The Stars Do Not Forget

Once, in the heart of a great eastern city, there rose a vast cylinder rivaling the most splendid mosques in scale. Yet it was not a house of prayer, but a sanctuary of the mind. Days and nights here were not spent in devotion, but in observation. It had not been built for power or wealth, but for a single purpose — to grasp the workings of the universe.

Here, the paths of the stars were calculated, the shadows of the midday sun measured, the tilt of the Earth’s axis debated. Those within believed that truth was open to anyone who asked the right questions.

Centuries passed. Sand covered the streets, empires rose and fell, and the building was forgotten. Then, in the early twentieth century, a man from the north arrived — an archaeologist in faded clothes, his hands perpetually dusty, his eyes full of restless curiosity. He believed this place could be brought back from oblivion.

He walked the hills, spoke with old men, searched through abandoned archives. At night, when the offices were empty, he pored over yellowing documents marked in ink, smelling faintly of dust and mice. He was not searching for walls — he was searching for the trace of a genius whose observatory had been lost to time.

Long before his quest, many centuries earlier, another story had unfolded in this same city. At that time, it was ruled by a man unlike other sovereigns. He knew Ptolemy better than his own generals. He preferred constellations to court intrigue, and treatises to executions. That alone made him dangerous.

One October morning, after defeat in a civil war, he returned to the city. No army, no retinue, empty hands. He was greeted not as a ruler, but as an accused man. The trial was swift. His son — leader of the conspiracy — publicly rebuked him, shouted at him, demanded repentance. The old man, weary and resigned, asked only one thing: to remain in his home and continue his studies. Instead, he was ordered to depart for Mecca.

The son swore he would spare his father’s life.

But that same night, behind tightly closed doors, the theologians met. They spoke not of religion, but of politics. They feared him: a man learned in mathematics and the stars was a threat. His death, they decided, would be a blessing. The verdict was set — he would never live to see the pilgrimage.

A few days later, the ruler left the city, accompanied by only one companion. But halfway along the road, a messenger stopped them. The note was courteous, even flattering: such a great descendant of Timur should not travel in such humble fashion. He was asked to wait. While he waited, a man rode hard toward the village, a religious decree fastened to his belt. His father had once been executed on the ruler’s orders. Now the moment for vengeance had come.

The old man was seized, bound, and led to an irrigation ditch. The executioner hoped to see fear in his victim’s eyes. Instead, he found only boundless, exhausted calm. The sword rose — and it was over.

That same evening, the news reached the city. The first to grasp the true depth of the loss was a young man — once a falconer in the ruler’s service, later his most devoted student and closest aide. He had learned from him, absorbed his teachings, recorded, calculated. Now all of it might vanish.

He made ready at once. Disguised, with a dagger at his belt, he rode into the night. His destination was the one building still standing — the observatory.

The guard at the entrance recognized him and silently opened the gate. Inside, the halls were quiet. The wind whispered through rooms where once the work had been constant. A sheet of paper covered in numbers fluttered out of a doorway and landed at his feet. He did not stop. He hurried upstairs to his teacher’s study. There he gathered everything he could carry — scrolls, tables, manuscripts, instruments. He knew his time was short.

Then he disappeared into the darkness.

Morning came — the morning when everything changed.

By order of the religious authorities, the destruction of the observatory was proclaimed. No refuge for falsehood must remain. No trace of the man’s memory could be allowed to survive.

The dervishes came first. Then the crowd. Some carried stones, some iron bars, some only empty hands and greedy eyes. They clambered inside, pried tiles from the walls, smashed instruments underfoot, tore up the slabs. The noise of ruin shook the hill. By evening, the walls began to fall. By night, nothing remained. Only wind and dust. And the sheikhs, sleeping peacefully, certain they had won.

But had they?

The student who fled Samarkand found refuge in another great and learned city. He was already known there. In his teacher’s lifetime he had traveled abroad, studied the work of Chinese and Persian astronomers, corresponded with scholars. Now he had a single goal — to save the knowledge.

Years later, he moved to the capital of a new empire — Istanbul. There he completed the greatest work of his life: preparing his teacher’s masterpiece for publication — a book of stellar tables with an introduction. Their precision was astonishing. European scholars doubted such data could have been obtained without a telescope. Yet it had.

The book was soon reprinted — in Damascus, in Cairo. Later in Paris, London, Vienna. The author’s name became a symbol of science. The name of the man whose head had been cast into the dust to erase him from the earth.

But the stars do not forget those who looked at them with understanding.

…You have probably guessed by now whose story this is. The ruler who built the observatory in Samarkand was Ulugh Beg. And his student, who saved his works and his name from oblivion, entered history as Ali Qushji.