Taqi ad-Din Muhammad ibn Ma'ruf ash-Shami al-Asadi (; ; ‎ 1526–1585) was an Ottoman polymath active in Cairo and Istanbul. He was the author of more than ninety books on a wide variety of subjects, including astronomy, clocks, engineering, mathematics, mechanics, optics and natural philosophy. In 1574 the Ottoman Sultan Murad III invited Taqi ad-Din to build an observatory in the Ottoman capital, Istanbul. Using his exceptional knowledge in the mechanical arts, Taqi ad-Din constructed instruments like huge armillary and mechanical clocks that he used in his observations of the Great Comet of 1577. He also used European celestial and terrestrial globes that were delivered to Istanbul in gift exchanges. The major work that resulted from his work in the observatory is titled "The tree of ultimate knowledge [in the end of time or the world] in the Kingdom of the Revolving Spheres: The astronomical tables of the King of Kings [Murad III]" (Sidrat al-muntah al-afkar fi malkūt al-falak al-dawār– al-zij al-Shāhinshāhi). The work was prepared according to the results of the observations carried out in Egypt and Istanbul in order to correct and complete Ulugh Beg's Zij as-Sultani. The first 40 pages of the work deal with calculations, followed by discussions of astronomical clocks, heavenly circles, and information about three eclipses which he observed at Cairo and Istanbul. For corroborating data of other observations of eclipses in other locales like Daud ar-Riyyadi (David the Mathematician), David Ben-Shushan of Salonika. As a polymath, Taqi al-Din wrote numerous books on astronomy, mathematics, mechanics, and theology. His method of finding coordinates of stars were reportedly so precise that he got better measurements than his contemporaries, Tycho Brahe and Nicolas Copernicus. Brahe is also thought to have been aware of Taqi al-Din's work. Taqi ad-Din also described a steam turbine with the practical application of rotating a spit in 1551. He worked on and created astronomical clocks for his observatory. Taqi ad-Din also wrote a book on optics, in which he determined the light emitted from objects, proved the Law of Reflection observationally, and worked on refraction. Biography Taqī al-Dīn was born in Damascus in 1526 according to most sources. His ethnicity has been described as Ottoman Arab, Ottoman Turkish and Ottoman Syrian. In his treatise, titled "Rayḥānat al-rūḥ", Taqī al-Dīn himself claimed descent from the Ayyubids tracing his lineage back to the Ayyubid prince Nasir al-Din Mankarus ibn Nasih al-Din Khumartekin who