Ala Al Din Al Mansür's Poems on the Istanbul Observatory

Abstract

The book is a chronicle dealing with the earlier parts of the reign of Sultan Murad III, Ottoman king (1574-95), and it is all in yerse and in the Persian language. It starts out with poems praising God and the Prophet, and these are followed by poems on the coronation of Murad III. The rest of the book consists of poems on miscellaneous events of historical importance. It is in accordance with this scheme that the poem about the Istanbul Observatory finds its place in the book. The poem on the comet of 1577 forms a kind of introduction to the one dealing with the war with Persia