Astronomy in Ottoman Painting

Abstract

Celestial bodies have occupied human beings' thinking and become a target to examine their essence and composition. Human beings started observing their movements and tried to explain these movements and connect them with global climate change occurring around. Basically، this led man to study them and record observations. Hence، astronomy becomes a science with its own structure، scientists and students who recorded all relevant events and enriched the libraries with their original contributions. Astronomy is an important science that is associated with human life. It organizes the temporal life in accounting days، months and years. It is also the science to which Muslim rituals such as: prayer، fasting، pilgrimages are related closely to human life، as many other rituals do. Many other religions' rituals are related with it as well. People did not only record their observations and results of their scientific studies in astronomy، but also provided them with paintings that supported the value and role of these studies. A good example is what the Ottoman school contributed in manuscripts painting; as Ottoman Sultans had a profound interest in Astronomy. They devoted great educational institutions to it as expressed in beautiful miniature paintings of Ottoman Sultans' ceremonies. Artistic Ottoman school miniatures that we attained are many. They maintain to us different astronomical phenomena and paths. They even depict the astronomical observatory with its scientific staff engaged in work. The paper would examine all what has been mentioned with historical evidences.