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 11-Jul-2006 at 22:06
Kadi Zade
 
 
 
Born: 1364 in Bursa, Turkey
Died: 1436 in Samarkand, Uzbekistan
 

Qadi Zada al-Rumi (1364 - 1436) (also written as Kadi zada) and (Qazi Zadeh in Persian pronunciation) was a prominent Turkish born mathematician who lived in Persia during the late 14th century and early 15th century.

Qadhi Zadeh was born in Bursa, Ottoman Empire. The word Qadhi is Arabic language for Judge and the word Zadeh is a Persian word meaning "born of". Thus Qadi zada's name indicates his father was a judge.

He along with Ulugh Beg and al-Kashi are known to have formed the scientific nucleus of one of the most progressive centers of science and scholarship in the Middle Ages of Central Asia.

He died in the city of Samarkand.

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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Oct-2006 at 13:42

Professor Turhan Baytop Turkish plant hunter who collected more than 10,000 specimens
The Daily Telegraph , July 5, 2002, p.27.

Professor Turhan Baytop, who has died aged 82, was well known in Britain to botanists and plant enthusiasts for many discoveries he made during his extensive travels which amounted to more than 170 individual plant-hunting trips over a period of 50 years.

During the course of these "excursions", as he called them, he collected more than 10,000 dried plant specimens which are housed in the Faculty of Pharmacy Herbarium at Istanbul University. As Dean of the faculty, he specialised in the uses of plants in Turkey, particularly those of medicinal value such as Papaver, Digitalis and Colchicum, and published many papers and books on the subject.

He donated duplicates of many specimens to the herbaria at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh and at Kew. In the 1960s the botanist Peter Hadland Davis, based in Edinburgh, began the monumental task of compiling the Flora of Turkey, a work which has now been completed in 11 volumes. Volume 8 (1984) of this work was dedicated to Turhan Baytop and his wife Asuman an eminent botanist at the same university who accompanied him on many of the field trips.

A further measure of the esteem in which their exploratory work was held is to be seen in the number of newly-discovered plants (and a species of butterfly) that were named in his, or their joint, honour: Allium baytopiorum; Astragalus baytopianus; Colchicum baytopiorum; Crocus baytopiorum; Galium baytopiorum; Nepeta baytopii; Stachys baytopiorum are some of them.

Other plant species were described and named by eminent botanists, based on specimens first collected by either or both of the Baytops. In 2001 Turhan Baytop wrote an autobiographical account of his travels in Anatolia, Anadolu Dağlarında 50 Yıl (50 Years in the Anatolian Mountains) which included a general history of plant collecting in Anatolia and some historically interesting facts and photographs.

Turhan Baytop was born on June 20, 1920 at skdar, İstanbul. His father was a military officer and a keen amateur botanist, and this no doubt saw the seeds of his son's interest in natural history. The first plant specimen gathered by the young Baytop was collected while accompanying his father on an army excercise near Erzurum in 1943. At this time he was studying at the University College of Pharmacy in Istanbul; he later served as a pharmacist in the medical corps during his military service.

In 1948 Baytop returned to the college and gained his doctorate with a chemical investigation of Ephedra, the group of plants that contain important drugs such as ephedrine. This was followed by a similar study of a Turkish species of liquorice, Glycyrrhiza glabra.

Apart from one year (1951-52) spent carrying out research at the Faculty of Pharmacy in Paris, Baytop remained at Istanbul University for the rest of his career, becoming a professor in 1963. He served five terms as Dean of the Faculty, and retired in 1987.

His primary interest in the plants around him was in their direct medicinal value in their original state, not a collection of chemicals which could be synthesised. His studies were always accompanied by diligent field work, recording the way in which plants were used by local people, and he initiated a series of annual conferences around the country to further encourage such studies.

He published 16 books, ranging in subject from the poisonous plants of Turkey (1963 and 1989) to introductory and tutorial works on pharmacognosy (1970 and 1972), the history of pharmacy in Turkey (1985), an extensive dictionary of plant names in Turkey (1994 and 1997), and two books about the old roses of Istanbul. More than 100 individual papers concerning Turkish plants were published in various national and international journals.

He received many awards including in 1986, a silver medal from OPTIMA (an organisation promoting studies into the flora of Mediterranean area); a gold medal from TBITAK (a Turkish institution supporting scientific research) in 1988; and an ECO (Economic Cooperation Organisation, Teheran) gold medal in 1992.

Baytop also welcomed botanical visitors to his country, giving generous assistance to any serious researchers. Some he accompanied on field forays -it was the petaloid monocots (loosely known as "bulbs") belonging to the Lily, Iris and Amaryllis families that interested him the most, and many of these joint excursions were timed in spring and autumn to coincide with their flowering. This interest in bulbous plants and his willingness to engage in collaborative projects led to the production of one of his books in English, The Bulbous Plants of Turkey (1984), which contained descriptions of all the bulbs the known and a history of plant exploration in Turkey.

He was also much intrigued by the history of the development of the tulips in Turkey, especially the narrow-petalled versions of this familiar plant which were raised by the Ottoman Turks in the 16th and 17th centuries. This interest gave rise to another book, Istanbul Lalesi, which was published in Turkish in 1992 and translated into Japanese and English in 1996. This included 50 exquisite colour portraits reproduced from the Book of Tulips, published in Istanbul in 1725. Anna Pavord, author of the recent best-selling book The Tulip (1999), acknowledged Baytop's help in providing information about tulip sites worth visiting in eastern Turkey.

After years of training young pharmacists it was perhaps not surprising that Baytop seemed to know someone in every towm and village throughout Turkey, wherever there was a chemist's shop, so the travelling with him could also resemble a social event, often both enjoyable and rewarding. He conversed with his foreign companions in a mixture of several languages, but always loved the English capacity for reserve and understatement. Turhan Baytop's wife, Professor Asuman Baytop and their daughter Professor Feza (Baytop) Gnergun survive him. He died on June 25.

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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Oct-2006 at 13:53
[Ord. Prof. Dr. Akil Muhtar Ozden (1877-1949): his life and his scientific contributions]

[Article in Turkish]

Barlas U.

Dr. Akil Muhtar Ozden was born in Istanbul in 1877. After primary and secondary education, he attended Askeri Tibbiye Idadisi (military pre-medical college). Upon graduation, he attended Mekteb-i Tibbiye-i Askeriye (military medical school) for one year and escaped to Geneva where he continued his education. He eventually prepared his doctoral dissertation under Prof. Bard. He visited Pasteur Institute in Paris. The scientific environment in this institute had a big influence on Akil Muhtar. Another major influence on his scientific and research formation was Prof. Mayor, expert in Pharmaco-dynamics which was then a new discipline. Akil Muhtar obtained his "docent" title under Prof. Mayor and discovered "Muhtar Refleks" in the same period. He returned to Istanbul upon the invitation of government. A major contribution of Akil Muhtar to Turkish medicine is his initiation and establishing of pharmaco-dynamics as a new discipline. His other major contribution was the founding of a modern internal medicine department. As a scientist, Akil Muhtar never isolated himself from social life and assumed challenging administrative and social responsibilities in very difficult times. He continued in Istanbul the scientific research that he had initiated in Geneva. He proved that digital showed its effect only in a few hours. Not nearly as long as the scientific community had been assuming in his times. He invented the santonin test, used in testing the liver functions in different diseases. This test, was eventually included in medical books as the "liver function test". Akil Muhtar retired in 1943 and was elected as a representative of the Parliament in 1946. He died in March 12, 1949.
 
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  Quote Bulldog Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07-Oct-2006 at 13:59

Al-Jazari

Diagram from a book by Al-Jazari.
Diagram from a book by Al-Jazari.

Ibn Ismail Ibn al-Razzaz Al-Jazari, turkish Eb-Ul-Iz (1206 AD) was one of history's greatest engineers. He invented the crankshaft and some of the first mechanical clocks, driven by water and weights. Among his 50 other inventions was the combination lock.

He was called Al-Jazari after the area where he was born, Al-Jazira, which is the traditional Arabic name for northern Mesopotamia (in modern-day Syria and Iraq, between the Tigris and the Euphrates).

Served the Ortukids in Diyarbakir.

He is called as the first turkish Cybernetician.

Al-Jazari and other Muslim engineers

http://www.muslimheritage.com/topics/default.cfm?ArticleID=466

The Crankshaft
 
      What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.
Albert Pine

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  Quote imparatoru Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Nov-2006 at 17:54
    just to say that I was very facinated with these
information about turkish scientist that I didn't knew before.

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  Quote imparatoru Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 13-Nov-2006 at 18:16
also there is al dhaher Baybars (XIII) who won the mongols
in Ain Jalout in Egypt, after they destroyed Baghdad.

He was from the turks of north black sea (now ukrania)

Baybars in wikipedia


    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baibars
    

Edited by imparatoru - 13-Nov-2006 at 18:19
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  Quote Guests Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Apr-2010 at 03:06
Originally posted by DayI

give the name or the link of that documentary, im interested in it.


yes, me too. I am getting some of the tips, ideas and etc here for my history essay and other uk essay writing project.

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  Quote opuslola Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 14-Apr-2010 at 08:08
Dear dannon from Leeds!

Great to have you on the site,but if you expect anything from the earlier posters in this particular thread, please take the time to look at the date the last post was written! Nov. 2006!

The odds are that all of them are long gone!

Regard,
http://www.quotationspage.com/subjects/history/
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