Marāgheh

Maragheh lies south of Tabriz, on the slopes above Lake Urmia. Its brick monuments recall a flourishing town that became an early capital of the Mongol Ilkhanate. In 1259 Hülegü chose it for an observatory under the direction of the scholar Nasir al-Din Tusi, who assembled astronomers and engineers from across the Islamic world.

The scholars of Maragheh studied planetary motion and developed mathematical methods that reached far beyond their city. Their work helped shape later astronomical traditions, while observatories founded at Samarkand in the fifteenth century and Istanbul in the sixteenth followed an example established at Maragheh. The observatory stood on a hill west of the town, where its remains testify to the ambition of its Mongol patron and the learning gathered under Tusi.